Friday - May 10, 2024 - Bailey landfill expands

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Good morning!

It is hard to overstate how important freedom of information is to a newsroom. At The Current, we have used the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to report on stories about secret hospital board meetings, the Fraser Valley floods, deteriorating schools, COVID death tolls, forgotten bridge plans, school board dysfunction, and police use of force. These are stories that are important to the Fraser Valley, and they could not have been told without filing a FOI request.

So you can guess why today’s main story is one that is close to our hearts. The more we can find out, the better informed you can be about your community. To all existing FVC members, thank you for your support. Your yearly membership can fund 10 FOI requests for our team. If you’re not a member yet, and you want to more information about what your governments are doing behind closed doors, consider this your chance to help out! You can become a member here.

– Grace

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope

🚘 Driving today? Check the current traffic situation via Google, and find DriveBC’s latest updates.

🛣 Click here for links to road cameras across the Fraser Valley, including those for the Coquihalla, Highway 7, Hope-Princeton, Fraser Canyon, and Highway 1 in Langley and Abbotsford.

NEWS

You have to pay to ask

In the Fraser Valley, you increasingly have to pay to ask for information or documents that are supposed to be public.

Two years since the provincial government controversially started charging $10 for each freedom of information (FOI) request, a handful of BC municipalities have followed suit. And no region’s politicians and bureaucrats have been so eager to also charge for FOI requests as those in the eastern Fraser Valley.

• Today, Tyler looks at 86 municipalities, 10 regional districts, and six health authorities to see which local governments and agencies have copied the province and started charging to ask for freedom of information requests.

Related

Need to Know

🏆 Two Coquihalla Elementary students have won a national Remembrance Day contest for their poems and posters [Hope Standard]

🟠 Langley’s fourth Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women march remembered Kristina Ward, who went missing in 2017 [Langley Advance Times]

🩺 The province announced Langley’s new urgent care centre on Thursday [BC Gov News] / The Current reported on the centre’s opening in early April [FVC]

🎤 Mission’s Eshan Sobti has made it to the Canada’s Got Talent finale; he now has a chance at $1 million [Mission Record]

❌ Chilliwack councillor Bud Mercer called BC’s drug decriminalization a ‘failure’ [Fraser Valley Today]

🔥 BC could be facing an especially bad fire season this June, federal officials say [CBC]

❤ Two Chilliwack farmers will be searching for love on the new season of a CTV reality show [Bell Media]

🚓 Mission RCMP want the public’s input into new public safety policies [Fraser Valley Today]

💧 Chilliwack’s spray parks are now open for the summer [City of Chilliwack]

🐦 This is the golden age of birdwatching; one science writer explains why [Scientific American]

🏢 Luxury awaits at 900 Carnarvon Street. Experience urban sophistication with premium amenities and a prime location.*

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Brewhalla Fort Langley is back on May 18

Join us on May 18 at Fort Langley Park for an afternoon of sipping and sampling products from 30+ local Craft Beverage makers! Try new beers, ciders, wines, spirits and zero proof options, dance along to live bands and DJs, play your favourite lawn games, compete against friends in one of our competitions, and satisfy your cravings at one of the 8 food trucks on site! Bring a lawn chair or a blanket and spend the day at Brewhalla!

Tickets are $45 and include your tasting glass, 2 drink tokens and access to all the fun on site! Event is 19+

Get your tickets today!

The Agenda

Bailey Landfill makes more space for waste

Chilliwack’s Bailey Landfill is getting ready to take on more garbage. A liner extension project has added new space for waste at a north-east edge of the landfill. The expansion took place on top of the existing east site access road, and added to the section of landfill between the north-east expansion area and the original landfill.

Construction for the project included bringing in soil to make a flat base for the extension, adding a liner and a collection of pipes so the waste won’t leach into the ground, and rerouting some existing pipes. The expansion cost around $2 million, and will begin accepting waste this summer.

The city is also replacing the cubic yard bins at the landfill’s recycling depot. Those six bins will be replaced with three compactors. The first phase of construction is expected to last until mid-May.

More than $400k for Fraser Valley community groups

Three Fraser Valley organizations will be getting new funding this year from BC’s Community Gaming Grant. Search and rescue teams will be getting the bulk of the funding: Chilliwack Search and Rescue will receive $250,000 for a new equipment storage and training facility, while Mission SAR will receive $118,000 for a new jet boat and boat accessories. Abbotsford’s Bard in the Valley Society is also receiving grant funding; they will get $34,440 for a new truck to tow heavy festival equipment.

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💾 Flashback Friday

After the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, BC’s home front began to look very different from what it had been in the earlier parts of WWII. In addition to forcing all Japanese-Canadians into internment camps (you can read The Current’s story on that here), individual communities set up Air Raid Precaution (ARP) groups. These groups were responsible for a variety of war-time tasks. In Langley, this included distributing baby gas respirators, holding daily siren tests, and conducting fire drills, like the one shown above.

🗓 Things to do

Plant sale: Mission's Annual Green Thumb Plant Sale will be happening again this weekend from 9am to 3pm at 32965 4th Ave. All proceeds will go to four local animal charities.

Quilt show: The Langley Quilter’s Guild is returning to the George Preston Recreation Centre today and tomorrow to show off more than 300 quilts. Details online.

Kheer class: Archway Community Services is hosting its final South Asian Canadian Intergenerational Cooking class tomorrow. Anyone 12 and up can come and learn how to make kheer. The class will be taught in Punjabi and English. Register online.

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Catch up

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