Thursday - May 9, 2024 - Red Bull ready to build in Chilliwack

☀ High 27C

Good morning!

What the heck is up with teeth? First you have none—which is reasonable, given your food source. Then, you start teething—which is a terribly innocuous name for when sharp pieces of not-really-bone work their way up through your tender gums. Then, your teeth fall out again, and grow in again. (Money is usually acquired under the pillow at this stage.) Finally, you think, it’s over. Wrong. Wisdom teeth removal, possible braces, years of dentists reminding you to floss. It’s a never-ending cycle of gaining, losing, and safeguarding some very small, but important, body parts. Who thought up this nonsense?

– Sincerely, a mom in the midst of toddler teething who’s going to need to know the tooth fairy’s going rate pretty quick (AKA 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

BC is running out of time to fix Harrison's problems

It could be time for the province to consider whether it should have the power to remove members of dysfunctional councils from their seats.

That was one of the recommendations from former Abbotsford mayor Henry Braun in a report to Kamloops’ council, whose dysfunction has rivalled that of Harrison Hot Springs over the last two years.

But time is quickly running out for the province to step in. Any provincial fix would require politicians in Victoria to sign new legislation into law before May 16, when the current session ends. With an election planned for the fall, the legislature won’t reconvene until November at the earliest—and potentially not until 2025.

Kamloops, whose mayor has frequently clashed with all eight councillors, had been working with Braun to try to fix their council problems since February. Braun’s report blamed most of the problems on Kamloops’s mayor, Reid Hamer-Jackson. He outlined 12 recommendations for Kamloops council, while echoing what Harrison’s own advisor, Ron Poole, said last November: without changes in how politicians treat staff and council colleagues, nothing will manage to get better.

Both reports seem unlikely to make much of a difference in how the respective councils operate. Braun’s report triggered a non-binding vote from Kamloops council asking the mayor to resign; the mayor refused and instead questioned Braun’s competency. In Harrison, meanwhile, only sporadic progress has been made since Poole left.

Earlier this week, Chief Administrative Officer Tyson Koch said the village is in the final stages of hiring a contractor to deal with harassment complaints. The village is also in the early stages of finding a mediator to improve the relationship between the mayor and Koch.

But Harrison council has also taken many leaps back, with the mayor alleging his opponents were trying to stage a coup.

• Today, we look at how Harrison’s mayor is aiming for more power in council, and what can be learned from the situation in Kamloops.

• We have also collected all our Harrison Hot Springs council stories (and some of those of our colleagues at the Agassiz Harrison Observer and CBC) in a single place to help readers keep track of what has, and hasn’t, happened.

Need to Know

🎒 The Chilliwack School District will be offering new before- and after-school care for students at Unsworth Elementary next year [Fraser Valley Today]

🎙 Langley’s first mayoral State of the Township address saw Mayor Eric Woodward talk about parks, permits, and plans [Langley Advance Times]

🚒 More than 20 people are suing their former neighbours after an Abbotsford condo burnt down two years ago [CBC]

🚫 An illegal dump site in Columbia Valley is potentially contaminating the groundwater, the Ministry of Environment said [Chilliwack Progress]

⚖ Fraser Valley fur farmers lost their lawsuit against BC’s COVID-era mink ban; the judge said they were ‘bound to fail’ [Langley Advance Times]

💪 A new Punjabi-language fitness and social program for people with dementia is kicking off in Abbotsford [Abbotsford News]

🏠 BC said supportive-housing tenants no longer have the right to a quiet enjoyment of their home [The Tyee]

🏒 The Vancouver Canucks are in the playoffs; Global News made a cheat sheet for newbie fans [Global News]

🐄 A bird flu outbreak in American dairy cows isn’t over, and scientists are concerned cattle will become a permanent reservoir of the disease [Nature]

📷 CURRENT CAM: Congratulations to Nancy, who was the first to identify this week’s Current Cam as the Hudson’s Bay entrance to the Willowbrook Mall.

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SPONSORED BY THE CITY OF ABBOTSFORD

Stage 1 water restrictions

Conserving water early means we will have enough when the weather gets hot! Residential lawn watering is allowed one morning per week in Abbotsford and Mission.

Even-number addresses water on Saturday and odd-number addresses water on Sunday. Manual watering is permitted between 6-9 am and automatic watering between 5-7 am.

Find out more here.

The Agenda

Red Bull set to brew in Chilliwack

An empty lot near Chilliwack’s Molson Coors’ Brewery will be churning out Red Bull ingredients sometime in the not-to-distant future.

Red Bull received approval Tuesday to build a four-storey industrial building just north of Highway 1. The plant will create “premix” to be eventually used in the energy drinks. The equipment and processes for making the mix require the plant’s warehouse to be at least 17 metres tall. The rest of the building would be divided into four levels for offices and other work.

The company will also provide fewer parking spaces than normally required for that size of building. Because much of the production will be automated, the company said the 91 parking spaces, rather than the 210 stipulated by Chilliwack’s zoning bylaw, would be enough for all current and future employees. The developer also plans to add a covered bike space, with chargers for electric bicycles.

A future expansion could add 7,600 square metres of warehouse space and 56 parking spaces, although that area would be kept as a meadow until it was time to expand.

Red Bull’s entrance to Chilliwack was announced in February of last year, with the city’s economic development arm saying that construction was expected to start in 2024. The Brannick Road property is located near Highway 1 and is in the Agricultural Land Reserve. The ALC has approved that property, and nearby ones like the Molson Coors site, for non-farm uses related to food processing.

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🗓 Things to do this week/end

🦉 Wild moms: Celebrate Mother's Day by learning about wild moms at Campbell Valley Regional Park on Sunday. See a live owl and learn how wild animal mothers take care of their young. Details online.

🏎 Fast cars: The Agassiz Speedway opens for the season on Saturday. Tickets online.

🖌 Kid art: A free art class today at The Reach Gallery Museum in Abbotsford invites tiny tots to paint their own wooden travel trunk. Register online.

Want even more? Insider members get a comprehensive events listing every Thursday, plus a weekly Saturday round-up edition with behind-the-scenes content. Becoming a member costs less than $2 a week and helps support the ongoing production of The Current’s newsletters and in-depth journalism. Become a member here.

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Catch up

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