Monday - March 4, 2024 - Abbotsford's cop-nurse teams

🌤️ High 10C

Good morning!

I grew up listening to a lot of country music. Really old stuff from, you know, the ’80s and ’90s that my dad kept in big CD albums. It’s not really my go-to playlist these days, but I’ve noticed a mysterious trend. Pop stars and rappers of various stripes have started releasing country music. (I like to think of it as the reverse-Taylor-Swift.) It really kicked off in 2019 with Lil Nas X and “Old Town Road,” but it kept going. It’s not all particularly good music. But the most recent of these country-music forays was Beyonce’s. And it was great.

– 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

Abbotsford’s nurse-cop team is working—
but only when it’s working

Abbotsford’s new nurse-cop teams aimed at de-escalating mental health calls are working and effective, but only helping a portion of people in crisis, according to police.

Abbotsford is one of only four BC communities with “mobile integrated crisis response teams” that pair psychiatric nurses with police officers to try to provide better—and safer—care to people in crisis. (Chilliwack is another.)

The program has been a “gift” to Abbotsford since it started, the city’s Public Safety Advisory Committee heard last week. But Abbotsford Police Insp. Kevin Murray said that limited hours and manpower means the plainclothes team is only helping one-quarter of those who might benefit from its help.

• Today, Tyler writes about a program that police say is needed and useful—and needs expanding beyond daylight hours.

Related

Need to Know

❄ Snow may fall today; be prepared for tricky roads [CTV]

🚂 More than 121 passengers had to leave a passenger train that hit debris on the tracks near Agassiz; diesel fuel also spilled [CityNews]; Seabird Island Band held a public meeting Sunday to answer questions about the incident [Fraser Valley Today]

🚛 A truck company has illegally dumped construction material on more than a dozen properties near Mission [Vancouver Sun]

🐋 A single orca whale killed (and ate the liver of) a great white shark, in what scientists believe to be a first of its kind [Scientific American]

🚔 Mission Mounties are investigating after utility wire was stolen twice [Fraser Valley Today]

🛸 Canada’s top science advisor is preparing a UFO report [CTV]

🚆 Before-and-after images show how locations along the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain will change [Daily Hive]

🔥 A man was burned after a treehouse at a Mission homeless camp caught fire [Mission Record]

🚛 As Langley Township cracks down on truck parking on farmland, truckers say they need more legal places to store their vehicles [Langley Advance Times]

🚧 Traffic at Blind Slough Dam near Stave Falls will be closed later this month for hydro maintenance; Ruskin Dam will be down to alternating traffic this week [City of Mission]

🏫 School enrolment in Mission is increasing and classrooms are running out of space; 100 new students are expected next year [Mission Record]

🏒 The goalie for the Chilliwack Chiefs scored a goal [Chilliwack Progress]

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The Agenda

Langley Township pushing for bigger apartments

Langley Township council is making new rules about the minimum size of new apartments in the township in an effort to encourage the construction of more family-sized units.

The amended bylaw will require three-bedroom units to make up at least 10% of new apartments in buildings up to six storeys tall. Higher buildings will need at least 5% of their units to have three bedrooms. The bylaw will also require new apartment buildings to have an average unit size of 750 square feet. Currently, developers are building units 700 to 720 square feet in size, according to Coun. Barb Martens.

Coun. Micheal Pratt called the move a “significant change” and said he expected pushback from industry before the amendment is finalized.

Township council gave its first sign-off to the new “family-friendly apartment policy” last Monday. A public hearing, where community and industry members can comment on the new plan before it is finalized, is planned for March 26.

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🗓 Things to do

🏃 Beer and running: The Field House Run Club, a brewery-based run club that ends with a beer, will meet this Monday, March 4 in Abbotsford. Details online.

💬 Ask a politician: BC United MLAs Michael Lee and Ian Paton will hold a town hall-style meeting at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre on Tuesday, March 5. Details online.

🎻 Concert: The Salish Sea Players will perform Baroque music with recorder, renaissance flute, dulcian and viola as part of the Cheam Vista Concert Society's concert series on Tuesday, March 5 at Riverside Christian Reformed Church in Agassiz. Tickets and details online.

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Catch up

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