Wednesday - Sept. 11, 2024 - Mission's cannibalized lockers

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Good morning!

Back in June, I recommended the streaming app Kanopy, which is free and allows anyone with a library card to watch a variety of TV shows and movies. Having mostly exhausted Netflix and Prime, I’ve been going through Kanopy’s library recently and finally got around to watching In The Heat Of The Night. The movie was great (no surprise there) and more fun than I had expected. But the real find was the entire catalogue of The Thick Of It. It’s a BBC series created by the guy who would later produce the HBO show Veep. If you like your comedy built around incompetent politicians and bureaucrats and punctuated by an ungodly amount of swearing, then the show is for you.

– Tyler

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Traffic & Weather

🌤 Local forecast: Langley | Chilliwack | Abbotsford | Hope (We have had to temporarily change our forecast links to the Weather Network due to a technical error.)

🚘 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

Mandatory treatment would be ‘rarely used,’ Rustad says

A key plank in the BC Conservatives drug treatment plan wouldn’t actually be used often, John Rustad says.

The BC Conservative leader has previously said that authorities should be able to force overdose survivors into treatment, but in a conversation with Chilliwack podcaster Aaron Pete, he said the application of any mandatory treatment program would be “very rare.”

The call for mandatory treatment—an idea that has also been floated by Premier David Eby—coupled with the suggestion that it would only rarely be used highlights the challenge of forcing drug users into treatment while not repeating historic injustices.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Pete, a frequent Current collaborator, Rustad talked about walking a fine line on mandatory treatment, promoting housing, reforming health care, and trying to abandon the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People—while keeping it as a “guiding principle” for relations with First Nations.

• You can watch the interview, and read more about Rustad and Pete’s conversation about mandatory treatment here.

Related

Need to Know

🚔 Chilliwack Mounties are saying little after gunfire reportedly broke out at a Fairfield Island home Monday [Fraser Valley Today]

🚚 A transport truck crashed into a ditch beside Mission’s RCMP detachment after the driver suffered a medical issue [Mission Record]

⚽ Abbotsford is once again fielding teams in the BC Soccer Premier League [Abbotsford News]

🚧 A section of Prest Road in Chilliwack will be closed longer than expected [City of Chilliwack]

😯 Abbotsford has BC’s most affordable rental housing market (among larger cities) [Rentals.ca]

👉 Langley pickleball players raised more than $25,000 for a local school’s ‘learning assessments’ [Langley Advance Times]

🗳 Harrison Hot Springs’ mayoral and council candidates responded to questions at an all-candidates meeting [Agassiz-Harrison Observer] / Residents can cast an advance ballot today; general voting day is Sept. 21 [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🚲 Metro Vancouver has plans to connect all its communities—from Langley to Lions Bay—with a large network of walking and biking paths [Vancouver Sun]

👏 Calvin Dyck and Jasmit Singh Phulka were honoured for their community contributions [City of Abbotsford] / We spoke to Dyck in March for a story about the valley’s community orchestras [FVC]

🔊 Business leaders called for BC’s political parties to deliver a plan to rejuvenate the province’s economy [CBC]

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The Agenda

Radon testing turns up danger in Columbia Valley and Hope

Testing for radon in homes in Hope and the Columbia Valley frequently turned up high levels of the dangerous gas over the past year.

Radon is a naturally occurring gas that can cause lung cancer, and last year the Fraser Valley Regional District distributed nearly 500 radon test kits across the region. About half were returned for analysis.

Some places saw relatively low levels of radon. In Chilliwack, about 4% of kits turned up levels so hazardous that authorities recommend installing venting systems in homes, according to a new report by FVRD staff. In Mission, none of the 26 tested homes turned up very high levels of radon.

But results were higher in rural areas. In the Columbia Valley 16 of 42 homes turned up hazardous levels. And in Hope and the surrounding area, seven of 17 homes found very high radon levels. Statistical data is still limited, so the FVRD is planning on distributing more kits this winter. The FVRD is also asking the Union of British Columbia Municipalities to endorse a program that would help residents pay to install radon mitigation systems.

‘Cannibalized’ leisure centre lockers to be replaced

The Mission Leisure Centre’s decrepit changeroom lockers are finally set for replacement, but they won’t come cheap.

Barely one-third of the lockers in the facility’s changerooms are still functional, city staff say. But simply repairing them all hasn’t been possible and has created its own problems. A staff report to council last week said that a lack of replacement parts means that workers have had to “cannibalize” parts from other lockers just to enable some to still be usable.

The city had set aside about $130,000 in its 2024 budget to replace the lockers. But that six-figure sum appears to be only half what is necessary to buy a new set of lockers and put an end to the the changeroom cannibalism.

City staff say the lowest bid received for the project came in at a quarter-million dollars, more than $120,000 over budget. Council approved an increase to the budget last week; the money will be taken from the city’s half-million-dollar gaming reserve. The new lockers will be slightly wider than the existing ones. They'll also be more secure than the current lockers, which staff say can be easily pried open by would-be thieves.

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Classifieds

• Young Road Chilliwack area senior requires housework help. [EMAIL]

• Take action. Fight climate change in the valley. Join us. [LINK]

Annual FVC members can find a link to submit their annual classified in the weekly FVC Insiders Edition. Become an FVC member here.

🗓 Things to do

MCC festival: The Mennonite Central Committee is hosting the 55th annual Festival for World Relief in Abbotsford on Friday, Sept. 13 and Saturday, Sept. 14. Enjoy perogies, sausage, borscht, and more while supporting projects that give food to vulnerable families in Syria, Lebanon, and Ethiopia. Details online.

Agassiz fair: The Agassiz Fall Fair and Corn Festival returns on Friday, Sept. 13 and Saturday, Sept. 14. The midway opens Friday, and Saturday's events begin with a free parade through town and the crowning of the corn king or queen. Details and tickets online.

Family fair: Northwest Langley Baptist Church hosts its third annual family fair on Saturday, Sept. 14. The event will include food, carnival games, and more. Admission is free. Details online.

Have an event to tell us about? Fill out this form to have it highlighted here.

Catch up

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