Tuesday - Dec. 19, 2023 - The water budget

🌧 High 8C

Good morning!

Here’s a couple bits of news. First, many of you have told us that Howard Wong Farms and its fruit and vegetable stand are closing this week. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to connect with them for an interview, but it’s worth passing on the news here anyways.

On a related topic, the fellow who tipped us off about the closure of Barry’s Trading Post in Yale was Ian Brown, who wrote a book a couple years ago about the town’s pioneer cemetery. I talked to Ian and he has a couple books still kicking around his place and suggested we give one away. So that’s what we’re doing.

If you’re a Current member, enter your name here. We’ll pick one winner by the end of the week. (It might take a bit longer to actually connect you with the book, so patience is appreciated.)

– Tyler

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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

Culvert City

It’s expensive to move water around BC’s geographically largest municipality.

Earlier this month, Abbotsford passed a new budget for 2024.

Cities spend most of their operating budgets on their police and fire departments. But when it comes to the capital side of each budget—the amount spent not on ongoing expenses like salaries but on actually building things—most of the money goes to three areas: parks/recreation/culture; roads and transportation; and water and sewer infrastructure.

And in Abbotsford, local officials and politicians have made that last unsexy category a particular priority.

• Today, Tyler breaks down some of the new goodies that Abbotsford residents will get for their $90 million of new capital spending.

Last week, we looked at the plan for new projects in Langley and Chilliwack. You can find those stories below. 

Related

Need to Know

🚨 Officials have recovered the body of a man killed in a police standoff in Langley [Langley Advance Times]

🗳 A Langley rock band filmed a video for their new ‘hockey anthem’ at a local arena [Langley Advance Times]

📈 A point-in-time count has found another massive increase in the number of people living without a home in Chilliwack [Chilliwack Progress]

🗳 Police shot and killed a man in Abbotsford Sunday night after receiving reports of a suicidal person [CBC]

🍕 A new pizza shop will soon open in Garrison Crossing in Chilliwack [Fraser Valley Today]

☎ A new (relatively) low-cost wireless company is offering service in Abbotsford [Mobile Syrup]

🌲 Abbotsford’s oldest one-room school has been renovated to allow for tours and programs [Abbotsford News]

🔥 Fire broke out in a shelter at the former Emil Anderson lot in Abbotsford [Abbotsford News]

🌋 A fissure eruption in Iceland has begun and is being livestreamed; you can watch magma become lava here [Live From Iceland]

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The Agenda

Service dogs must have certification to be exempt from Abbotsford park rules

The City of Abbotsford has carefully tweaked its parks bylaw to close a loophole used by a single resident to bring their pooch to a local park.

The city’s parks bylaw outlaws dogs from sports fields, playgrounds, beaches and many other facilities—except service dogs. But the bylaw passed by the city in 2018 didn’t set out a definition for “service dog,” leaving a loophole that has been exploited by at least one user, according to Abbotsford city staff.

“These bylaw amendments seek to clarify an apparent misunderstanding by at least one City facility patron who has taken the position that any dog can be brought into a City facility under the guise of being a service animal,” staff wrote in a report to council.

So last week, the city tweaked its park language to use language identical to the provincial Guide Dog and Service Dog Act, which defines service- and guide-dog teams as dog-person pairings that have been certified by a recognized training school. In other words, a service dog must have a service dog licence to be exempted from the city’s dog-in-park rules.

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Catch up

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