Tuesday - Jan. 9, 2024 - Three trees in Harrison

⛈ High 7C

Good morning!

It’s incredible what a half-centimetre of snow can do to a kid. My youngest went skipping off to school yesterday on account of the very, very little snow on the ground. And I would like to say it doesn’t make sense, but the fact is that I was probably just as happy to see it.

I know it’s possible to find enjoyment outdoors in the snowless winter but…ughhh… it’s such a struggle. Snow is a pain to shovel. It can create difficult driving conditions. It means it’s cold and chilly out there. But it also makes life—and winter—much more interesting. Snow brings a novel unpredictability that, whether you hate or love snow, probably gives you a twinge of excitement. You don’t know how much will fall. You don’t know how long it will stick around for. But so long as it is falling, it brings something different to our lives. Our neighbourhoods look different. The snow hides or emphasizes different objects. Any journey from Point A to Point B becomes a little less routine. There’s value in that break from routine, even when it’s a pain or just makes you value normalcy a little bit more. So let it snow. For now.

(Still, there’s obviously a point where it all becomes too much. Here’s a head’s up: it looks like snow levels may vary incredibly across the valley this week. As of Monday at noon, Chilliwack was slated to get about one centimetre on Wednesday while Hope could get half-a-foot or more. That also suggests that a small change in how the clouds behave could leave places like Chilliwack with far more snow than is currently predicted. So be ready.)

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– Tyler

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

Harrison council’s latest flashpoint:
three big, old, and dangerous trees

Three massive 130-year-old trees on a Harrison Hot Springs main street are a safety risk—in part because the village’s dysfunctional council can’t agree whether to try to save them or to chop them down.

The fate of the three red oaks are the latest evidence of how the interpersonal battles roiling the small village’s government have real-world consequences for the every-day upkeep of city property and streets.

• Today, Tyler writes about the fate of the three trees and why they have become another political battleground. Tomorrow we’ll feature an interview in which Tyler asked Mayor Ed Wood whether he felt any responsibility for the last year of strife.

Related

Need to Know

⚠ There are winter warnings and highway alerts in place for the Coquihalla, Okanagan Connector, and Highway 3 [Environment Canada]

🚓 A man was caught cutting an Israeli flag off a Mission home on Saturday; police are investigating [Mission Record]

➕ The Aldergrove-Lynden border crossing may be upgraded to a 24/7 facility [Aldergrove Star]

🚧 The Americans are also planning to expand the Sumas-Abbotsford crossing on the U.S. side [Abbotsford News]

🥽 Chilliwack’s Cheam Leisure Centre is finally going to be open on weekend evenings [Fraser Valley Today]

🌲 An Agassiz man filed a lawsuit because his local library required him to wear a mask, but the province has got itself stricken from the suit [Agassiz-Harrison Observer]

🔎 Police say a Langley teen missing since Sunday was last seen in Surrey [Langley Advance Times]

🚚 The province has asked the federal government to close a loophole allowing overpass-damaging trucking companies to stay on BC’s roads [Castanet/CP]

🔥 Firefighters quelled a suspicious car fire in the Chilliwack River Valley Sunday [Fraser Valley Today]

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The Agenda

New Chilliwack school to be three storeys tall

While density is now the name of the game when it comes to home-building in BC, most schools are still one-storey affairs.

But the plans for a new Chilliwack school shows the times are changing there as well.

Multi-storey schoolhouses were once common in BC , but it wasn’t always that way. The province includes many multi-storey schools constructed long ago, but as communities spread into areas with cheap land, one-storey buildings became the rule.

Now, the multi-storey school is returning. In Chilliwack, the city’s new 500-student eastside school in Rosedale will have three storeys, plus a level of underground parking, according to plans released online. Although the school is being built on a relatively large property, the buildable area is encumbered by Agricultural Land Commission restrictions. That, the documents say, requires building up, rather than out, in order to accommodate 500 students.

Once the school is opened, the district intends to move all kindergarten-to-Grade 5 students currently at Rosedale Traditional Community School. Early French Immersion at Cheam Elementary School will also be moved to Rosedale.

The school will be built on McGrath Road on the former site of the demolished Rosedale Elementary. Construction on the school is expected to begin late this year, with the first students expected in 2026. The school is expected to cost nearly $60 million.

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Catch up

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