CHILLIWACK TIMES TUESDAY, JANUARY 1, 2013
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2012 Year in Review SEPTEMBER
Sept. 4 Chilliwack MLA John Les announced that he would not seek re-election in next spring’s provincial election. After nearly three decades of politics—including one term as a Chilliwack councillor, four terms as mayor and three terms as BC Liberal MLA—Les said he was stepping out of the public spotlight.
Sept. 6 A public hearing into a large proposed development on Chilliwack Mountain was postponed after city hall discovered notices of the meeting had been sent to the wrong addresses. A developer proposed erecting 289 townhouse, duplex and singlefamily units on just under 10 hectares of the lower southeast-facing hillside of Chilliwack Mountain. Sept. 6 August was the driest Chilliwack has seen in 82 years and the fourth driest since 1879. With only one day of measurable rainfall, precipitation was 98 per cent below normal for the month. The 1.2 mm of rain that fell Aug. 29 broke up a 36-day drought that was the longest since 1990. Sept. 11 After more than half a century of operation, one of the Chilliwack area’s oldest golf courses announced it would close down. Citing a struggling golf industry, Aquadel Golf Course owners Dick and Wendy Whitlam sold the property to a developer. Sept. 11 More than $3 million of jewelry was stolen from a rented Mustang parked at the Cottonwood Mall in Chilliwack, according to an industry watchdog. The RCMP issued a release earlier in the week on the theft, but would only say an “undisclosed substantial” amount of jewelry was taken. But according to Jewellers Vigilance Canada, 708 pieces of jewelry worth more than $3.3 million were stolen. Sept. 13 Area Support Unit Chilliwack is headed for closure, with private companies slated to replace work previously done by civillian workers. Just months after issuing notices to public servants that their jobs were being eliminated to save money, the Defence Department
Members of a Kamloops accounting firm pose with a gigantic, 1,000-pound-plus sturgeon reeled in by their boss in September. is looking at paying a private firm $100 million to provide those same services. Sept. 13 The brand new executive of the Chilliwack Teachers’ Association didn’t waste any time bringing class-size concerns front and centre at the first school board meeting of the year. “I’m in a school that’s increased by over 30 students this year, but it’s the same number of teachers,” said the CTA’s new vice-president Laurie Lenardon. Sept. 18 Eight years after a Supreme Court justice ruled the substantial risk Daniel Alphonse Paul posed to the public could be managed in the community, the 40-yearold man was sent back to prison for violating the very conditions meant to stop him from continuing to abuse women. Paul, who has a long and violent criminal history, had been con-
Cornelia Naylor/TIMES
City workers installed banners on in front of Evans elementary. The project was spearheaded by the school’s Parent Advisory Council to slow down speeding motorists.
victed of breaching the terms of his long-term offender order.
2012
Sept. 18 A Sardis home was destroyed and a family left homeless after a Sept. 17 fire. The Chilliwack Fire Department arrived before 10 a.m. to find the blaze had consumed the first floor and extended into the second floor of the Maitland Avenue home.
YEAR in REVIEW
Sept. 20 City hall moved ahead with a plan to continue to buy land on a central downtown block, which will be prepared as a welcome mat for private developers. Council approved a development concept that would see a large residential, commercial and park space constructed downtown.
stored beginning in the 1950s. Their return would mark a major milestone in a five-year process that has involved UBC, Sto:lo Nation, Sto:lo Tribal Council and other Sto:lo First Nations.
Sept. 20 The bones of 11 Sto:lo ancestors were scheduled to come home from the UBC Laboratory of Archaeology, where they had been taken and
Sept. 25 The B.C. Conservative candidate in this year’s Chilliwack-Hope byelection announced he would join the BC Liberals and would seek the nomination in the Chilliwack riding for the provincial election in May. A self-described “former rival”
Cornelia Naylor/TIMES
A film crew shoots scenes for Warrior Games, a youth-oriented reality TV show about traditional aboriginal sports, at Cultus Lake in early September.
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and “fierce critic,” John Martin sat between retiring Chilliwack MLA John Les and Liberal byelection candidate Laurie Throness at a press conference to announce his defection. Sept. 25 An American pedophile serving a 240-year jail sentence may lose his Chilliwack townhouse as the provincial government initiated a civil forfeiture claim for the property. The townhouse belongs to Steven Dyer, 44, who was living in B.C. under the name Brian Woolworth after having fled to Canada from Arizona, where he was convicted in absentia in 2002 of 13 counts of sexually assaulting two boys. Sept. 27 A handful of B.C.’s 36 MPs, including Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon’s Mark Strahl, voted in favour of a motion aimed at forcing Parliament to consider a new law to restrict abortion.
Tyler Olsen/TIMES
A racer hits the Greg Moore Raceway for the 10th race of the West Coast Kart Club season. The race track saw another busy year of kart and mini motorcycle racing in 2012.