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DE K A M L O O P S
Teachers’ action plan having an effect on school sports Page A23
THURSDAY
Thursday, May 3, 2012 X Volume 25 No. 36
Kamloops, B.C., Canada X 30 cents at Newsstands
THIS WEEK
Clay fuels Kamloops potter’s wheel of success Page B1 Thompson River Publications Partnership Ltd.
Crown wants long-term eyes on Caza By Tim Petruk STAFF REPORTER tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
Aberdeen residents Gordon Kerfoot and Joanne Swifton are among those opposed to a proposed strata project on land next to Aberdeen elementary. Kerfoot and Swifton argue the density of the multi-family development does not fit with the single-family neighbourhood. Dave Eagles/KTW
Future view elicits an ‘Ew’ By Andrea Klassen STAFF REPORTER andrea@kamloopsthisweek.com
From a driveway on Fleming Place, Gordon Kerfoot is contemplating the future of his view — and his view of the future. Above his street sits more than two hectares of wild grass and shrubs, separating neighbours downslope from Aberdeen elementary on Van Horne Drive. For the past 19 years, the site and the view have remained about the same. On Thursday, April 26, landowner Craftsman Ventures Ltd. sent Kerfoot a computerized rendering of what he can expect his view to be like should their plans for the lot proceed. In the printout, a row of beige buildings peek out from behind the rooftops
of Fleming Place — five being duplexes that will line the northern edge of a proposed 64-unit strata development headed to public hearing later this month. “I showed it to my daughter Amy. She’s 14 years old,” he told KTW. “She was like, ‘Ew.’” Together with Joanne Swifton — who lives on another street below the development — and two other homeowners in the neighbourhood, Kerfoot has been collecting signatures for a petition opposing the strata project. So far, at least one person in each of 101 homes in the area has signed. Much of the controversy surrounding the project has to do with its current zoning. For several decades, the land has been zoned for church use, though city staff have said a move to multi-family zoning is consistent with Kamloops’
Official Community Plan. Swifton and Kerfoot said many in the neighbourhood feel the densification — which includes 11 duplexes, six triplexes and a four-storey apartment building — doesn’t make sense in the area and feel the development is being unfairly sprung on them. “I don’t have the choice of deciding now whether I’d like to live next door to a multi-family development,” Kerfoot said. “If I go choose to live up in the [Aberdeen] Highlands, I know the zoning is already in place. You buy your home and know that’s going to be multifamily housing, medium density.” The two are also concerned about how the new development will affect the stability of the slope on which they live. X See SLOPE STABILITY A22
A notorious Kamloops pedophile who was convicted this week of possessing and distributing child pornography could be under strict supervision for up to a decade after he gets out of jail. David Caza was found guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops on Tuesday, May 1, of two charges, but acquitted on counts of invitation to sexual touching and Internet luring. He was also convicted of one breach charge. Caza, 48, has been in custody since his arrest in January 2010, which came as part of an international lawenforcement crackdown on child pornography. During a lengthy trial that wrapped up last month, court heard police searched Caza’s Columbia Street apartment and turned up 3,500 videos and 50,000 pictures, most of them verified to be depictions of children involved in sexual acts. Mounties also found photos apparently taken from Caza’s apartment, showing children play-
DAVID CAZA: Convicted of possessing and distributing child porn.
ing in the snow in the St. Ann’s Academy schoolyard across Columbia Street. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robert Powers noted the “time and interest” Caza devoted to his child-porn collection. “There is no doubt this was an extremely large and well-organized collection of child pornography, mostly involving young boys,” Powers said, describing the evidence against Caza as “overwhelming” on the possession and distribution counts. “There can be no other reasonable inference drawn.” The photos of St. Ann’s children playing in the snow were found to have been taken on Jan. 4, 2010 — six days before Caza’s arrest. X See CAZA A6
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