High jumper raising the bar PAGE 25
The second of a four-part series profiling our athletes in London features Mike Mason of Nanoose, who is in peak form going into the Games. Wheelchair racer Michelle Stilwell and rower Tony Theriault will be featured as the Paralympic Games get going next month.
City part of study
Researchers working on the country’s biggest-ever cancer study are recruiting PAGE 7 participants in Nanaimo. BOOK YOUR APPOINTMENT TODAY!
OPTOMETRIST (Independent Optometrist)
SATURDAY, JULY 28, 2012
City planning to target funding for maintenance of infrastructure
www.nanaimobulletin.com
VOL. 24, NO. 39
WATER WALK
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South-end home riddled with bullets
BY TOBY GORMAN THE NEWS BULLETIN
BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Nanaimo has a multi-million dollar shortfall in infrastructure funding, but city staff are working to build a rainy-day fund to ensure future repairs and replacements can be met. Council also passed a resolution Monday to ask the federal government for continued long-term financial support for infrastructure, nudged by the pending March 2014 expiration of the federal Build Canada Plan. Ottawa invests about $2 billion annually in municipal infrastructure funding nationwide. Since 2007, Nanaimo has received about $40 million, including $17.8 million for the water treatment facility and $7.7 million from gas tax revenues for Reservoir No. 1. But that new infrastructure, along with Nanaimo’s $1.9 billion in existing infrastructure assets, will need to be maintained. And that money will have to come from taxpayers. “Some people have used the analogy of buying a brand new, high-end expensive car and not servicing it and the thing ends up in the junkyard,” said Nanaimo Mayor John Ruttan, who estimated the city’s infrastructure deficit is at least $15 million. “A little bit of maintenance would have done a lot, but trying to put that money aside is a bit of a challenge. People keep saying cut this or cut that but man oh man, when it comes to things like infrastructure there are major concerns.” ◆ See ‘ASSET’ /15
Police are investigating an incident of shots fired at a home in south Nanaimo, but the residents themselves are keeping quiet. The shooting happened shortly before 4 a.m. Wednesday when police received a 911 call about gunfire heard in the south end of Nicol Street. Police were unable to determine exactly where the shots originated, but were tipped off to a home in the 600 block of Nicol Street that was hit by gunfire. Mounties found multiple bullet holes in the home’s exterior door and more bullet holes inside the house. Seven rounds were fired into the door of a basement suite at 621 Nicol Street, near the Needham Street intersection. The bullet strikes, circled in black grease pen with police forensic scale markers stuck on the door next to each hole, were clearly visible from a service alley that runs between Nicol and Haliburton streets. A man going in and out of the suite who appeared to be a resident refused comment. A neighbour, who would identify himself only as Lance and owns a home two doors down from where the shooting took place, said he was not awakened by the commotion. “In the last 15 years, it’s been a nightmare through here,” Lance said, referring to drug trafficking and sex trade in the alley. ◆ See ‘RESIDENTS’ /4
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In the last 15 years, it’s been a nightmare through here.
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Dominique Saab is organizing a walk along Nanaimo’s E&N Trailway to raise money to build a well that will supply clean drinking water for a village in Kenya. For the full story, please see page 3.