The Chilliwack
Progress Thursday
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News
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Sports
Big Time
Sold
Iron Man
Todd Richard is in a new CMT Canada series.
After four years, one of 14 lake lots is sold.
Toth aims for podium in Penticton.
Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • T H U R S D AY, A U G U S T 2 3 , 2 0 1 2
The final curtain for Paramount
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Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Chilliwack council voted 6-1 Tuesday to demolish the old Paramount Theatre building in downtown Chilliwack rather than restore it. They rejected the idea to run it as a not-for-profit theatre by the Friends of the Chilliwack Paramount, citing the lack of sufficient financial backing and insurance coverage. Only Coun. Jason Lum voted against the wrecking ball, saying he would have preferred to direct staff to come up with a business plan for restoration. “I have to disagree with the option of tearing it down,” he said. Accepting the offer to demolish the building from Chilliwack Economic Partners Corporation (CEPCO) came this week amid some fierce hope by supporters that the 1949 theatre would be saved. Although city staff recommended that council reject the proposal to save the dilapidated building, it also recommended the city “develop a business plan for the remediation, restoration and long term management of the Paramount Theatre building as a civic facility,” according to the staff report. Continued: PASSION/ p5
A couple enjoys a quiet morning walk along Cultus Lake Wednesday. The lake has been a popular destination during the recent hot weather. GREG KNILL/ PROGRESS
Sanborn pleads guilty to ‘regulatory offences’ Robert Freeman The Progress
Friends of the Paramount react to news outside council chambers that the theatre will be demolished.
Crown and defence lawyers are suggesting a six-month suspended sentence for former city planner Grant Sanborn after he pleaded guilty to failure to enforce provincial agricultural and land titles regulations in B.C. Supreme Court Tuesday. Sanborn, 53, pleaded not guilty to criminal breach of trust charges that he was originally charged with.
Madam Justice Miriam Maisonville will deliver her decision Aug. 29 after studying the “comprehensive” joint sentencing submission made by the two lawyers. The proposed sentence includes a term of probation and 160 hours of community work ser vice. Sanborn has also offered to donate $5,000 to Ruth and Naomi’s Mission in Chilliwack. Outside the cour troom, Crown counsel Robin McFee said it was in the public inter-
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est to accept Sanborn’s guilty plea to lesser charges, rather than prosecute the criminal charges, to avoid a long, sixweek trial and calling a host of witnesses to events that are now 15 years old. And in the end, he said, “the penalties would have been the same” under the criminal code as the provincial legislation. During his court submission, McFee also suggested that Sanborn was the victim of a “culture of pro-development” at Chilliwack City Hall where
employees were urged to find “creative ways” to work around municipal and provincial rules to boost development. Sanborn was also in a position “of inherent tension and conflict,” he said, because as planning director he was an employee of the city with “a mandate to assist in the expansion of development,” yet he was also the approving officer charged with enforcing provincial legislation. Continued: SANBORN/ p6