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STAR | TThursday, September 6, 2012
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Page 14: Our Golden Senior Soccer Men
Abbotsford Police investigate early-morning shooting
Dragging on New Turf
By Vikki Hopes Black Press
HARRY HUNT PHOTO
Colby James undergoes core training with a chute with Aldergrove U-14 boys soccer team at the new synthetic turf fields at Aldergrove Athletic Park on Friday. The fields are already in popular demand after opening on Thursday.
Aldergrove soccer fields opened Aldergrove Star
It started with a plan to build a new soccer field in Aldergrove. But it culminated with the creation of two artificial turf fields, a parking lot, and a cash surplus that will help maintain synthetic playing surfaces throughout Langley for years to come. On August 30, members of Langley Township Council and Aldergrove soccer associations gathered for the official opening of the new soccer complex at Aldergrove Athletic Park. “All of this was accomplished thanks to dedicated partnerships, savvy financing, and good timing,” said Langley Township Mayor Jack Froese. “This is an example of what can be
achieved when people are committed and proper planning is in place. Sometimes everything just works. And in this case, local athletes and the entire community will benefit.” Funding for a new artificial turf field at the corner of 27 Avenue and 268 Street was initially approved by Township Council in the spring of 2011 after local soccer associations expressed the need for year-round playing surfaces. At that time, funding was also committed for a parking lot expansion. The project was endorsed by the Langley Outdoor Sports Advisory Group and a budget was set at just over $2 million, with Aldergrove United Soccer and Aldergrove Youth Soccer working togeth-
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er to contribute $50,000. But the soccer clubs had a bigger and better idea — they wanted to see one of the adjacent gravel practice fields also converted into a synthetic turf field, and said they would help pay for it. The second field would be 80 per cent of the size of the main field and would allow soccer players to use the surface all year long. The soccer associations pledged just over $200,000 — half of the cost of the additional field’s construction — to the project, with $135,000 to be contributed in the first year and the rest to be paid off over five years. Inclusion of a second field was kept in mind and worked in as the project was designed and tendered. SEE: Page 3
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Abbotsford Police are trying to determine whether there are any connections between a shooting that occurred early Tuesday morning and one that took place in 2011 in the same area. Both incidents happened in the 2500 block of Bradner Road. In the latest one, Abbotsford Police received a call at about 2:30 a.m. from a resident who reported hearing several gunshots and the sound of one or two vehicles leaving the area. Const. Ian MacDonald said police arrived on the scene to find that a 24-year-old man had suffered a gunshot wound to his arm. MacDonald said the victim had been in a Ford SUV with an unknown number of other people when the vehicle was shot at several times. He said it does not appear that the group had been at a home in the area, but had met up with other people on or near the roadway. “What our focus will be is where was the rest of the group and what was the purpose of the gathering at 2:30 in the morning on a rural street.” The victim was taken to hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries. MacDonald said the man has “very limited previous interaction with police,” and the backgrounds of other people at the scene are still being looked into. Police cordoned off the road to traffic from just south of Fraser Highway to Simpson Road for several hours while they investigated the incident. MacDonald said police are considering any possible connections between this shooting and one that occurred in January 2011. At that time, eight to 12 shots were fired as a 25-year-old woman driving a pickup pulled into a driveway. One shot blew out the back window of the truck, narrowly missing the woman’s head, while another went through the living room window of the house. Police said two male residents of the home — ages 21 and 27 at the time — were well-known to police. The name of one of those men came up in court proceedings earlier this year for Jarrod Bacon, who was convicted of conspiracy to traffic cocaine and handed a 12-year prison term. The Crown alleged during the trial that the man, a longtime friend of Bacon’s, was whom Bacon was referring to, on wiretap evidence, when he said he had a funder who could supply up to $3 million to purchase cocaine from Mexico.
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