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October 2, 2012 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
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Pocketdialed 911 calls headache for cops
Alistair Waters
ASSISTANT EDITOR
See Cops A10
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DOUG FARROW/CONTRIBUTOR
SCARECROW DRESSED UP… Jesse Hannebauer (left) and Aimee Schmidt put the final touches on Bob, their entry for the annual Uptown Rutland Scarecrow Festival held on Sunday at Lions Park. See more photos on A21.
▼ LAUREL D’ANDREA
Tireless volunteer gets nod from the Queen Jennifer Smith STAFF REPORTER
It’s not often a patient propositions their surgeon—with money—while lying on the operating table, but when being helpful runs in your veins, these situations just crop up. This is how Laurel D’Andrea describes how she came to assemble a team to raise $280,000 for Kelowna General Hospital, more than enough to ensure patients with gallbladder attacks can get their gallstones broken up with a laser, rather than enduring a multi-day hospital visit and operation. “I don’t like being the leader all the time,” D’Andrea said in interview Monday afternoon. “When I volunteer for Emergency
Social Services, I like bebeth II Diamond Jubilee ing the person who sits in Medal for her efforts. the chair and fills out the Presented with the form.” honour in Vancouver at Nevertheless, with Volunteer BC’s Volunteer 30 years of doing everyFutures Conference, she thing from running the was joined by Anne-Marie Big Brothers and Big SisKoeppen, who works in ters board of directors volunteer management in in Nanaimo to cleaning the Cowichan Valley, and out cages at the SPCA, Elizabeth Specht, who D’Andrea is indeed a leadcurrently runs Volunteer er among volunteers. Richmond Information Laurel D’Andrea Friday afternoon, it Services, in receiving the was announced that none honour. other than the Queen of England herself D’Andrea’s award is entirely for the thinks her efforts deserve recognition. unpaid labour she’s given over the years. D’Andrea has been named one of By day, she is the publisher of Bethree volunteer sector leaders in this yond 50 Magazine and mother to two province and awarded the Queen Elizateenage boys, and by night she has vol-
unteered for everything from Parent Advisory Council duties to bingo bashes in the years before gaming was professionalized. An active member of the Kelowna Sunrise Rotary Club, she counts last year’s Boot, Scoot and Barn Dance among her more recent achievements. The event raised $35,000 and brought hundreds of participants out to the Rutland Centennial Hall, the money from which went to make hall improvements. She has also volunteered to run hockey tournaments, sling beer at Okanagan Sun games and has even invented her own BC Tel fundraiser, which may just make a comeback. See Tireless A10
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The issue of inadvertent 911 calling from cell phones continues to keep Kelowna police hopping. “Pocket dialling,” as it is known, was on the mind of the city’s top cop, Supt, Bill McKinnon, on Monday as he addressed city council about the latest crime statistics in Kelowna. McKinnon said in the four-month period between the start of May and end of August, the Kelowna RCMP dealt with 1,192 pocket-dialled 911 calls from cell phones, about eight per cent of the total number of calls for service police dealt with in the period. McKinnon said in responding to such calls, attempts are made to contact the callers by phone but if that is unsuccessful—which it is in most cases—police officers have to be dispatched. He estimated the total cost of responding to each call at about $200. “That’s a significant amount of money and a lot of man-hours,” said McKinnon. He said typically a 911 call is responded to with two police cruisers. The city currently has no way of charging for 911 calls from cell phones because the courts have ruled against that, noted Coun. Robert Hobson. McKinnon said unlike Apple iPhones and other touch screen phones that have to be switched on to