serving our community 1930 to 2012
BUSINESS
NEWS
MEGAN PELESHYTYK and her Kelowna Owls teammates will defend their provincial AAAA girls’ volleyball title this weekend.
THE FACULTY at Okanagan College throw their collective support behind international efforts to ensure that girls can access an education.
AN EARLY morning fire at a Kelowna shopping plaza leaves four businesses gutted at the start of the Christmas shopping season.
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TUESDAY November 27, 2012 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
▼ MANTLERTRIAL
▼ KELOWNA
‘Unnerving’ arrest relived on the stand
New firehalls plan too costly for city council Alistair Waters
Cheryl Wierda
ASSISTANT EDITOR
CONTRIBUTOR
Buddy Tavares, the man kicked in the face by a Kelowna RCMP officer in an arrest that was caught on video, describes the moment he was stopped at gunpoint by Const. Geoff Mantler as the “most unnerving moment I’ve ever had.” Tavares was recounting the moments of his arrest on Jan. 7, 2011, in a Kelowna courtroom yesterday during the opening day of Mantler’s trial on a charge of assault causing bodily harm to Tavares. That January morning, Tavares, who had recently been released from hospital after a motorcycle accident he was not expected to survive, stopped by his former workplace. Tavares stopped in at the Harvest Golf Club and chatted with an employee before going to the second fairway to fire off a shotgun to scare the geese away. It is something Tavares had done many times before, he testified. After completing the task, Tavares drove toward the courthouse to deal with an issue related to his marital separation when he noticed a police vehicle do a U-turn at Gordon Drive and KLO Road. Soon after, as he neared Pandosy Street, he spotted police lights in his rear view mirror and pulled over to let the vehicle pass, Tavares testified. “I thought he was going where the other cops were going,” the now 53-year-old said. Instead, he found himself staring at a police officer who had trained his gun on him. The officer told him to keep his hands on the wheel. “If one comes off, I will shoot you,” Tavares recalls the officer saying. “I froze, I did not move,” said Tavares. “Had you ever had a gun pointed at you before?” asked Crown counsel William Burrows. “Never,” said Tavares. “It was the most unnerving moment I’ve ever had.” “I asked him, ‘What did I do?’” testified Tavares. The officer did not respond to the question and soon asked Tavares to take his right had off the wheel and unfasten his seat belt.
DON SIPOS/CONTRIBUTOR
GEOFF MANTLER arrives at Kelowna courthouse for the first day of his trial
yesterday to face charges of assault causing bodily harm to Kelowna resident Buddy Tavares (bleow) who talked to the media before entering the courthouse.
See Trial A6
r Credit ‘Direct eCnagot ev aurus Truck-o-vsed’ appro
Kelowna city council has shelved a fire department plan that calls for two new fire halls and as many as 40 more firefighters over the next 10 years, saying it’s too expensive. The proposed new 2012-2022 strategic plan was to be presented to council Monday. But at the council meeting, Fire Chief Jeff Carlisle said, based on early feedback to the plan, he was advising council to hold off accepting it in principle. The plan was released late last week. And based on the comments he received about the plan from the mayor and councillors at Monday’s meeting, it appears unlikely the plan would not have been approved anyway. “There is a lot more consultation needed,” said Coun. Gail Given. “I’m not entirely certain we can afford this at this time.” Her colleague Coun. Andre Blanleil was more blunt. “I think this plan is unaffordable,” he told Carlisle. “We need a plan we can afford and I don’t think this is it.” The fire department’s new strategic plan, meant to replace the current one
Jeff Carlisle
drawn up two years ago, was requested by city council. It includes several recommendations, the biggest of which are the building, manning and equipping of two new fireballs in the city over the next 10 years. The new halls are called for in the North Glenmore and KLO/Gordon areas. While the North Glenmore hall was expected and has been eyed for several years, the emergence of the KLO/Gordon area hall in the plan was new. The new plan identifies what it calls a gap in resources in the South Pandosy urban area and a lack of resources to back up the existing Mission fire station and says the KLO/Gordon hall would address that. But the plan does not stop there.
See Firehalls A6
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