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Chipping in Businesses long-time supporters of Pennies for Presents. PAGE 18 Glad tidings Singer’s annual Christmas concert raises money for charity. PAGE B1 High hoops Secondary students face fierce competition in basketball. PAGE 3
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THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2012
VOL. 24, NO. 94
P: 250.585.1648 3392 Norwell Drive
City swaps land for Pioneer Forest I DEAL WITH school district includes eight properties in all. BY TOBY GORMAN THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Lee Shaw, of Shaw Electrical Services, climbs a ladder to repair power lines to the public washrooms at Westwood Lake Park that were downed by a falling tree Tuesday. Winds toppled trees and knocked out power to thousands of homes and businesses across the Nanaimo region.
Windstorm closes park, knocks out power BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
Heavy winds knocked down trees and heaved branches across power lines, leaving thousands of homes and businesses without power for several hours Tuesday. Winds began to hit in force early Tuesday, but picked up through the morning, cutting power to large sections of downtown Nanaimo. Ted Olynyk, B.C. Hydro spokesman, said the gusts really began to make their
presence felt between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. when power was knocked out to about 3,000 customers. The heaviest damage was to power lines in the Yellow Point and Lantzville areas. “It peaked at about nine to 10 a.m. with just over 7,000 customers being out and a large chunk of those were out for about three to five hours,” Olynyk said. “By five o’clock we were able to bring that number down to about 600 and then chipped away at that. There were branches on
lines and trees down. The most extreme situation we had was about seven spans of lines down in Lantzville.” Downed trees across trails and broken branches left dangling dangerously in trees overhead forced the closure of Westwood Lake Park. City workers turned joggers away at the park entrance gates as crews cleared trees and debris and repaired phone and power lines to the park’s public washrooms that were torn down by a fallen tree. ◆ See ‘WIND’ /4
What started as a confusing discussion over whether the city or school board owned a parcel of land known as Pioneer Forest has turned into a major land swap between the two parties. City and school board officials announced Tuesday that eight properties will be included in a letter of intent to transfer various land titles between them to ensure the public benefits from improved usage for all properties involved. In the summer, north end citizens became concerned when the school board made a request to the city to redesignate Pioneer Forest as ‘neighbourhood’ instead of ‘parks and open space,’ a move that could have potentially paved the way for development of the 3.2-hectare forest. Friends of Pioneer Forest, a community group that formed in response to the threat to the forest, found evidence that the park was wrongly relieved of its park designation in 1997 when the city sold the parcel to the school board for $800,000. It challenged the city and school board in an effort to provide long-term protection for what it considered a park. In Tuesday’s announcement,
Pioneer Park was one of four properties the school board intends to transfer to the city. The other three include Harewood Field at 502 Howard Ave., to ensure that the play field remains as a public use space in the Harewood community; six hectares of property off Oliver Road (5101 Rutherford Rd.) deemed most suitable for parkland with 2.4 hectares being retained by the school district for possible future development; and Northfield School, an area where the city intends to improve road access. Land the city intends to transfer to the school district includes Quennel Square at Selby and Franklyn streets, which is currently occupied by school district buildings but is owned by the city. The school district says it will be able to use the property for an educational services building in the future. Also going to the school district are Princess Royal, Pauline Haarer and Bayview school properties, all of which sit on land owned by the city. According to both the city and school district, land best suited for parks will be transferred to the city while the school district will acquire properties that it can use for future planning. Both parties say the agreement also cleans up some historic land title complications where the city owns property on which the school district has buildings. ◆ See ‘CITY’ /4
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