CHECK OUT CHRISTMAS LIGHT LIST AT www.tricitynews.com
TRI-CITY
NEWS 2011 DECEM BER 24,
Picture this: your photos in The Tri-City News We’re looking for outstanding holiday photos from our readers so we can print them in The Tri-City News. If you have a great shot — Christmas, Hanukkah or some other seasonal scene — email it to newsroom@tricitynews.com with “Holiday Photos” in the subject line. We’ll look at all of them and a selection will run in the paper — one will even become the cover of our Christmas Eve edition (see last year’s at left). Deadline for submissions is Monday, Dec. 17.
Scott Anderson captured Tri-City News reader in lit up for the season this photo of a tree Centre Park. Coquitlam’s Town
THE FRIDAY
DEC. 7, 2012
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
www.tricitynews.com
TRI-CITY NEWS CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
Too much Toronto?
Xmas music & more
SEE FACE TO FACE, PAGE A11
SEE THINGS-TO-DO GUIDE, PAGE A19
INSIDE
Tri-City Spotlight/A20 Books Plus/A23 Health & Wellness/A33 Sports/A42
‘Happy Tuesday’ is just one way local students are helping their peers: see page A6
DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Left: Johanna Kuffner and Kendra May brought the Happy Tuesday concept to Port Coquitlam’s Riverside secondary, where students hand out candy, cupcakes and positive messages to bring smiles to students’ faces. The idea was picked up by kids at Coquitlam’s Dr. Charles Best secondary, which posted positive messages on lockers at the school recently. Right: Angel Kennedy was one of hundreds at Best greeted with positive Post-Its.
Emergency at the food bank With only a quarter of the necessary amount of food to fill holiday hampers, Share Family and Community Services has announced an emergency food drive for next Thursday in Coquitlam. Katherine Lawrence, Share’s development manager, said most of the existing stores of food will be used to fill the first set of hampers but unless a big surge of food comes in, there won’t be enough to fill those for struggling families who arrive for the second pick-up date. Share expects to give out 1,800 holiday hampers this year. On Dec. 13 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Share will have a truck at the Safeway at Sunwood Plaza in Coquitlam. Donations of non-perishable food items can also be dropped off at any grocery store in the Tri-Cities. More information: www.sharesociety.ca.
Trans. surplus could save Minister lays out conditions for transit funding By Jeff Nagel BLACK PRESS
TransLink may not face a $30-million shortfall after all if regional mayors rescind a scheduled property tax hike. TransLink commissioner Martin Crilly now
TRANS. MIN. MARY POLAK estimates TransLink has $25 million to $35 million more available to it than the transportation author-
ity disclosed in its 2013 base plan because it has underestimated the revenue it will pull in and overestimated its expenses. “The expenditure estimates, in our view, are a little heavy,” Crilly told mayors in a briefing Wednesday, adding it wasn’t clear if that was done “by omission or by an abundance of caution” on TransLink’s part. He said the extra money could equate to a
4% to 6% increase in bus service. Mayors vowed this fall to cancel the $23 per average home property tax hike if the province failed to deliver new funding sources before March, chopping $30 million in each of the next two years and precipitating what was then assumed to be a new revenue crisis that might force deep transit service cuts. Now, mayors and
TransLink officials are hopeful the tax hike won’t be needed for 2013. But TransLink CEO Ian Jarvis disputes Crilly’s findings, noting there’s no provision yet in TransLink’s plan for a negotiated pay hike for unionized workers, and he suggested the commissioner’s estimates may be too optimistic in other areas. see PUBLIC, page A4