Wednesday February 6, 2013 www.saobserver.net $1.25 GST Included
Piccadilly Mall gets new owners By Martha Wickett OBSeRVeR STAFF
After more than two decades, ownership of the Mall at Piccadilly has changed. Bill laird and Sheldon Pukas have sold the mall that the laird and Pukas families have owned for many years. The purchaser is Standard life Investments out of Toronto, with its headquarters in edinburgh, Scotland. no major changes are planned. laird says he thinks the new ownership will be good for the community, and he’s hoping the transfer will be seamless. “There was a number of people interested, we were quite careful we chose someone who understood shopping centres, were intending to hold it and were going to participate in it,” he said, noting that Standard life has contracted colliers International, property managers, to manage the mall. In the transfer of ownership, all the employees have been retained, including mall manager lori cymbaluk. One construction worker has moved on but it was his Bill decision to do so. Laird laird, Sheldon’s father Paul Pukas and colin developer Mayes bought the mall in 1991 and, a few years later, Mayes sold his interest. The mall now becomes a part of the Standard life Real estate Fund, which has more than $1 billion in assets under management. Glenn d’Silva, fund manager, told the Observer, plans are to work with the existing tenants. “I met with a number of tenants, it’s a partnership between us and our tenants as to how this mall goes... They have raised some things they’d like to see that they think the community would like. We are investigating those opportunities but nothing right now we can say, concrete, we’re going to bring so-and-so to the market.” Standard life Investments also owns malls in Williams lake, Merritt, Surrey and Squamish. He said the fund he manages is owned by pension funds with long-term views on real estate – “we’re
Residents refuse meters
BC Hydro: Despite corporate claims they are safe, opposition to the wireless technology remains firmly entrenched.
By Martha Wickett OBSeRVeR STAFF
An assurance from the B.c. government regarding smart meter installation falls short for some Shuswap residents. Rich coleman, B.c.’s minister of energy, mines and natural gas, recently issued a letter to the media that’s posted on Bc Hydro’s website, stating: “I am writing to assure your readers that Bc Hydro will be working with its customers over the next several months to help them understand the benefits of new smart meters prior to final installation. during this time, Bc Hydro will not install a new meter without the homeowner’s consent and will work directly with customers to address their individual concerns.” He goes on to say that smart meters are safe. “B.c’s Provincial Health Officer and Health canada have confirmed that smart meters pose no known health risk or reason for concern. Some customers remain unwilling to accept that fact, and we will work with them to help allay their concerns.” coleman states that Bc Hydro has installed 1.74 million smart meters in B.c., with 85,000 left to go. “As a result, they will be revisiting customers who originally turned down the smart meters to better understand their concerns, provide them with credible answers to their questions and finish the final installations.” He concludes that upgrading the electrical grid will save B.c. $1.6 billion over the next 20 years, but maintaining a separate system with analog meters would “detract from our goal: keeping electricity rates affordable.” edgar Murdoch, a spokesperson with Smart Meter Awareness Society, Okanagan/Shuswap, says he is suspicious, given government duplicity surrounding the program. It wasn’t long ago, he adds, that the company installing the meters was using tactics such as unmarked vehicles to install them where
JaMeS Murray/OBSeRVeR
No thank you: Jamie Treleaven, co-owner of Playcare Early Childhood Centre, looks at the sign refusing a smart meter the centre has posted next to its analog meter. they weren’t wanted. Why would such tactics be necessary, he asks, if they are such a benefit? “If they’re such a good thing, why is there such worldwide resistance?” He notes that in some jurisdictions in california, smart meters are not only banned, but have become a criminal offence. France is spending $75 million to remove wifi from schools, he says. “There is absolutely overwhelming evidence throughout the world from independent scientists who don’t have a penny to gain…,” he says, noting that wireless technology is listed as a class 2B carcinogen, but “scientists are saying it should be class 2A. It is a cancerous carcinogen.” The precautionary principal is not being exercised, Murdoch says. “That’s the whole thing. nobody knows. There’s no history attached to smart meters. There’s decades of history
attached to tobacco,” he notes, pointing out that it was once considered safe. “Today, it’s costing us one-and-half billion dollars a year for health costs and loss of productivity in B.c. alone. Scientists say that wireless technology today is the tobacco of yesterday.” Playcare early childhood centre in Salmon Arm has refused a smart meter on its building. co-owner Jamie Treleaven says they have many reasons, but the main one is lack of evidence regarding safety. He says because the centre has a concentration of young children – birth to five years – who may be particularly susceptible, the owners don’t want to risk it. “experts are saying there could possibly be a cumulative effect – and ‘possibly’ is enough for me.” See Safety on page A2
See Laird on page A2
This week Shuswap doctors reach into their pockets to purchase equipment. See the story on A4. If it’s about the arts scene in Salmon Arm, then Cilla Budda’s probably involved. See A8.
Index Opinion ....................... A6 View Point .................. A7 Life & Times ............... A8 Sports............... A17-A20 Arts & Events ... A21-A23 Time Out................... A24 Vol. 106, No. 6, 40 pages