“I saw the water rising.... I saw the cars swimming. Then all of a sudden, the light went out.”
THE FRIDAY
Students from Port Coquitlam work with local artist to help children in New York affected by Sandy: page 18
FEB. 15, 2013
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
TRI-CITY NEWS
www.tricitynews.com
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
INSIDE
Letters/12 Your History/24 Tri-City Spotlight/28 Sports/46
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Wearable Art, PoCo spirit
SEE FACE TO FACE, PAGE 11
SEE THINGS-TO-DO GUIDE, PAGE 21
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
Coquitlam’s in Deep The 13th annual Crazy 8s short film competition took place last week, with filmmakers shooting from Feb. 8 to 10 throughout the Lower Mainland. One entrant, a flick titled “In the Deep,” was partially filmed (left and above) in a home in Coquitlam’s Cape Horn area. The film, by director/ writer Nimisha Mukerji and writer Orsy Szabó (also one of the actors), tells the story of a woman whose mother passed away from cancer five years ago who arrives on her father’s doorstep unannounced with shattering news to share. Competitors in Crazy 8s, all aspiring filmmakers who had to pitch their story to a jury of industry professionals, had eight days to film, edit and complete their productions. The six finalists received $1,000 and a production package with everything they needed to make their short film. Finished films will be screened at a gala film industry event. For more information, visit www.crazy8s.cc.
Big bucks for bosses in cash-strapped district Treasurer who oversaw SD43’s $7.5M deficit collected $170k By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Administrative changes in School District 43’s board office last year resulted in
eight executives earning more than $1.1 million in compensation, according to a report by the Public Sector Employees’ Council made public recently. Each year, PSEC reports on the salaries paid to administrators for each district. In 2011/’12 in SD43, eight administrators were on the payroll and two received only par-
tial payment for the year because they were new appointments while another was paid for part of the year because after leaving the district and another received salary and a retirement allowance because he retired during the year. Currently, SD43 has six senior administrators. The revolving door makes it difficult to compare salaries with other
administrators in other districts with similar duties. But when it comes to school district superintendents, Tom Grant’s SD43 salary is in the middle of the pack. In 2011/’12, Grant was paid $229,208, including pension and other benefit premiums and a vehicle allowance. see SURREY, page 9
Health officials deny claim patient reports are being deleted By Jeff Nagel BLACK PRESS
Partington Creek on Burke Mountain will be home to 15,000 and how it’s developed is partially up to you: see pg. 3
Fraser Health is being accused of deleting some doctors’ voice-dictated reports for patients because of a huge backlog in medical transcription services. The Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) says it sometimes takes too long to get the audio files from physicians transcribed and Fraser Health has a policy of purging certain files that have been in the system more than 60 days. see BACKLOG EXISTS, page 16