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FEBRUARY 19, 2013
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Vol. 61, Issue 34
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Jumbo Day As the new municipality is officially inaugurated today, February 19, an environmental group has filed a court case against the appointment of the Jumbo Glacier council SALLY MACDONALD Townsman Staff
in defence of democracy,” said Eco Society executive director David Reid. “Every Canadian should shudder at the idea of a provincial minister appointing a mayor and council for a municipality with no residents. It’s an affront to our constitution and our democracy.” According to the Eco Society, there is a common law understanding that a municipality is a democratic institution created for a public purpose. Therefore, the creation of a municipality with no residents for the purpose of furthering a private development is inherently unconstitutional, said the society.
On the eve of Jumbo Glacier’s official creation as a municipality, a West Kootenay environmental group filed a court challenge against the appointment of a council for the community, claiming it was unconstitutional. The West Kooteay Eco Society filed a petition in Nelson court Monday, February 18, applying for a judicial review on the creation of Jumbo Glacier Mountain Resort Municipality. The application argues that the B.C. government’s appointment of a mayor and council for the new municipality without any electors violates the constitution. “Our action today is See WILDSIGHT, Page 5
BOB WAKULICH PHOTO
Cranbrook’s barbershop quartet — The Sound Principle — spent Thursday, Feb. 14, professionally serenading Valentines in Cranbrook and Kimberley, including the College of the Rockies. Linda Olm, an instructor in the Dental Hygenist Program, pictured above, was one such surprised by the travelling troubadours, who use the day and their voices to raise money for the Heart & Stroke Foundation of B.C. and Yukon. Left to right: Joel Vinge, Linda Olm, Gert DeGroot, Rollie Cummins and Michael Jones.
CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER
Agent testifies how he thought of suicide CAM FORTEMS Kamloops Daily News
Suffering heroin withdrawal and coming down from a drug high, a sick Garry Shank sat in a Cranbrook jail and contemplated whether to hang himself. The self-described “scumbag” fleeing parole
had just been arrested by RCMP late in October 2009, in possession of an assault rifle. He was headed back to federal jail, sent there after a tip from an informant to police, who knew where he was. The only people who were supposed to know
Shank and his partner had just arrived in Cranbrook were three men, plus their boss in the local drug trade, who had driven them there from Calgary in order to kill a rival. Someone had turned him in. At 30 years old, Shank
testified he’d spent more than half his life doing crimes or in jail. He never worked at a legitimate job. “At that point I had a breakdown,” Shank testified Friday in the witness box in the murder conspiracy trial of Lonnie Adams, Lorne Carry and Colin Cor-
reia. “I said I was looking to talk to someone. I was crying, having a full-time breakdown. I was so ready to be done with this life.” Shank said he believed one of the three men on trial or Chad Munroe, who had been recently shot in
Cranbrook by the rival drug group, had turned him in to police. “I toyed with the idea of hanging myself,” he said in answers to questions from Crown prosecutor Ann Katrine Saettler.
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