B.C. Views NDP soul search going nowhere. p6
City loses a community champion. p3
THE NEws
Sports sprinter seeks sweet success in hershey. p18
www.mapleridgenews.com wednesday, July 31, 2013 · serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · Delivery: 604-466-6397
Councillor hires councillor Cheryl Ashlie assistant to MLA Doug Bing by Ph i l M e lnych uk staff reporter
Pitt Meadows Coun. Doug Bing is hiring Maple Ridge Coun. Cheryl Ashlie to work in his MLA constituency office, part-time, starting in August. “I think she’d be very good at the job. Because I knew her, I thought it would be a good fit,” Bing said Monday. Ashlie, a twoterm councillor with Maple Ridge and former Ashlie school board trustee, managed Bing’s successful campaign in the May 14 provincial election. He won the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows seat for the B.C. Liberals, defeating the NDP’s Elizabeth Rosenau. Bing also sits on council with the City of Pitt Meadows, a position he’ll continue to fill until January, at which point he’ll resign his municipal seat. Once elected MLA, Bing stopped drawing his councillor’s salary. “I just felt that because she was interested, she’d be a good person,” for the job, Bing said of Ashlie. She will work three days a week as a constituency assistant, starting the second week of August, earning about $29,000 annually. As a Maple Ridge councillor, Ashlie makes $42,762 a year. Constituency assistants help people access provincial services and help the MLA run the office. Gay Conn, now with the North Fraser Therapeutic Riding Association, will be the other constituency assistant, also working three days a week, with one day overlapping between the two.
Colleen Flanagan/the news
To market, to market Ken Paul, of the Fraser Valley 4H Beef Club, waits to compete in the Market Beef competition during Country Fest on Sunday at the Albion Fairgrounds. see more, p21.
District computers hacked Doubts personal information compromised by Phil M elnyc h u k staff reporter
Someone, or more likely, something, broke into the District of Maple Ridge’s computer system earlier this month, but all signs are that it was an automated probe rather than some devious hacker out to do mischief. “From all the information that
we have so far, we don’t believe that anybody’s personal information was compromised,” information services manager Christina Crabtree said Tuesday. All signs indicate the breach was done by third-party software installed onto the district’s server. Such software constantly tries to access high-profile systems. “We don’t know that for a fact. That’s what it looks like.” Nevertheless, the district is advising people who use My Maple Ridge online services to pay for permits, to change their security
questions and passwords. Some of the information that could have been at risk are names, addresses and bank account numbers used for pre-authorized withdrawal systems for paying taxes. But that information is comparable to what would be found on a personal cheque. Residents using that service will be updated following a security review of the incident. The breech took place July 2, but because there was no activity, the break-in wasn’t discovered until July 21. Someone else in the in-
formation technology field alerted the district. “We don’t believe any data was actually accessed, but the potential risk was there for 19 days,” Crabtree said. “As soon as we knew there was a potential problem, we shut the system down so there was no further access.” Public notification of the breach didn’t take place until last Friday, July 26, because the information services department was focusing on securing the system. see Hacked, p5
Index
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Opinion Letters Looking Back Arts&life sports Community Classifieds
see Assistant, p5
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