Thursday August 15, 2013 (Vol. 37 No. 65)
V O I C E
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W H I T E
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Feeling blues: Blues By The Sea returns with the third annual White Rock Rhythm and Blues Festival in Semiahmoo Park Aug. 25, featuring such talents as singer-guitarist Ellie Johnson, Jason Buie and David ‘Boxcar’ Gates. › see page A29
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Repeat vandals target Centennial Park wildlife site
Gardeners try to stem butterfly effect Sarah Massah Staff Reporter
The delicate ecosystem at the Eva Bene Butterfly Garden in White Rock is at risk due to repeated thefts, according to members of the White Rock and Surrey Naturalists. The small garden – maintained by the club’s volunteers – has been the target of thieves
for the past three years, with a number of vital plants dug up and removed, endangering the butterflies, caterpillars, hummingbirds and rabbits that call the green space in Centennial Park home. “As soon as we put in the plants and they start to look nice – boom – someone comes and steals them,” Frances de Montreuil said
this week. “When they pick them, they are destroying the eggs of the butterflies and their homes.” The small garden is home to 10 different species of butterflies, including the ones that local school children release each year after observing the metamorphosis at school. “They won’t last long if their habitat is
destroyed,” de Montreuil said. Last summer, WRSN member Laurence Assoignon wrote to Peace Arch News after discovering nine liatris plants had been stolen. The cost of the plants, which was shouldered by the volunteers, totalled approximately $100. › see page A4
Dinwoodie to retire
Surrey hunts for new city manager Kevin Diakiw Black Press
Murray Dinwoodie is retiring. Surrey’s city manager – the top bureaucrat at city hall – was named to the post in February 2007, after an exhaustive search to replace Umendra Mital. Dinwoodie was considered a near tie for first-place with Patrick Solerno, who was chosen in a hotly contested 5-4 vote at an incamera meeting in 2006. Solerno backed out, and Dinwoodie got Murray Dinwoodie tapped for the job. Dinwoodie, who had previously been Surrey’s general manager of planning and development, stepped into the senior role at an annual salary of $235,000, which had climbed to $286,000 last year. During his time as city manager, observers say Dinwoodie exceeded the expectations of even some of his most optimistic supporters during record years of development in the city. › see page A4
Working on the railroad
Sarah Massah photo
A woman strolls along the trail with some freshly picked blackberries as workers from Osmose Railway Services work on a railway trestle in Crescent Beach, steps away from the community’s marina, on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. The repairs are part of a $2.2-million general track upgrade that spans the Lower Mainland.
He lived on the street but died amid friends Melissa Smalley & Alex Browne Staff Reporters
A well-known White Rock street person, whose presence in the community had divided residents and politicians in recent years, has died. Ryan Ashe, 56, who was removed from the streets by authorities last fall, passed away at Surrey Hospice early Tuesday morning, according to his sister, Orphee Martin.
It is believed he was suffering from lung cancer. Martin said she had heard his health had declined the past several weeks. According to officials from Good Shepherd Lodge, where Ashe had been living since late October, he was sent to Peace Arch Hospital less than a week ago, and then transferred to Surrey Hospice, where he passed away Tuesday, surrounded by good friends from the
community who had continued to visit him right up to the end. Ashe had been a familiar figure on White Rock’s uptown street corners for more than two decades, and had become the centre of a controversy last spring when the city told him he would be forced to move from his settlement at a bus stop Johnston Road and Thrift Avenue. › see page A4
Ryan Ashe
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