The Chilliwack
Progress Thursday
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Expansion
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More buses and higher fares come with transit expansion.
Tech N9ne returns to Chilliwack.
Austin returns as one half of Plevy brother act.
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Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • T H U R S D AY, A U G U S T 2 2 , 2 0 1 3
Chilliwack gets jump on zoning for medical grow-ops Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Growing medical marijuana in Chilliwack will be restricted to special industrial zones to prevent irritants like offensive odours, security risks, and bright lights. Council approved text amendments on Tuesday, defining medical marijuana grow operations (MMGOs), and prohibiting them in all zones except the newly amended M6 special industrial zone. They will not be allowed in agricultural areas. Most of those who spoke at a public hearing Tuesday said they liked what they heard. “I’m in favour of your amendments,” said resident Susan Chambers about the M6 zoning, adding she did not want to see them on agricultural land. Other types of businesses in the M6 zone include abbattoirs or slaughterhouses, asphalt manufacturers and sewage treatment plants, and now MMGOs. One commercial building owner, Gerald Murphy, wanted to know if properties zoned M3, could be converted to M6, if the lot size was smaller, and was told it was likely possible. Business owner Cathy Robertson said she was in favour of council’s direction on the topic, and appreciated them jumping into the fray well in advance of the new rules. “I’m in favour of the M6 zone. I want it known I don’t think it should be produced and distributed in commercial areas.” Her business was in a unit on the other side from a medical grow-op and the smell and presence of it not only offended her customers, but she often worried it would make her an unintended target of a grow-rip. Chilliwack resident Larry Balisky praised the “proactive and positive” approach the city was taking with the amendments.
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From left, Chilliwack Museum curator Paul Ferguson, and filmmakers and publishers Ian and Casey Williams, photographing memorial plaques at St. Thomas Anglican Church for Chilliwack’s Great War at Home and Overseas. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Bringing ‘The Great War’ home to Chilliwack Jennifer Feinberg The Progress There are signs the Great War has never been forgotten in Chilliwack. Shiny memorial plaques are still found on the walls of St. Thomas Anglican Church, somberly honouring local soldiers who never made it back home. As curator of the Chilliwack Museum and Archives, Paul Ferguson has a keen interest in Chilliwack’s role in the First World War. Being the son of a soldier himself, and a boy who grew up knowing that his grandmother
had lost her father, uncle, and cousin in the Great War, he too carried that feeling of loss. “Having read a lot of this history through the years, I really wanted to do something completely different,” he said. In his new book, Chilliwack’s Great War: At Home and Overseas, he sets out to paint an intimate and personal portrait of what happened to Chilliwack during that pivotal moment in Canada’s history. Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns was a huge inspiration for this work – something about the use of vivid photographs, and revealing newspaper accounts.
Ferguson said he took one look at Burns’ documentary, The Civil War, and it instantly resonated so deeply that he knew one day he’d do something similar for the Canadian Expeditionary Force. The CEF was established in 1914 as Canada’s army overseas in the First World War. That day is almost here for Ferguson. Using the Chilliwack Progress newspaper collection for a good part of his research has meant unparalleled home front perspective, and from the theatres of war. Ferguson’s research has been
more than 15 years in the works, and it’s finally time to tell those stories. Having the entire Progress archives from that time has been a “wonderful” resource for the book, Five Progress employees signed up and went to war, including pressman Percy Jackman; their letters were subsequently published revealing a range of experiences. Chilliwack’s Great War is in the production stages right now, with layout and photography underway to be ready for printing this fall. Continued: WWI/ p12