THE WEDNESDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
TRI-CITY NEWS
SEPT. 18, 2013 www.tricitynews.com
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
Driving force for seniors
Star search and dance
SEE LIFE, PAGE A18
SEE ARTS, PAGE A26
INSIDE
Tom Fletcher/A10 Letters/A11 A Good Read/A19 Sports/A30
Growing support to renew R’view By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Metro Vancouver mayors seeking to revive Riverview Hospital for mental health purposes will have some support from Tri-City environmentalists and naturalists. O n Tu e s d a y, members of the Riverview Horticultural Society and the Burke Mountain Naturalists were expected to show up at the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention in Vancouver with signs showing support for resurrecting the former mental health hospital. see GILLESPIE, page A4
DAN EBENAL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Rolly Fox speaks to the roughly 3,000 participants in the Terry Fox Hometown Run in Port Coquitlam, one of four Fox Runs in the Tri-Cities held Sunday (the others were in Coquitlam, Port Moody and Anmore). He is flanked by (from left) MC and cancer survivor Bruce Moore, PoCo Mayor Greg Moore, Donna White, the Terry Fox Foundation’s B.C. director, and Hometown Run organizer Dave Teixeira. The local runs raised tens of thousands of dollars for cancer research. More photos: page A3; more information: page A17; video: www.tricitynews.com.
No shelter from cold
For first time in 5 years, no shelters in the Tri-Cities By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
S h e l t e r wo r k e r s , advocates and volunteers in Port Moody, Port Coquitlam and Coquitlam are devastated at the news that a long-running winter shelter program in the Tri-Cities has been cancelled for this year. Rob Thiessen, manager of the Hope for Freedom Society, which has funding to operate a
DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
St. Andrew’s United Church in Port Moody was to be the first church to host a homeless shelter this fall but the program has been cancelled due to lack of support from cities. temporary shelter from October through March,
said workers and volunteers were given the bad
news last week. “I’ve money, willing volunteers, I’ve got staff… but for a small but minor detail — I’ve got no facility,”Thiessen said Tuesday after efforts to get a solution for the program failed at the 11th hour. The program was to have started Oct. 1 and run for one month at St. Andrew’s United Church in Port Moody before moving to another church in the Tri-Cities but no other city came forward with a proposal to house the program. In July, Port Coquitlam council refused a temporary use permit to house the shelter at Grace
Church on Kingsway Avenue in response to concerns from some neighbours even though police said homeless people using the shelter weren’t a problem (see story on age A9). Thiessen couldn’t convince Coquitlam council to accept the bridge shelter either, although a church had come forward to host the program. Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said the city is moving forward on plans for a permanent shelter at 3030 Gordon Ave.
see COQUITLAM, page A8 ADDITIONAL STORIES, page A9
Cops look into tips from video Suspect not yet ID’d in hit and run By Jason Roessle and Gary McKenna THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Surveillance video footage showing a person of interest in a hit-and-run incident that killed a 15-year-old girl last week has generated a flood of tips, according to Coquitlam RCMP. Investigators have been following up on dozens of reports and are still looking for witnesses of the accident that took the life of Annie Leung, a Grade 10 student at nearby Riverside secondary school. “We are getting more tips at this point,” said Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jamie Chung. “We follow up with every single one of them.” see POLICE, page A13
Check out video at tricitynews.com