NOT RIGHT ‘MIX’ FOR SAPPERTON GREEN
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DESIGNING NICHE IN NEW WEST
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HYACKS SEASON ENDS ABRUPTLY
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FRIDAY
NOVEMBER 15 2013 www.newwestnewsleader.com
The 2013 NextUP awards were held Saturday at The Inn at the Quay. Page A26
First Nations skills program evicted Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
GRANT GRANGER/NEWSLEADER
The Canada Games Pool marks its 40th anniversary on Saturday with a party. If New West has anyone to thank for the pool, Don Benson should certainly be at the top of the list.
The man who helped the Games begin Facility holding 40th birthday bash Saturday Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
Don Benson was blown away when he went to Nova Scotia in 1969 to serve as the box lacrosse chairman for the first Canada Summer Games. It wasn’t just the state-of-theart facilities the area acquired as hosts of the Games, but the price tag paid by the cities. Halifax and Dartmouth built the facilities for 33 cents on the dollar because Ottawa
and the provincial government also kicked in equal shares. When he returned home he was so excited he said to his wife Evelyn, “New Westminster can do this.” And it did. In partnership with Burnaby, New West learned in August 1970 that they’d won the bid for the 1973 Canada Summer Games. Its biggest legacy, the Canada Games Pool, marks its 40th anniversary this Saturday. “I saw an opportunity,” says the 80-year-old Benson during an interview in the pool’s lobby. He sat at his kitchen table and
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created a coloured chart to figure out what was needed. He enlisted the support of The Columbian newspaper publisher Rikk Taylor and sports editor Glyn Lewis. The three talked to Mayor Muni Evers, who loved the idea since he had a dream of an Olympic-sized swimming pool for New West. That dream became a reality because of the Canada Games. “Once it was built I felt it was ideal,” says Benson. “It was very much needed because we didn’t have any (indoor) swimming facilities except for the Downtown YMCA
which had a small pool.” Benson says Evers offered to put his name on the pool but Don declined. In hindsight, he wishes he had asked for a lifetime pass to the pool because he uses the facility all the time. Benson will be at the 40th birthday bash, but considering all the talk by city council in recent years about renovating or replacing the pool, he’s curious what it will look like on its 50th birthday. The party is at the pool from 1 to 4 p.m. There will be family activities and a slide show with pictures from the pool’s inception to the present.
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A New Westminster-based aboriginal skills training program is scrambling to find a new location after being evicted on short notice for complaining that construction in their building was creating seismic-like shaking in their offices. The Essential Skills for Aboriginal Futures (ESAF) program has been operating at 735 Carnarvon St. since 2008. Being in Downtown New West was ideal because it offered easy access via SkyTrain from all over the Lower Mainland for its clients. The space was on the ground floor of a 16-storey highrise with the top 12 floors being residential. In 2012, the building’s owners received approval from city council to convert the second through fourth floors from office space to residential rental units. see ‘WE DON’T, A3 COMPREHENSIVE EYE EXAMS Single Vision 95 $ Lenses with Frames Bifocal Vision Lenses with Frames
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