Tuesday March 4, 2014 (Vol. 39 No. 18)
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W H I T E
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Rivalry renewed: Surrey Eagles will take the first step toward successfully defending their Fred Page Cup title when they face the first-place Langley Rivermen in BCHL playoffs this week.
S U R R E Y
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i see page 31
Couple’s legacy honoured by renaming White Rock’s Centre for Active Living
Toasting one final gift to your health Tracy Holmes Staff Reporter
Longtime Peninsula residents Horst and Emmy Werner weren’t the type to do things for recognition. “These were very classy, dignified people,” South Surrey lawyer Dale Bradford said Thursday, during a ceremony celebrating the renaming of White Rock’s Centre for Active Living in the couple’s honour. “Every time I come in here, I’ll think of Horst and Emmy.” The renaming – to the Horst & Emmy Werner Centre for Active Living – recognizes the $1.75 million that Emmy Werner, who died in 2012, gifted to the Peace Arch Hospital and Community Health Foundation in her will. It is the culmination of a history support-
Tracy Holmes photo
Executor Dale Bradford, Mayor Wayne Baldwin and foundation chair Graham Cameron. ing the foundation that the Werners started in 1999. “They would go out for walks in the community and they would pop in here and leave their gift,” Stephanie Beck, the foundation’s director of major and planned gifts,
told Peace Arch News. “For a few years, they dropped off about $10,000 annually.” During their lifetime, the Werners donated approximately $135,000 to the foundation. Bradford said the couple, who met at Lake Louise, Alta. and married in 1953, came to
him in 2000. Noting they had no family in Canada – Emmy had a son prior to meeting Horst, but Michael died at three months of age – they asked the lawyer to be the alternate executor of their estate. He said their decision to gift the entire estate to the foundation was “not anything that I foresaw.” When they first came to Bradford, the Werners wanted to earmark half of it to the foundation, and split the other half between some friends, he said. For reasons unknown to Bradford, that changed a couple years later. While Bradford wasn’t personally close to the Werners, he became emotional reading a letter about them from the husband of Emmy’s goddaughter, who lives in Germany. i see page 2
Town centre planning
Urban redesigns on horizon
Kevin Diakiw photo
Former prime ministers Ehud Barak (Israel), Julia Gillard (Australia) and George Papandreou (Greece) addressed a crowd in Surrey last week.
Former prime ministers tell Surrey audience how they dealt with 2008 crisis
World leaders talk economic change Kevin Diakiw Black Press
Three former international prime ministers last week described the shock of facing the 2008 global recession and how it served as a teaching moment moving forward. Ehud Barak (Israel), Julia Gillard (Australia) and George Papandreou (Greece) addressed
a crowd of about 1,000 at the Sheraton Vancouver Guildford Hotel during the Surrey Regional Economic Summit on Thursday. They outlined their countries’ positions as the world economy ground to a halt in 2008. Papandreou described Greece as the weak link in the European Union and the lightning rod for criticism. During the crisis, he was
getting calls from other leaders looking for assurances his country would not default on its loans. “They knew that if Greece went under, we could have a new global recession,” Papandreou said. “That just shows how interconnected we were.” i see page 4
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Rotary Book Sale March 2 to 9 Rotary Club of White Rock
The City of Surrey is embarking on a redesign of five of its six town centres over the next two years. Town-centre plans getting a makeover include Semiahmoo, Newton, Cloverdale, Fleetwood and Guildford. Existing town centre plans are 15-20 years old. Extensive consultation is to include planning workshops with community groups and businesses, and several public forums are to be part of the process. On the table for discussion will be appropriate future land uses; density of housing and commercial development; streets, walkways, transit and transportation infrastructure; best uses of public space; and urban design guidelines including beautification, heritage and public art opportunities. The initiative begins this year with an update of the Newton, Cloverdale and Fleetwood plans. Semiahmoo and Guildford will follow in 2015. Surrey’s sixth town centre, City Centre, already has an updated town-centre plan.