The Chilliwack
Progress Wednesday
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Chilliwack rugby players Bermuda bound.
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New home sought for youth shelter Online outrage has group reviewing options Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Proponents of an emergency youth shelter are pushing ahead to find a new location in Chilliwack. The topic exploded on social media Friday in reaction to the owner of Decades Coffee Club announcing that the coffee shop would either have to move or change locations by June, to make room for the incoming youth shelter. As a result of the uproar that ensued, those plans have in fact changed, according to project proponents, Les Talvio, executive director of Cyrus Centre, and Todd Lueck, director of City Life Centre. They issued a joint press release Saturday confirming they won’t be pursuing the Wellington Avenue property, where Decades leases space, for a youth shelter facility. “We did not expect the pushback we received on this,” Lueck noted. They do want to clear the air for Chilliwack about their intentions. “Our first objective is restoration,” said Lueck, about the youth in relation to their families, and the need to provide safe housing, free from sexual exploitation, for youth who are homeless or at-risk. They made it clear the youth shelter service is not intended to be an extension of the City Life Church as has been erroneously suggested. Lueck, is City Outreach pastor with City Life Church and director of City Life Centre, which is focused on community efforts to become “a more integral part” of the city. The Chilliwack church Continued: CYRUS/ p6
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From right, Canada Post employees Laurel Knopp and Angel Hoare, and retired employee Ed Nicholles, protest outside the post office at Yale Road and Nowell Street on Monday. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Posties protest change to ‘hole in the wall’ Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Canada Post is calling its new downsizing approach a “Postal Service Centre” model. The changes in retail configurations are set to hit post offices across the country in the coming weeks. Posties are calling it a “holein-the-wall” approach to describe what the new cutout service windows will actually look like. “You used to be able to walk in to the Post Office in Chilliwack and see nice displays,” said Peter Butcher, president of the Upper Valley local of Canadian Union of Postal Workers. “That will all be
gone by the end of the month, if plans are executed they way they have been announced.” Some CUPW members met with management, while others held a small protest outside the post office in downtown Chilliwack Monday morning to warn the public about potential downsizing impacts. The goal was to emphasize the concerns they have about the reconfiguration plans, and the possible effects on customer service and local post office jobs. “Everything will be done online and they won’t have products displayed any more,” Butcher said. “I think people will only be more frustrated by this.”
Staffing at the downtown Chilliwack retail post office is set to be reduced from the current two employees to one, but no one will lose their job over this, and collective agreements will be respected, underlined the Crown corporation in an emailed response. There will only be one retail point of sale system, or one cash register in Chilliwack, rather than two, according to Canada Post. But Butcher said there was always three staff positions at the Chilliwack Post Office in the past, that will now be cut to just one. The downsizing announced in January, including the end of home delivery, will affect service
quality, local economic activity and wait times at the retail level, he said. Canada Post officials say despite the concerns, the Chilliwack post office will remain open and its “most popular” retail services maintained. “We do plan to introduce our new Postal Service Centre model at the Chilliwack Post Office,” confirmed Canada Post spokesman John Caines this week. “While the exact date is still to be determined, we expect to be operational within the next couple of months.” The reason is rapidly declining letter mail volumes. They’re down Continued: POST/ p5
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