Up front: Tentative deal could get E&N passenger service on track page 7 On stage: And Then There Were None... staged at Brentwood page 21
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Friday, April 4, 2014
Peter W. Rusland
At least one person was hurt Thursday morning in a crash south of Duncan. Paramedics and Cowichan Bay firefighters removed a woman with undetermined injuries from a Windstar van after a northbound lane crash at the Bench Road-Trans Canada Highway intersection lights. The wreck, which happened at around 11 a.m., also involved an F-150 pick-up truck. The cause of the crash was under investigation at press time. Ashley Degraaf
News Leader Pictorial
Y
es, a new planning document for the University Village does suggest a new Cowichan Secondary School could be built at the Quamichan school site. No, that’s not the preferred option. Re-modelling Cowichan Secondary’s current Quamichan campus as its new high school is simply an option if the Ministry of Education throws the school district a curve ball, school district superintendent Joe Rhodes said Wednesday. According to Rhodes, the Quamichan campus retrofit was simply talk during University Village consultation. “We’re just being prepared for a curve ball. It was part of the dialogue in being prepared for
Quamichan emerges as an option B for new Cowichan Secondary
Only a fallback: Pioneer Park still the favoured choice as lobbying continues to replace the 64-year-old school all possibilities. That’s not what we’re going for at all,” he said. University Village is the new name officials have given the Vancouver Island University/ James Street/Beverly Street area. Duncan and North Cowichan have been hosting open houses in preparation for a long-term blueprint to guide its redevelopment. The new Cow High plays an important role
in those plans, but Rhodes said the ideal location is still what used to be Pioneer Park, north of the Island Savings Centre and next to the university campus. The school district announced a deal to buy that site from North Cowichan more than two years ago and is waiting for funding from the ministry to make it happen. The Quamichan option is a fallback if the ministry won’t fund
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that option. “If in the process of requesting a new Cow High, if the ministry told us, ‘No we won’t give you $80,000 but we will give you $40,000,’” said Rhodes. “It’s a waiting game.” Before any serious proposals are made, community consultation will take place, Rhodes said. North Cowichan manager of planning and sustainability, Brian Green, confirmed an education component would make up the jigsaw puzzle North Cowichan and Duncan are piecing together. “The area around the VIU and Islands Savings Centre, we’re saying is likely to have some sort of education component, whether that be a high school, building a tech centre, or there might be other potential, as well as expansions of VIU,” Green said. more on page 6
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