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THE TWO best teams in the WHL, Kelowna and Portland, will square off in the Western Conference playoff final beginning Friday.
THE URBAN Development Institute is employing a sign campaign to illustrate the economic impact of the development industry in the Central Okanagan.
JOY Kutcher, 82, of Kelowna has been recognized for her community service for the past 40 years.
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84 serving our community 1930 to 2014
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TUESDAY April 15, 2014 The Central Okanagan’s Best-Read Newspaper www.kelownacapnews.com
Parks need money, not petitions
New trial for Snelson set for Kamloops Kathy Michaels STAFF REPORTER
Jennifer Smith
STAFF REPORTER
Recent petitions to save B.C. parks from legislation perceived as paving the way for pipelines through protected areas generated some of the hottest petitions online, but those concerns are likely misdirected, according to the woman charged with overseeing the system and a representative from the Campaign for B.C. Parks. The recent B.C. Parks Amendment Act, Bill 4, passed into law, but was widely criticized in traditional media and online forums as a means to open parks to industrial uses, the pair told the B.C. Wildlife Federation Friday during its annual general meeting. In response to the perceived threat, several online petitions surfaced including one by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society generating 165,000 signatures in a week from Facebook users. “It was some of the best results the site hosting it has ever seen,” Ric Careless, Campaign for Parks spokesman said of the petition launched on Sum of Us. But Careless sees the amendments as an unfortunate red herring, noting the response from the public clearly indicates pipelines in parks would be met with vehement protest. “We did an analysis with my organization, BC Spaces for Nature, and we are of the belief all of the proposed pipelines could be built without the necessity of going through parks,” he said. “I think that aspect of the amendment is unfortunate…There has been confusion around boundary policy.” Lori Hall, the civil servant in charge of parks and protected spaces for the B.C. Ministry of Environment, said the legislative changes were really an administrative clean-up meant to ensure the wording of the Parks Act reflects stop-gap measures those working on the ground have developed to deal with requests from the film industry, researchers and tourism operators who want to undertake activities technically considered off limits. Smaller parks, originally, had special provisions expressly preventing commercial activity when managed under forestry, she explained. Now that activities, like logging, are off limits in
CONTRIBUTED
SWEARING IN…Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick was sworn in
Friday in Victoria as the new minister of agriculture, taking over the cabinet post from Pat Pimm who stepped aside due to personal health issues. Letnick takes on the job on the heels of changes introduced by the government to how the Agricultural Land Reserve will function, opening up more opportunities for non-agriculture related farm land use in some parts of the province. See story on A3.
See Parks A6
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The man charged with the 1993 killing of Jennifer Cusworth succeeded in his bid to have his trial moved out of Kelowna. Neil George Snelson will now be tried for manslaughter in a Kamloops courtroom. Snelson’s lawyer, Wade Jenson, told the court Monday that Crown counsel Iain Currie consented to the location transfer. A date for the upcoming trial will be set April 28. It’s a move that didn’t come as a surprise to friends and family of Cusworth. Jennifer’s mother Jean recently pointed out that Snelson and his legal team “know how Kelowna” feels about them. It’s filled with people “who want justice for Jennifer,” she said, outside the courtroom when Snelson made a court appearance last January. And, she said, the move will be more convenient for her and her husband as they’ve recently relocated to Pritchard, which is much closer. The Cusworths, regardless of location, will be at court every day for the second round of the trial. In 2011 a Kelowna jury convicted Snelson of manslaughter. That verdict was overturned late last year when the Court of Appeal ruled that the trial judge erred by showing the jury a portion of video where Snelson can be heard telling a police officer that he hadn’t yet decided how he was to plead to the charges he was facing. Jenson appealed the judge’s decision to show that portion of video evidence, noting it was prejudicial. Jennifer Cusworth, 19, was found in October 1993, beaten and strangled in a ditch off Swamp Road. The case went cold for 15 years, until police arrested Snelson, now 47, in 2009. DNA evidence revealed he had sex with the teen the night she died. He was sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter.
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