Sidewinder Time to get budget priorities straight. p6
Downtown monuments to fire. fire p3
THE NEWS
Sports Burrards begin another GET BACK TO WLA season. COUNTRY! p36WEEKEND MAY LONG Information and rodeo results at
www.mapleridgenews.com Friday, May 16, 2014 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · Delivery: 604-466-6397 CloverdaleRodeo.com
Richard Richardson will appear for a sentencing date on May 29.
files
Maple Ridge man guilty of sex crimes Offences date back to 1980s by Nei l Corbe tt staff reporter
A Maple Ridge sex offender has been found guilty of three crimes against two brothers, dating back to the 1980s. Richard Elbertson Richardson, 62, was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault and one of gross indecency in New Westminster Supreme Court on Tuesday. He was found not guilty of two other charges, buggery and indecent assault on a male person, which related to the same circumstances. The crimes occurred between 1981 and 1983. The court found Richardson drank vodka at his home in Maple Ridge with a 15-year-old boy before sexually assaulting him. He assaulted the boy on five different occasions. He also assaulted a 10-year-old brother of the victim twice. The older victim, who still lives in the area, said just getting Richardson off the streets is important, which is why he came forward. “When I found out he was in custody, that was a relief to me,” he said. See Guilty, p13
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
Rita Parsons glances out the window as Signy Eggertson and Emily Little talk in the background. All three neighbours might be forced to move from their subsidized homes next week.
Seniors told, pay more or move B.C. Housing clamping down on ‘over-housing’ in subsidized units by P h i l M e l nychuk staff reporter
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ife on a fixed income will be tougher a year from now for several Maple Ridge residents when B.C. Housing clamps down on subsidized suites that don’t have the proper number of occupants. For 11 residents of Devonshire
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Court Housing Co-op, who live in two-bedroom apartments, rent will jump by $166 by next April 1, off their pension or disability income. Either the pensioners pay or they move to one-bedroom apartments, if they can find any. “I think they’re trying to make us all street people,” said Emily Little, who lives in a two-bedroom suite that she shared with her husband until he passed away. Little is in one of the subsidized suites in the co-op and scrapes by on a small company pension, as well as CPP and Old Age Security. And when next April rolls around
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and the rent increases, she’ll figure out a way to pay for it. “We can pay the $166, but is that going to last for any length of time?” When will be the next increase, she asked. “Then I’ll do without a supper a week – or something like that.” According to B.C. Housing, the rents have to go up so money can be available for other subsidized housing. Residents will still get a subsidy, but only that for a onebedroom apartment, requiring residents to pay the difference. Signy Eggertson, on disability income of $905 a month, is in the same predicament after her
roommate moved out. Only five of the 47 apartments in the building are one-bedroom. “There’s nowhere to go out there. This is absolutely ridiculous. What are people supposed to do?” Louise Parson’s 87-year-old mom Rita will also pay the extra $166 so she can stay in her twobedroom apartment, where she’s lived for almost 20 years and for which she pays $453 a month. Her husband, a war vet, died in 2001, leaving Rita the sole occupant. “I’m staying here. Nobody else wants me,” she said Wednesday.
AC TREE C
See Housing, p5
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