GREAT TEACHERS IN OUR COMMUNITY
PENINSULA
LOOK FOR OUR SPECIAL FEATURE DELIVERED IN SELECT PAPERS TODAY!
Summer music scene
Explore the Peninsula
Canadian cellist Ariel Barnes plays Eine Kleine Summer Music this weekend, page 9
Inside today’s edition, find four pages of adventure on the Saanich Peninsula Black Press C O M M U N I T Y
N E W S
M E D I A
NEWS REVIEW
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Friday, June 27, 2014
Celebrate Canada Sidney Days starts June 30 Steven Heywood News staff
Canada’s 147th birthday is July 1 and Sidney is celebrating in style with their annual Sidney Days program. Events get started on Sunday, June 29 with the revival of the Sidney Sidewalk Sale — local merchants on Beacon Avenue hit the streets The 2014 with special deals and Sidney Days more. program: Activity continued get yours Monday evening, June inside 30 with entertainment today’s in Beacon Park, a PNR. parade from Town Hall to the waterfront and a Canada Day ceremony. That’s followed by a fireworks show at around 10 p.m., best seen from Beacon Wharf and along the Waterfront Walkway. Family fun continues on Canada Day with a pancake breakfast, the big parade along Beacon Avenue (it starts at 11:30 a.m. this year), fun and games in Iroquois Park and the Build-A-Boat race on Sidney’s busy waterfront. Read all of the details on these events — including where and when — in the Peninsula News Review’s program of events included in this edition. You can find out what the Town of Sidney, Peninsula Celebrations Society, local service groups and businesses have in store for Sidney Days this year. editor@peninsulanewsreview.com
Steven Heywood/News staff
Major Donald Leblanc, right, and Major Don Philip of 443 Maritime Helicopter Squadron stand on the ramp of their new hanger and headquarters facility at the Victoria International Airport. The unit will take official possession of the building on June 30. Turn to page three for more.
Task force report gets mixed review Steven Heywood News staff
Sidney’s task force on downtown revitalization has issued 16 recommendations to town council but a citizen’s watchdog group says there are few direct benefits on that list to help businesses along Beacon Avenue. Mayor Larry Cross’s downtown revitalization task force compiled a list of 79 ideas and suggestions since its creation back in April of this year. Cross
said he was looking to the task force members to come up with ideas that the Town could implement right away. A staff report says those items were ranked based on whether they could be put in place immediately, or if they were simply not feasible. They were also ranked on level of importance and the 16 with the best rank were advanced to Monday’s council meeting. The recommendations fall into categories such as signage,
financial and development policies and miscellaneous. Of the 16, six are already in place or being acted upon by the Town and many of the other recommendations — including business tax relief — were carefully worded to allow council to consider the impact on their bottom line. “I don’t want to approve this,” said Councillor Mervyn LougherGoodey Monday night at a regular council meeting. “There are tax implications involved and it
all needs more discussion.” “Why should the people of Sidney support businesses that are going to fail?” he asked regarding his concern that empty storefronts were brought about by bad business planning and that any reduction in business taxes would hit the Town’s resident tax base. Lougher-Goodey called the task force report “a mixed bag.” PLEASE SEE: Town will only consider, page 5
COME get your share ON SUNDAY JUNE 29