Maple Ridge News, December 17, 2014

Page 1

Business: B.C. chamber of commerce supports PST increase. 3

Sports: Pitt golfer signs with Seattle U. 35

Arts: A Christmas Carol. 29 We d n es d ay, D e ce m b e r 17, 2014 · mapleridgenews.com · est. 1978 · (office) 604-467-1122 · (d e li ve r y) 6 0 4 - 4 6 6 - 6 3 9 7

Pitt council takes over economic development Replaces volunteer board members with councillors By Neil Corbett ncorbett@mapleridgenews.com

Pitt Meadows council has replaced the volunteers who sit on the board of the Pitt Meadows Economic Development Corporation with the members of council themselves. Mayor John Becker said the change is a return to the arrangement when the board first was founded. Becker said council has “lost strategic control of the corporation” and needs to get it back. He also said it didn’t make sense for economic development to sponsor Christmas in the City, or a Christmas tree decorating contest. “We need to re-focus energies on the strategic work that was originally intended,” he added. Coun. Janis Elkerton supported the move.

Inspired The Shred, Share, Stoked Skate Competition took place at the Greg Moore Youth Centre on Sunday. Story, 33. Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS

See Eco dev, 11

New trial ordered in fatal highway crash Andelina Hecimovic was acquitted last year B y P h i l M e l nychuk pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com

THE NEWS/files

Beckie Dyer and her boyfriend, Johnny De Oliveira, died in a crash in October 2010.

Two B.C. Appeal Court justices have ordered a new trial following the acquittal last year of Andelina Kristina Hecimovic of dangerous driving causing death in connection with the deaths of Beckie Dyer and Johnny De Oliveira four years ago. “Without having a new trial, it

sets a precedent for everybody,” Becky’s mother, Debbie Dyer, said Monday. “It’s a huge thing for the Crown to take it to appeal.” When the new trial will start in New Westminster Supreme Court, though, isn’t known. Hecimovic has 30 days to decide whether to appeal the case to the Supreme Court of Canada. Rebecca ‘Beckie’ Dyer, 19, and her boyfriend, Johnny De Oliveira, 21, died around midnight Oct. 19, 2010 on Lougheed Highway near Harris Road.

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A Toyota driven by Hecimovic skidded sideways over a concrete median, flipped and landed on top of the couple’s Suzuki Swift. Hecimovic was driving in the rightturn-only lane when she crossed the intersection of Harris Road and Lougheed Highway on a red light. An expert estimated she hit the concrete median at a speed of between 100 or 110 km/h. In the initial trial in September 2013, Justice Miriam Gropper ruled that Hecimovic was not trying to beat the red light. Hecimovic testified at trial that

she was heading to her boyfriend’s house after a trying day working as a nurse at Eagle Ridge Hospital, where a suicidal young man vomited on her. Hecimovic told the court she was thinking about her shift and suddenly smelled something odd as she approached the intersection. When she looked at her scrubs she noticed vomit on her shirt and burst into tears. She was trying to wipe the tears off her face and focus on the road when she realized she had run a red light. See Appeal, 12

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