CHRISTMAS TRADITION The CP Rail Holiday Train completes its cross-Canada journey on Thursday in Port Moody (5:25 p.m.) and Port Coquitlam (7:30 p.m.). For details on the annual festivities, see page A16.
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Cuddy comes to town on train CRIME IN THE TRI-CITIES
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Medical pot users score another court win / Referendum poll: slim lead for new tax
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 17, 2014 Your community. Your stories
TRI-CITY
NEWS
Arrest follows assault, lockdowns weapon recovered in alleged assault of man SArAh PAyne
The Tri-CiTy News
A 31-year-old Coquitlam man is in custody after allegedly assaulting a man in a Heritage Mountain home Tuesday morning. The suspect also fits the description of a man who reportedly carjacked a woman’s vehicle on Eagle Mountain a short time later, not far from where the assault took place, according to Coquitlam RCMP. Port Moody Police Const. Luke van Winkel said officers responded as a priority after receiving the call of an assault with a weapon at 8:10 a.m. at the Birchwood Crescent home, where they found the weapon and a man with minor injuries. He was treated in hospital as a precaution.
Several roads leading down Heritage Mountain were blocked as police searched for the suspect and police also put nearby Aspenwood, Heritage Mountain, Pleasantside and Anmore elementary schools on a Code Yellow lockdown as well as Heritage Woods secondary and Eagle Mountain middle. “We’ve recovered a weapon but we can’t talk to the nature of what that was at this point,” van Winkel said. About two hours later Coquitlam RCMP responded to a report that a woman was carjacked at Bramble Lane and Crowberry Court, slightly east of where the assault took place, at 10:30 a.m. “The male suspect robbed the female victim of her vehicle and the female received some minor injuries and is being treated in hospital,” said RCMP Cpl. Jamie Chung. see SUSPECT, page A6
SARAH PAYNE/tHE tRi-citY NEwS
Port Moody Police officers look for evidence Tuesday morning on Heritage Mountain after a report that one man assaulted another with a weapon at a home on Birchwood Crescent. A suspect — a 31-year-old Coquitlam man — was later arrested after a carjacking in Coquitlam.
TRANSPORTATION REFERENDUM
Chamber backs mayors’ 0.5% tax bid Local biz group joins coalition SArAh PAyne
The Tri-CiTy News
The Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce is backing the Metro Vancouver mayors’
$7.5-billion transportation plan and its proposal to pay for it with a regional 0.5% PST increase. “We think we need transit for business, for the movement of goods and we need to improve the transportation system with more people moving in to this
area, particularly in the next 20 or 30 years,” said Michael Hind, the chamber’s executive director. “We need to invest in the future and this is the best way.” The organization is adding its name to those in the Better Transit and Transportation Coalition,
which includes the Vancouver Board of Trade, Downtown Surrey Business Improvement Association, David Suzuki Foundation, the BC Chamber of Commerce and more. The Tri-Cities Chamber’s policy committee and board of directors agreed
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on the move to join the coalition, noting that of all the funding options presented by Metro mayors, the 0.5% PST increase within Metro Vancouver was seen as the least prohibitive to business.
see ‘WE HAVE TO’, page A4
tRi-citY NEwS FiLE PHOtO
The Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce sees a planned expansion of public transit under the TransLink mayors’ proposal as a positive for business.
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