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Wednesday, Februar y 18, 2015 · mapleridgenews.com · est. 1978 · (office) 604-467-1122 · (d e li ve r y) 6 04 - 46 6- 6 39 7
Blue gets $127,000 severance Economic development manager thought buyout was confidential By Phil M elnyc h u k pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
The cost to Maple Ridge taxpayers for severance of Sandy Blue, economic development manager, was $127,038. Maple Ridge Mayor Nicole Read made the Blue announcement last week in a Facebook post on the Maple Ridge Council Watch page, saying she posted the amount as example of the new council’s commitment to transparency. “Further to council’s commitment to transparency, please know that the final severance amount paid to Sandy Blue in connection with her termination was $127,038.30,” she said. Blue was let go Feb. 3 as manager of the four-person strategic economic initiatives department after council decided they wanted someone else. She had served in the position since 2008. “It was all about fit,” Read said previously. “We need to deliver a strong economy in Maple Ridge going forward. We need to make some changes in order to do that.” She added that people in last year’s citizens’ survey said they wanted more jobs and more shopping to come to Maple Ridge. The city is now working on a change in economic development strategy and, therefore, wanted a new person to lead the four-person economic development department. See Blue, 5
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Rainer Stepputat wants CP Rail to stage its trains in the area provided, not along the tracks.
Idling trains irk neighbour Pitt resident wants response from CP Rail B y T i m Fi t z g e r a l d newsroom@mapleridgenews.com
R
ainer Stepputat is under no delusion he won’t hear the trains rumble past him. For the past 15 years, he’s lived in Pitt Meadows, his back yard butting against the CP Rail line that cuts a massive swath through the community.
But Stepputat said in the last eight months, a change in the way CP Rail both stage their trains and when they do their work have made life in his home intolerable. His home is located on 124 A Avenue, and directly behind his house are the two main tracks. Just north of that is the staging area for CP, where engines and box cars should be staged when waiting or being switched. Stepputat said the staging area remains empty most of the time while trains sit idling for hours at
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the Teamsters union representing more than 3,000 locomotive engineers, conductors, trainmen and yard workers. The union went on strike early Sunday, but went back to the negotiating table by Monday afternoon after the federal government entered back to work legislation earlier in the day. The two sides have agreed to binding arbitration. Stepputat has a video on his phone from the weekend, highlighting a train sitting, idling. See Trains, 12
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a time directly behind his neighbourhood, both during the middle of the day and, more frustratingly he said, in the middle of the night. “Up until last year, I could sit in my yard, have a bon fire and it was fine. It might have been five or six trains in a weekend,” said Stepputat. “Now it’s constant. They shunt their trains at two, three in the morning. They don’t care.” CP Rail is in the midst of contentious labour negotiations with
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