THREAT BAD FOR BUSINESS
SECURITY UPGRADES
Downtown merchants impacted by incident
Mission Museum to get fence, video cameras
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POST OFFICE RALLY PAGE 5
Small crowd gathers at Save Canada Post event
2012
CCNA
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85¢+ GST
Friday, August 28, 2015
SERVING MISSION SINCE 1908
Observatory project scrapped Council lists concerns, including Heritage Park building violations Kevin Mills Mission Record
There will not be an observatory in Fraser River Heritage Park. The project, which is already under construction, will be re-purposed according to a press release issued by the District of Mission. The release lists a variety of reasons that the project will be abandoned, including building code violations, safety concerns and an unrealistic business plan. The district claims the construction of the observatory proceeded without the required drawings and permits in place and professional consultants demonstrat-
ed that the Mission Heritage Association’s business plan “is inadequately developed.” The release also says the construction and operation costs are drastically under-estimated while the revenue estimates are unrealistically high. “The observatory is dead,” said Mission Mayor Randy Hawes. “All of the stuff that we were told about the business plan, the research, all of it was really smoke and mirrors, not factual.” Council has not decided what to do with the partially constructed building. “What we want to do is take a look at a host of potential uses and then do some consultation with the public. I’ve got to be
honest, included in that host of potentials would be to tear it down and just take it away. “We don’t know if it meets any kind of building code at the moment,” said Hawes. The observatory isn’t the only building project, organized by the Mission Heritage Association, that council is concerned about. The release lists similar concerns regarding the Clayburn building, Blackberry Kitchen and other MHA projects. MHA president Brian Antonson told the Record that the association has heard these claims from the district before. “We’ve discussed this many times with
them,” said Antonson. He called the three buildings in question works in progress, adding the district told the association that it was assuming control over them. “All of the deficiencies that are mentioned there would have been looked after if we kept on building. But we were told to stop. So we did,” said Antonson, adding there are two sides to every story. Antonson said the MHA is not without some blame. “There have been errors made, and we were working on eradicating all those things.” Continued on 3
VINTAGE RACING
Driver Peter Weedon in his yellow Toyota Sports Racer WSR takes part in the 28th annual BC Historic Motor Races event at Mission Raceways last weekend. The event is hosted each year by the Vintage BOB FRIESEN PHOTO Racing Club.
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