Stellar goaltending keeps Posse alive page 9
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The Similkameen
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Volume 65 Issue 37
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Town fields controversial zoning applications Andrea DeMeer Spotlight Staff
Should they be residential? Should they be commercial? That is the question town council will have to decide as it considers requests for controversial amendments to its zoning bylaw and Official Community Plan for four properties on Burton Avenue. Twenty-six business and home owners crowded into the boardroom at the Princeton library Monday night to share their opinions. “There’s a hard position on one side and a hard position on the other side,” said Rick Zerr, town CAO, who chaired the discussion. There were no members of council present at the meeting. Zerr said they chose not to
attend in order to allow municipal staff to collect information and prepare a report. He characterized the meeting as “a first step…it is not the formal rezoning process.” Business owners talked about the restrictions and financial hardships caused by the town’s 2013 zoning bylaw, which implemented the OCP adopted in 2008 and changed industrial lands to residential. “The people who have commercial properties are paying a tremendous financial burden for the desire of the planners,” said Hoss Budde, who owns commercial property in the area but is not one of the applicants. Budde said some investors lost up 85 per cent of the value of their properties when the
zoning bylaw was passed two years ago. “Many of us have invested a lot of money in our properties too,” said Ken Carlson, who lives on Burton Avenue. “We appreciated the certainty of the OCP. We cannot have someone flipping this. That’s not fair. “The OCP was developed over a long process with a large percentage of people participating.” Monday’s meeting was the first public airing of an issue that has been brewing on the letters to the editor page for months. Twenty-two business properties were rezoned from industrial to residential in November 2013, following the dictates of the five-year-old OCP. The current applicants for
rezoning purchased or modified their business properties between the adoption of the OCP and the passing of the zoning bylaw and were unaware of the pending changes. “If we can’t continue to do our business and have assurance for whatever the course of business will be, why would I invest one more cent in being here?” asked Susan Robinson, co-owner of Ace Hardware and Fletcher Trucking, which has made two of the applications. Robinson pointed out her company supports 50 local charities, is a significant employer “and we try to be good citizens, not just in the town but in our neighborhood…it has to work both ways.” continued page 10
Grandma beats cancer....four times running Andrea DeMeer Spotlight Staff
Some people don’t just beat cancer. Some people beat it with a stick. Meet Barb Gagnon, who has faced and fought the grim diagnosis four times in 63 years, while losing two sisters to the disease. Familiar to many in town as the activities coordinator at Ridgewood Lodge, Gagnon will be one of “Terry’s Team,” a group of local cancer survivors leading the Terry Fox Run in Princeton this Sunday. Gagnon had uterine cancer at age 24, which resulted in a hysterectomy. She had breast cancer twice while in her forties, and beat kidney cancer three years ago. She never thought of giving up. “Oh hell no. It just makes you fight more. I want to see my grandchildren get married and I want to be a great-grandma.” Gagnon considers herself “very lucky” not only to have survived four bouts of cancer, but to have learned from the experiences. “I’m lucky I’ve had it. It makes you look at life different, you know.” She recalls her lowest point as the time following her first battle with breast cancer. “Two months after my treatment finished, when I was 42, my sister passed away from breast cancer. But that also gave me the incentive to carry on in her memory.” Gagnon attributes her remarkable survival rate to
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early diagnosis “and a guardian angel.” She urges others to be proactive about their own health. “You’ve got to be responsible for your own body. When things are different you’ve got to go and find out about it.” Cancer survivors are keenly aware the disease may return at any time, she said. “You stub your toe and you think ‘Oh my god.’ Once you’ve been diagnosed it’s always a worry in the back of your mind. You never lose that. That’s the case with any survivor.” Cancer has shaped Gagnon’s life in different ways. She heads up a local breast cancer support group, which will be donating proceeds from a number of fundraisers to the Terry Fox Run this weekend. She has also participated for several years in an annual 60 km walk called “Breast Friends.” The walk has taken place in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal, and London, England, and raised more than $200,000. Princeton’s Terry Fox Run takes place this Sunday, September 20, at Veteran’s Square, with registration beginning at 10 am. The goal for this year’s event is $3,500 – a nod in the direction of the campaign’s 35th anniversary – and organizers hope for 150 participants. For more information or to make a donation contact run co-ordinator Holly Fenrick at 250-2957051.
Andrea DeMeer
Cancer survivors, members of Terry’s Team, will join with other supporters as they lead the Terry Fox Run in Princeton this Sunday. Some of the run’s participants are, back row left to right, (Terry’s Team in red shirts), Crystal Groves, Barb Gagnon, Erin Traverse, Joan Allison, Julie Arren, Darla Biagioni. Front row Kitty Lynch, Sarah Baines, Russel Biagioni and run organizer Holly Fenrick.