THURSDAYFEBRUARY 11, 2016
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CHANGING FACE OF ART
UPDATE ON JORDAN, ATHENA
Part two of a series examines exposure for artists at cafes
Famous bear cubs hibernate while officer waits for an arbitrator’s ruling
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MARTINDALE ROAD FLOODING
Receding politicians
Residents frustrated with lack of answers from gov’t AUREN RUVINSKY writer@pqbnews.com
Residents are looking for answers about perennial flooding on Martindale Road near Parksville. “I bug highways every year to dig ditches so it would drain quicker. I had Emcon there a month and a half ago… but they said they’re only paid for four feet off the road, so it wasn’t their responsibility,” said Duane Round, frustrated by what he called years of government avoiding responsibility. Round, spokesperson for the Martindale Residence Association, said Emcon did fill pot holes and mow and grade the sides. Emcon is the private contractor responsible for maintaining the road — which is in the Regional District of Nanaimo, despite almost being surrounded by Parksville — on behalf of the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. “The only time any government says or does anything is when there’s a flood, they all go down and Joe Stanhope stands up and says ‘these are my people and I’m going to save them,’ then the water recedes and the politicians recede and you never hear from them again.” More than two dozen emergency personnel from the RCMP and Arrowsmith Search and Rescue were called out to remove a woman from a car stranded in several feet of water during the most recent, Jan. 28 flooding, and Round said he’s worried a more serious emergency, like a heart attack, could be a lot worse when people are stranded. He said Parrys RV Park, which often bears the brunt of flooding, has done a bunch of remediation work themselves, but as far as he’s aware there has never been government help. See A UNIQUE CASE, page A9
J.R. RARDON PHOTO
MINI MIGRATION: Anastasia Pawlyshyn, left, joins kindergarten classmates in the annual Butterfly Migration through the hallways and foyer of École Oceanside Elementary School in Parksville Friday. Each year, the school’s youngsters migrate to Mexico and back in a lesson on the life cycle of the butterfly.
81-YEAR-OLD BOWSER MAN MISSING SINCE THURSDAY
Official search called off AUREN RUVINSKY
writer@pqbnews.com
The family of 81-year-old missing Bowser man James Roberts will continue looking, but the “professionals have left the area,” Cpl. Jesse Foreman of the Oceanside RCMP said of the massive search and rescue effort. Roberts, suffering with dementia, was last seen at 10:30 a.m. Thursday,
Feb. 4, leaving his home near the Lighthouse Community Centre along Lions Way. “He left his residence, he had a bag of popcorn,” Arrowsmith Search and Rescue (ASAR) search manager Joe Kinch said. “He goes down to one certain spot to feed the birds, basically across from his trailer… and that was it, he never came home.”
“The bush is so thick. They’ve got a beautiful trail system up there. He used to walk the trails all the time, but always with other people, but once you leave the trails, oh man I’ll tell ya, it is so thick, there’s broom, salal, devil’s club. Our searchers did a heck of a job, but we just couldn’t find any evidence of him in any direction.” See MOST SEARCHERS, page A9
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