Friday
May 18, 2018 (Vol. 43 No. 40)
V O I C E
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W H I T E
R O C K
A N D
S O U T H
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Countdown for fraudsters: After more than 20 years in the field, international forensics accountant Simon Padgett shares some of the hazards, and successes, that come with his job. › see page A11
Metro board to consider recommendation for Surrey to rethink South Campbell Heights request next week
‘No rationale’ to expand Campbell area Tracy Holmes Staff reporter
Senior staff at Metro Vancouver say there is “no substantial rationale or demonstrated need” to expand urban development into the Hazelmere Valley. In a report that was presented to Metro’s regional planning committee, and supported earlier this month, senior regional planner Terry Hoff recommends
that the MV board ask the City of Surrey to consider an “alternate amendment” with regard to land-use designations for the South Campbell Heights area. “Staff do not recommend the proposed extension of the (Urban Containment Boundary) and conversion of Rural lands to allow General Urban development south beyond 16 Avenue,” Hoff concludes. The Metro board is scheduled to con-
sider the resolution at its May 25 meeting. The city had asked in January to amend the regional growth strategy (Metro 2040) – including extending the urban containment boundary by 235 hectares – in order to accommodate the “Stage 1 South Campbell Heights Land Use Plan” that was endorsed by Surrey council last July. The area subject to the proposed amendment – south of 16 Avenue near 192 Street,
abutting the Township of Langley – is currently designated rural in Metro 2040, and identified as a Special Study Area. (The tag typically applies to locations where a municipality, prior to adoption of the RGS, has “expressed an intention to alter the existing land use… but where more planning work for the area needed to be undertaken,” Hoff’s report notes.) Continued on A10
Inspiration for Alexa’s team
10 years on, how a little girl’s death saves lives Katya Slepian Black Press Media
T
hree people a week. Moms, dads, kids. Killed by drunk drivers in B.C. in the mid-2000s, with no sign of it ever changing. Retired RCMP inspector Ted Emanuels says it matter-offactly, sitting in the office of the province’s traffic division. Trying to prosecute those drivers under the province’s outdated criminal system was one of his biggest challenges, and biggest frustrations, of his career at that time. “It took a police officer 40 hours to get through one criminal impaired-driving charge,” Emanuels says. Without that, there was no way to get a driver off the road for any longer than a day. And there were so, so many drunk drivers. “It was a societal norm. It was so normal to drink and drive that even police officers drank
Katya Slepian photo
Laurel Middelaer holds a photograph of her daughter Alexa, who was killed by a drunk driver 10 years ago and inspired Alexa’s Team, comprising officers around B.C. and drove,” Emanuels says. “People thought, if you drank and drove and never killed anybody, where was the victim? If you got away with it, what was the harm?” Then came the tragic death of a little girl. Laurel Middelaer takes a deep breath, 10 years later, as
she begins to once again tell the story of how her daughter was killed. “It really was a perfect day with Alexa,” she says. The words tumble out of her mouth almost mechanically as Middelaer sits calmly on the patio of her South Surrey home. It was 10 years ago yesterday,
May 17, 2008, the first day of the Victoria Day long weekend. It was a beautiful spring morning in Ladner. She and Alexa, who attended preschool in Crescent Beach, had gone swimming in the family’s pool. The little girl had wanted to show off her favourite horse to her aunt Daphne, an equestrian
herself, and her beloved grandparents, who had just arrived from Alberta. “She loved this horse that was just about 200 metres away from where we lived. It was a very gentle horse and it would just let Alexa hang on its neck,” Middelaer says. Continued on A4
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