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COVERAGE WEDNESDAY MAY 13, 2015
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LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS
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Sinkhole takes out part of city street Crews repairing hole on Albert Street between Gamma and Delta By Janaya Fuller-Evans
jfuller-evans@burnabynow.com
HELP WANTED: Burnaby’s Flor Padilla with her children Jalen and Rayna. Padilla wants the city to offer evening child-minding options at local rec centres for parents who take classes. PHOTO CHUNG CHOW
Should kids go to class? Mom who wants to attend night courses says city needs to provide child care By Jennifer Moreau
jmoreau@burnabynow.com
When Burnaby’s Flor Padilla signed up for an evening ukulele class at Edmonds Community Centre, she already sensed trouble. She had planned to bring her two young children to sit on the sidelines, since there was no child-minding beyond noon at Edmonds. But when she called to see if that was OK with the centre, the answer was no, and she had to drop the class. That wasn’t the first time.There was also the “fitness fiasco,” when Padilla was told she could no longer attend a Wednesday evening class at Cameron with her kids be-
cause they were a liability. “Yeah they were noisy, because they were chatting it up, but I didn’t see any liability issues.There was no heavy equipment. They were in my care,” Padilla told the NOW. “I was told nobody complained. It was strictly because of their policy, which is not written down, … that children are not allowed in a fitness class.” Padilla left confused and angry. Padilla works in a government office during the day, and her husband works long hours, so she has taken her kids to classes, even though she knows it’s not ideal. Her kids are two and four years old.They entertain themselves on the sidelines with toys, and they are also enrolled in a host of their own activities.
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In an email to Padilla, Cameron’s supervisor, Robin Juergensen, apologized for the fitness class situation and empathized with Padilla as a working mother, but she also explained Burnaby’s recreation centres don’t let children sit in on adult classes. “To assist parents to participate in recreational activities for themselves, we do provide child-minding services at locations and times where there is sufficient demand for the service,” Juergensen wrote. “This is a consistent practice in City of Burnaby recreation facilities for the safety of the child and participants, because there is a risk of injury to the child in an adult activity and a risk the child may inadvertently cause injury to a participant.This practice is not Continued on page 8
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Some Albert Street residents may have experienced a sinking feeling when they returned home from work Monday. The street between Gamma and Delta avenues was cordoned off after a sinkhole developed there Monday around noon, according to Marilyn Towill, Metro Vancouver’s division manager for transmission operations, water services. According to Towill, the sinkhole is a result of water flowing beneath the road, washing away the gravel bed under the asphalt. “We’re still investigating the cause of the water and the damage to the street,” The she said, adding it doesn’t look like water was residential propercontained ties have sustained any damage at this primarily to point. the road. “Because of the slope of the land, the water was contained primarily to the road,”Towill said. There were also no reports of injuries, according to Towill. “We are pleased with that,” she said. Metro Vancouver is working with the City of Burnaby to determine the source of the water, as both the regional authority and the city have done infrastructure work in the area in recent years,Towill said. A crew from Metro Vancouver was on site Tuesday morning, beginning repair work on the sinkhole. They will peel back the asphalt and replace the gravel fill before repaving the Continued on page 5
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