INSIDE: School District No. 33 loses yet another senior manager Pg. 6 September 24, 2010
F R I D A Y
She’s way off now 29 Broadway 1985-
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LOCAL NEWS, SPORTS, WEATHER & ENTERTAINMENT chilliwacktimes.com
Kids not ready for school Downtown kindergartners vulnerable BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
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And he talked of a similar hotel in Toronto that had been saved from the wreckers: “Rather than tear it down, they fixed it up for $3 million.” On the other side of the hotel, A&D Flagging’s Hank Lyons made sure traffic kept out of the danger zone. In a single hour Tuesday, just
downtown Chilliwack neighbourhood registered the second highest percentage of vulnerable kindergartners in B.C. last year, according to an ongoing study at UBC that measures the school preparedness of children across the province. Results released this week show almost two out of three children who started kindergarten in the neighbourhood that includes Central and McCammon elementary schools were ill-prepared because of social, emotional, language, communications and physical health deficits. “Students are behind in key areas when starting school and too many never catch up,” says the report, describing children considered vulnerable according the study’s assessment tool, the Early Development Instrument (EDI). The tool is a 104-point checklist kindergarten teachers complete for each child in their class to measure physical health, social competence, emotional maturity, language development and communication skills. Children who score low are considered vulnerable, and downtown Chilliwack has consistently posted some of the highest vulnerability percentages in the province. “Low EDI scores have to do with parents’ literacy levels, poverty, jobrelated stress or just living-related stress,” said Karin Rempel, Chillwack’s EDI representative and community co-ordinator for the Chilliwack Early Years Committee.
See EMPRESS, Page 4
See VULNERABLE, Page 27
Tyler Olsen/TIMES
The sun shone for the last time on the Empress Hotel Wednesday as a backhoe brought down the historic building.
End of the Empress BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
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he Empress Hotel stood at the centre of Chilliwack for decades; its m o c k - Tu d o r f a c a d e looking out over the burgeoning town that grew around it. On Tuesday, that facade was brought down by a backhoe which, by the following day, sat atop a heap of rubble at the site of the once proud hotel. The demolition’s most spectacular phase drew onlookers and souvenir hunters to witness
Memories come flooding back for those who witness final moments of once-grand hotel
what Chilliwack city hall hopes returned just in time to watch the is a turning point for the city’s death old watering hole. “It’s sad to see,” he said. downtown core. Ken Francis sat in his motorOne Yale Road onlooker named ized wheelchair across Gary, who wouldn’t give from the crumbling his last name, said he hotel. remembered drinking “I’m glad to see it come in the Empress’s pub in down,” he said. At the 1970, when it was regularly filled with long-haired EB IRST same time, Francis said it hippies. Gary left the city See demo video was sad to see the end of for nearly 30 years. He chilliwacktimes.com a Chilliwack landmark.
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