MAY
• A story of a struggle to survive and a tragic loss materialized following the sudden passing of a Sechelt man in a boating accident off the waters of Texada Island. Jordan Patrick Beau-doin, 38, perished in the accident.
Beaudoin and his partner Shannon McBoyle had set out from Halfmoon Bay to spend the day fishing off Texada Island in their 16-foot powerboat when they got into trouble. The pair sought shelter in a secluded inlet, and when the weather appeared to improve they decided to make a run back to Halfmoon Bay. But the weather poured in, forcing the couple to ditch their boat and swim for the shore. McBoyle made it while Beaudoin did not. McBoyle sought help from area residents and a massive search was conducted with searchers finding Beaudoin’s body washed ashore a day after the accident.
• The SCRD delayed the start of curbside recycling in Halfmoon Bay and Roberts Creek and instead gave the public a chance to weigh in on the new Multi-Material BC (MMBC) stewardship program.
With that decision in the background, MMBC managing director Allen Langdon said he was concerned by SCRD directors’ “second thoughts” when he appeared before the infrastructure services committee.
• Due to the high number of false alarms consuming members’ time, the Sunshine Coast RCMP detachment instituted a new response policy for commercial and residential alarms. Under the new system, police would attend commercial alarms that have been verified, as well as panic alarms and hold-up alarms.
• Chief Calvin Craigan was set to make history by hosting his own talk show on Coast TV. The twice-monthly half-hour show is the first of its kind in Canada to be hosted by a First Nation chief.
• After putting curbside recycling for Roberts Creek and Halfmoon Bay on hold to consult the public, the SCRD put the public consultation on hold to consult first with Multi-Material BC (MMBC).
Directors voted to ask MMBC to take on the curbside recycling program in the two electoral areas, instead of providing a per-household financial incentive to the SCRD to provide the service under an existing contract.
• Almost half of the Sunshine Coast’s population is 55 or older according to 2013 B.C. population statistics. What this means to the adults in this demographic and the rest of the Coast was the subject of a Taking Action Day organized by the Community Resource Centre.
• Chinese investor Owen Wang purchased the Sechelt Golf and Country Club. Although he wouldn’t say what he paid for the 18-hole course, he divulged his plans to invest upwards of $20 million into the greens and a new hotel/spa on site. He planned to put at least $2 million worth of improvements into the golf course and clubhouse.
• A former Gibsons resident, 21-year-old Hayden Kyle, was one of three confirmed missing and presumed drowned after a tragic canoe accident on Slocan Lake, just north of Nelson.
The accident happened as Kyle and friends Skye Donnet, 18, Jule Wiltshire-Padfield, 15, and Lily Harmer-Taylor, 19, were paddling between the village of New Denver and Rosebery along Slocan Lake. None of them was wearing a life jacket at the time.
• Volunteer firefighters from Egmont and fire chiefs from along the Coast assembled in the SCRD board room to mark a historic change in command. The occasion was the retirement of fire Chief Peter Sly, who was instrumental in establishing the Egmont and District Volunteer Fire Department between 2001 and 2004, and the appointment of assistant chief Kal Helyar as Sly’s replacement.
• Teachers planned walkouts and the government announced lockouts as both sides applied pressure to try to force a deal. The B.C. Teachers’ Federation announced that teachers across the province would start a series of rotating strikes aimed at shutting down school districts and putting pressure on the province.
• Sechelt’s new wastewater treatment plant was shined up and shown off during an invitation-only dedication ceremony revealing the plant’s new name.
“We’re calling it the Sechelt Water Resource Centre because we look at this system as a resource,” then-Sechelt Mayor John Henderson told the crowd of about 40.
• As SD46 prepared for a one-day teachers’ strike, they learned of another one planned. The night before the May 29 walkout on the Coast, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation announced they would continue rotating strikes the following week, closing Coast schools once again on Tuesday, June 3.
Other school districts throughout the province were also shut down on a rotating basis as teachers continued their phase two job action.
• The long overdue and much worked at Davis Bay revitalization project was starting to come to completion with the unveiling of two beautiful Davis Bay Parkway signs. The Davis Bay Parkway Society and representatives from the District of Sechelt were on hand to unveil the signs, which were designed by Sunshine Coast artist Jan Poynter and constructed by Duane Perrett from Sechelt Signs.
• Gambier Islanders were in mourning after a long-time resident, described as “the soul of island,” was killed in a tree-falling accident.
Phil Richardson, 63, was falling a cedar tree on his West Bay property when the accident occurred. There were no witnesses, but neighbours said it appeared the tree got hung up on other trees on its way down, and when Richardson tried to buck it shorter, the tree kicked back at him.
JUNE
• MLA Nicholas Simons was at the centre of a tumultuous ending to the B.C. legislature’s spring session.
Simons, the NDP agriculture critic, was told by the deputy speaker to leave the House on May 29 after calling the Liberals “a bunch of corrupt liars” during the final debate on a contentious bill to change the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR).
After initially refusing to withdraw the comment, Simons returned about half an hour later and withdrew it in order to vote against Bill 24, which passed 46-30.
• While drag racers looked for a way to continue using the airport on occasion, then-Sechelt Mayor John Henderson steered them towards making “something bigger for Sechelt and for all of us.”
Henderson and then-Sechelt Coun. Doug Hockley addressed a crowd of about 45 drag racers during the Sunshine Coast Drag Racing Association’s regular meeting on June 3.
• With more rotating strikes and the possibility of a full-scale walkout on the horizon, local students expressed how the ongoing dispute between teachers and the province was hurting them.
• After six months, three open houses, 1,400 comments and 24 OCPizza Nights, the Town of Gibsons presented a draft version of its updated official community plan to about two dozen residents on June 2 at Gibsons Public Market.
• More than 200 Coast residents came out to support the Sunshine Coast RCMP and remember the fallen Moncton officers during a candlelight vigil June 9 at the Sechelt detachment. The vigil happened in advance of the June 10 regimental funeral planned for constables Dave Ross, Fabrice Georges Gevaudan and Douglas James Larche, who were killed by gunman Justin Bourque in Moncton, N.B., on June 4.
• About 75 per cent of properties in the Town of Gibsons were under a boil water notice after E.coli contamination was found in the municipal water system.
Officials were advising people in the affected Zone 1 and 2 areas to boil their tap water for at least one full minute before drinking.
The advisory was lifted on June 16.
• The Liberal Party selected its candidate for the riding of West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea to Sky Country in advance of the 2015 federal election.
Former West Vancouver mayor Pam Goldsmith-Jones won the nomination after more than 500 Liberal party members cast ballots in Gibsons, Squamish and West Vancouver.
• A Gibsons environmental consultant urged the province to intervene in the site assessment process for the proposed George Hotel and Residences — but Mayor Wayne Rowe said the province was already in charge of the file.
In a letter to the Ministry of Environment, Andre Sobolewski, president of Clear Coast Consulting Inc., lodged a formal complaint “that contamination at the Hyak Marine property has not been properly assessed and that the proposed George Hotel development presents an unknown, and potentially significant, risk to the environment.”
• B.C. teachers walked off the job in response to an unfruitful weekend of bargaining with the province that left both sides blaming each other for the stalemate.
• Facing the possibility of a court injunction, the province pushed the pause button on the tendering process for two controversial woodlots on Gambier Island.
• The BCTF announced its plans to strike through the summer if a deal was not reached before the end of June.
JULY
• The shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation prepared to exercise new powers over its traditional territory on the Sunshine Coast after a landmark Supreme Court of Canada ruling on Aboriginal title. On June 26, in a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court granted tsilhqot’in (Chilcotin) First Nation title to 1,750 square kilometres of Crown land located on its traditional territory about 100 km southwest of Williams Lake, outside the reserve.
• When Staff Sgt. Herb Berdahl looked back on his three-and-a-half years as detachment commander for the Sunshine Coast RCMP, he admitted that he was lucky just to be here.
“We don’t often, in this organization, get an opportunity to serve in our own communities,” Berdahl said before his last day on the job. “Typically with the RCMP when you sign on the bottom line you’re prepared to go anywhere in Canada, and that’s exactly what happens.” At 58, the retiring Mountie said he was going out on a high note.
• After talking behind closed doors for days, B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Jim Iker and Education Minister Peter Fassbender emerged to announce mediation wasn’t possible in the teachers’ strike.
• The Sunshine Coast Salmonid Enhancement Society held the official opening of its micro turbine power project. The project uses three small hydro-electric turbines to generate up to 30,000 kilowatt hours per year of electricity that will be fed back into the BC Hydro grid. This reduced the cost of operating for the hatchery, reduced its carbon footprint and made it a greener facility.
• Howe Sound is the wrong place to allow tankers carrying liquefied natural gas (LNG), a leading opponent of the Woodfibre LNG project told Gibsons council.
“Howe Sound is a narrow waterway. These ships are rather large. They are twice as big, twice as wide, twice as high as a BC ferry,” Bowyer Island resident Eoin Finn said. With tankers crossing several ferry lanes, he said, “the potential for spills and collisions is pretty serious.”
• A group in Roberts Creek offered to create a test site at Henderson Beach for eradicating Japanese knotweed without the use of chemicals. “Our community is overwhelmingly against using Roundup to control this plant,” Mike Allen, a member of the Roberts Creek official community plan committee, wrote the Sechelt Indian Band and SCRD. The Sunshine Coast Conservation Association and Sunshine Coast Wildlife Project were also involved in the effort, which would initially focus on the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure right of way on Henderson Road.
• About half of Gibsons municipal water users were back on the system and the other half were to follow suit, according to Town officials. The Town announced that properties in Zone 1 were back on municipal water after emergency chlorination was installed on the distribution system at well number one, at the corner of Gower Point Road and Winn Road.
• Up to $300 a year would be charged to Pender Harbour water users who opt out of the radio-frequency meters soon to be installed in the area, the SCRD board decided.
Staff recommended a fee of $25 per meter read up to a maximum of $300 a year to cover staff costs for water users who opt for manually read meters.
• Last updated 17 years ago, development cost charge (DCC) rates in the SCRD water service area are going up in most categories and will also be applied in Eastbourne, Egmont and Cove Cay, under a draft plan presented to the SCRD’s infrastructure services committee. The proposed new rates, which do not include North or South Pender Harbour, would see DCC rates for a single-family unit increase to $3,632 from the current rate of between $1,625 and $3,000. Townhouse units, apartment units and congregate care units, also currently charged between $1,625 and $3,000, would see rates of $3,014, $2,433 and $1,525, respectively.
• A GP For Me — a province-wide initiative that sought to enhance the efficiency of individual doctors’ practices, conduct research into the doctor shortage problem in each community and develop targeted community plans to address it — was launched on the Sunshine Coast.
The initiative is funded jointly by the government of B.C. and the doctors of B.C. to the tune of $105 million over three years.
• The shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation released new policies for managing aquaculture, fresh water and medicinal plants within its territory. A sequel to last year’s shíshálh Land and Resources Decision-Making Policy, the new guidelines provided “specific factors for decision-making” and “particular standards” in the three areas. They also spelled out best practices for proponents and the Crown to engage the Band.
• A 97-year-old woman in Selma Park escaped a house fire that originated near the gas fireplace in her home.
• Proponents of the Progress Plan made the rounds at local government meetings to update politicians on what had been done to date with nearly $300,000 in funding from the federal government. The three-year funding commitment from Status of Women Canada was granted in March of 2012 to the Sunshine Coast Community Resource Centre in order to develop a community plan to improve the economic well-being of women on the Coast.
AUGUST
• The shíshálh (Sechelt) Nation put senior governments on notice that it was assuming control over resource development within its territory, Chief Calvin Craigan said during a historic gathering at the Band longhouse.
Addressing leaders from Squamish and Sliammon First Nations and elected local government officials, Craigan said the Sechelt Nation was not going to wait for a court to acknowledge the Band’s jurisdiction and ownership over its land and resources.
• A 15-year-old girl from Sechelt was facing a host of charges — including an impaired driving charge — following what could have been a serious accident in Hackett Park. Sunshine Coast RCMP and paramedics were called to Hackett Park after a minivan crashed through a set of bleachers. There were no reports of injuries to any of the spectators on or around the bleachers, who were watching a baseball game at the time.
• The prospect of two new woodlots on Gambier Island left a few North Shore cottage owners with an axe to grind. Emotions were at a “boiling-over point” at an information meeting hosted by the Ministry of Forests in West Vancouver.
• Bridge construction, traffic pattern changes and heavy vehicle volumes caused ferry delays and under capacity sailings from Horseshoe Bay to Langdale during the long weekend, which left many customers confused and upset.
• Gibsons CAO Mani Machado called for a retraction and apology from a resident who publicly questioned Machado’s version of how long the Town had been in contact with the Ministry of Environment regarding contamination on the proposed George Hotel site.
• Not one resident spoke in favour of the proposed rezoning of a 3.5-hectare lot off Dusty Road at a public hearing hosted by the District of Sechelt.
Many concerns were raised by the 14 residents who spoke, including impacts to existing businesses, added noise and environmental concerns, and simply the idea to rezone the property in the first place, which many said was unnecessary.
• Sechelt was seeking three more credits to achieve gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) status for its new wastewater treatment plant, but to get them the District would have to use up most of the $162,000 left in its contingency fund.
Originally, the District planned to use bus service to the treatment plant as a way to get the LEED credits necessary, but project coordinator Paul Nash said the District missed some fine print.
• Former Whistler mayor Ken Melamed won the Green Party of Canada nomination, defeating Gibsons educator and author Michael Maser.
More than 60 party members voted at nomination meetings in Sechelt and Squamish.
• Then-Sechelt Mayor John Henderson announced the resignation of the majority of Sechelt’s business development team. Of the seven-person board that had been steering Sechelt Innovations Ltd. (SIL), five officially ended their term at the Aug. 6 annual general meeting. SIL’s director of business development, Dave Jephcott, also resigned in order to “pursue an amazing opportunity” with another organization.
• Hope was fading that a deal would be reached between B.C. teachers and the provincial government, which would end the teachers’ strike and ensure that students would return to their classrooms by Sept. 2.
• Two men and one woman from off-Coast were injured when the cable car they were travelling in fell 75 metres down an embankment in Langdale. The accident happened at a residence in the 1500 block of Tideview Road.
Sunshine Coast RCMP said a cable broke, causing the suspended cable car to plummet with a 24-year old Coquitlam male, 24 year-old Vancouver male and 22-year-old Vancouver female inside.
• Larry Koopman secured the nomination for the federal New Democrats after a nomination meeting in Gibsons.
• Medma Cannabis Pharms Inc. was perhaps the closest medical marijuana producer to setting up shop in Sechelt under the new marijuana for medicinal purposes regulations (MMPR).
• With the birth of new federal guidelines for the commercial growing of medicinal marijuana, pot production was becoming big business and many entrepreneurs were looking at Sechelt to set up shop.
Both then-Sechelt councillors Chris Moore and Tom Lamb saw the business of medicinal marijuana as a welcome addition to Sechelt that could even out the tax base, which then drew heavily on residents, and could offer good-paying jobs for locals.
