Local News

After 25 years, Julie Skippon, the president and face of the B.C. Schizo-phrenia Society's Sunshine Coast Branch, is retiring. She, along with Const. Ashley Taylor, were honoured at the annual general meeting of the society on June 1.

The new WorkBC Employment Services Centre run by Open Door Group officially opened its site at Sunnycrest Mall in Gibsons on June 1, to the delight of Gibsons Mayor Wayne Rowe.

A former federal fisheries minister has joined a Sea to Sky Corridor fisheries roundtable group in voicing concern about the potential impacts of changes to the Fisheries Act that have been tabled in the House of Commons.

The inaugural backroad trash bash, held on May 26, helped to put a small dent in the illegal dumping problem on the Sunshine Coast.

Last week more than 300 Coasters rode their bicycles almost 15,000 kilometres during Bike to Work Week. That puts us in fourth place of the 26 participating B.C. communities for cyclists, and sixth place for number of kilometres biked.

As part of its effort to help encourage the creation of a Sunshine Coast biodiversity strategy, the Ruby Lake Lagoon Society held its inaugural Biodiversity Summit May 29 to June 2.

A variety of concerns came up at the June 5 public hearing on a bylaw that would limit medicinal marijuana production for multiple licences to industrial areas in Sechelt.

At the May 23 committee of the whole meeting, clean air advocates urged Sechelt council to get on with implementing a land-clearing burning ban in the District, instead of allowing two years to phase in the prohibition.

A somewhat controversial plan to pave Mason, Heritage and Sandpiper roads at a cost of $625,000 has stalled this week, as the District of Sechelt has learned not every portion of roadway is owned by the municipality.

Census statistics detailing the distribution of age groups across the country were released by Statistics Canada on May 29 and, once again, the median age of residents on the Sunshine Coast has risen.