TUESDAY
S I N C E
NOVEMBER 19, 2013
1 8 9 5 Smokies back on track
Vol. 118, Issue 182
105
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Page 11
PROUDLY SERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF ROSSLAND, WARFIELD, TRAIL, MONTROSE, FRUITVALE & SALMO
TRAIL DOWNTOWN REVITALIZATION
METER MAKEOVER
Finishing touches to Phase 1 set for this week BY SHERI REGNIER Times Staff
GUY BERTRAND PHOTO
Brent Iachetta, a carpenter with the City of Trail, sets a new post for a damaged parking meter in downtown Trail on a rainy Monday afternoon. The city released data on revenue generated from parking. See story on Page 3.
Police watchdog visits with mayor and councillor
BY VALERIE ROSSI Times Staff
Trail Mayor Dieter Bogs says it’s about time the province has developed a police watchdog. This after he and Coun. Eleanor Gattafoni Robinson sat down with the head of the Independent Investigations Office of BC (IIO), which is mandated to conduct investigations into officer-related incidents of death or serious harm.
Bogs hopes that the unbiased look into such cases will provide closure to both police officers and families in B.C. and help restore confidence in law enforcement. “It adds a significant cost element, but in my opinion it’s long overdue and it’s well worth the extra cost (to the province),” he said. “The image of the iconic RCMP has suffered significantly in the past couple of years from our
The city is adding a little red va voom to downtown Trail this week by erecting gateway features along Victoria Street intersections. The three minor gateway features will be installed at the entrance of Pine, Cedar and Bay avenues as a finishing touch to infrastructure upgrades recently completed along the Victoria Street corridor. The 16-foot gateways will be mounted on four foot granite bases, weather permitting, and will highlight the street names and include some lighting features. Installation is expected to begin Wednesday, SUBMITTED The next phase of the downtown An artist rendering of the gateway revitalization plan is projected to features to be added to downtown start in 2014, and includes two avenues this week. major gateway features that will span east and west at each end of Imperial Oil (Esso) until it closed Victoria Street. in late 2009 and a Petro Canada Street-scape greening and land- station that shut down operations scaped medians along Victoria in 2008. Street are part of the Phase 2 “The current gate wraps have leg of downtown improvements, undergone a lot of wear and tear although the funding and scope of over the last few years,” said the project has yet to be approved Andrea Jolly, Trail communication by council. and events coordinator. Another “gate” project the city “With the enhancements on is undertaking, is the re-design Victoria Street, it is the perfect and installation of new fence wraps time to re-create the wraps with along Victoria Street at the old gas consistent artwork we have been station lots. using for all our Victoria Street The non-operating surplus communication pieces.” properties were retail sites of See NEW, Page 3 society’s perspective.” Richard Rosenthal, BC’s first Chief Civilian Director of the IIO, and his colleague stopped in Trail recently on a trip across the province to extend a handshake to city leaders as part of a community engagement strategy. The IIO started up last year due to a few incidents, one in particular being the Robert Dziekanski Tasering at the Vancouver
International Airport in 2007. A final inquiry report released in 2010 concluded the RCMP were not justified in using a Taser against the Polish immigrant and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators. Bogs said though the IIO is fairly new, the office has already carried out 28 investigations. See LOCAL, Page 2
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