SUSPECTED DEALERS GET NEW TRIAL
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‘VOCATIONAL SCHOOL’ BACK IN STYLE
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SOME IDEAS FOR SUMMER CAMP
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WEDNESDAY
MAY 7 2014 www.burnabynewsleader.com
Burnaby Village Museum wants to take you to the movies. See Page A3
Review backs BCAS priority shift Paramedics union says cost control behind new policy Jeff Nagel Black Press
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Rick McGowan and Andrew Couzens are hoping to convince the City of Burnaby to turn an empty lot it owns on Halley Avenue into a space for community gardens and compost demonstration area rather than selling it to a developer for construction of a single-family home.
Aiming to grow community at Metrotown Mario Bartel
photo@burnabynewsleader.com
Rick McGowan has dozens of neighbours in his Metrotown condo building. But he barely knows any of them. He’d like to change that by establishing a community garden and compost demonstration project on an empty lot owned by the City of Burnaby on Halley Avenue. The city acquired the lot, and another adjacent to it off Chaffey Avenue, years ago with the intent of
extending Sardis Street through to single-family homes or duplexes. Chaffey. But McGowan thinks what his But in 2008, when neighbourhood, residents objected situated just north to a proposed of Grange and Andrew Couzens townhouse west of Willingdon, You have to start young development to be really needs is a and get people to care built next to the place to gather, get about their food. road, the plan was their hands dirty scuttled. and meet their In 2012, Burnaby council decided neighbours. it would subdivide the lots to put “It’s a place for people to talk and a public pathway linking Halley just enjoy nature and understand and Chaffey and sell off the rest where their food comes from,” said to a developer to build a couple of McGowan.
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Please see COMMUNITY GARDEN, A3
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Andrew Couzens passes plenty of community gardens when he rides his bike to work along the B.C. Parkway. They make him smile. And long for the chance to grow his own carrots, lettuce, spinach, kale and strawberries. While the residents in his condo complex, right next to the city lots, are already close-knit, they don’t really have an outdoor space where they can gather casually and catch-up, or share a common interest. CUSTOM PICTURE FRAMING
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An external review has endorsed B.C.’s contentious reallocation of ambulance service in favour of the most urgent cases. Burnaby is among several Lower Mainland cities, fire departments and their unions that have denounced the changes introduced in November, saying dozens of categories of calls have been downgraded to slower responses, resulting in extreme waits of more than an hour in some cases. Ambulances now head to many of the downgraded calls without the lights and sirens they used in the past, a change that’s expected to reduce the risk of crashes with other motorists. B.C. Emergency Health Services contends the longer waits have averaged just 10 minutes slower in the Lower Mainland, but have enabled slightly faster ambulance responses to critical emergencies where extra seconds can save lives. Please see UNION, A4