The Chilliwack
Progress Wednesday
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3
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Chiefs
Light
Improv
Back-to-back wins for the Chiefs in early BCHL action.
Shining a light on domestic violence.
Zany improv comes to the Vineyard.
Sports
News
Scene
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First degree murder charges for Douglas
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Vikki Hopes Black Press A man wanted for a double murder in Chilliwack was arrested Thursday night after a two-hour standoff with police at a home in Abbotsford. Aaron David Douglas, 33, was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant in connection with the shooting deaths of Richard Blackmon, 38, and Tyler Belcourt, 36. Both were gunned down in the early hours of Aug. 7 in the 46100 block of Gore Avenue in Chilliwack. A third person escaped with her life but was injured. Abbotsford Police officers and members of the emergency response team surrounded a home on Rainbow Avenue in Abbotsford Thursday at about 4:30 p.m. Police called several times for the suspect to exit the home. When he failed to do so, they launched several flash-bang distraction devices and activated their sirens. The officers also tossed canisters of gas into both the front and the back of the house. The suspect exited the home, crawling on his hands and knees, at about 6:45 p.m. and was arrested. IHIT released the man’s name on Twitter just before 8 p.m., thanking everyone who assisted in the arrest. On Friday Douglas was formally charged with two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder. IHIT has credited the collaborative work of several police jurisdictions in securing the arrest. “The cost of a homicide is felt across the entire Lower Mainland, and the continued success of IHIT is a direct result of the integration and cooperation of municipal and Continued: ARREST/ p7
Emergency personnel and others get a close look at an aircraft that crashed in a field on Camp River Road in Chilliwack on Sunday afternoon. The 85-year-old veteran flyer walked away from the crash. See story, page 9.. JENNA HAUCK/ PROGRESS
Farm classification ‘loophole’ plugged Jennifer Feinberg The Progress Chilliwack officials have spent a lot of time trying to close what’s become known as the ‘llama loophole.’ The issue hit the floor at the recent conference of Union of B.C. Municipalities, the upshot of a Chilliwack property owner who put llamas on an industrial property in order to be assessed at a much lower agricultural tax rate. The problem is that system is not designed for industrial land owners to make it look like agricultural land for just long enough
to provide a tax break, said Coun. Sue Attrill. “Taxation has to be based on actual use,” she said. Attrill was the city councillor who brought the made-in-Chilliwack resolution to the UBCM conference floor, where it passed with a fairly close vote in Whistler last week. The UBCM will now ask the province to amend the Assessment Act so that land could not be “reclassified” for farm use if it’s already zoned for commercial, industrial or other business purposes. In other words, it can’t be reclassified as ag land, unless
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the farm use actually “pre-dates the zoning, is the principal use, and the lands are continuously used for farm purposes,” according to the resolution. Those extra criteria when incorporated into legislation should close the loophole for good. Chilliwack officials estimated the “llama loophole” also nicknamed “llama-gate” by pundits cost Chilliwack $250,000 in lost tax revenues, which had to be recouped “off the backs” of the rest of Chilliwack taxpayers. “What happens now is the resolution goes to the provincial government,” said Attrill. “But what
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it means is that the first steps are in place in order to make this right.” BC Assessment officials made it clear they couldn’t change how they did business without a formal change to the legislation. Mayor Sharon Gaetz said some may not have realized at the time that the situation meant that the rest of the taxpayers would be paying for the brunt of llama-gate. The situation may have had some applauding the property owner’s “craftiness” by adding the livestock, since the taxes in that case Continued: UBCM/ p7
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