Tuesday March 31, 2015 (Vol. 40 No. 26)
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
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S O U T H
Class acts: A group of Elgin Park Secondary students learned a little about hard work, and a lot about another part off the world, on a spring-break service trip building classrooms in Nicaragua. a. i see page 111
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Park-and-ride users unable to pay with coins at South Surrey lot
Credit-card meters stymie bus riders Alex Browne Staff Reporter
TransLink is checking into reports that pay-parking machines at the South Surrey Park & Ride now accept credit cards only. In response to complaints passed on to Peace Arch News, TransLink mediarelations advisor Chris Bryan said that ongoing vandalism and theft at the lot
had prompted the parking contractor, Impark, to limit the number of machines accepting cash to one out of four. Additional armoured plating had been installed on the cash-operated machine – one of a bank of three grouped together at the lot – he said, adding that similar measures have been taken at other park-and-rides in the Lower Mainland.
But in a check of the South Surrey lot Monday, PAN could not discover a cash-operated machine. Representatives of Impark could not be reached for comment at press time Monday. South Surrey resident Evelyn Morris said that she and her family have been using the park-and-ride as cash customers since it was first established, but were dismayed to find that machines
would only accept credit cards when they arrived at the lot on Saturday. “We were so choked about it we left,” she said, adding that having to find alternative parking meant they arrived late at an important event that evening. “We didn’t want to take the chance that the car would be towed or we would be fined. It wasn’t worth the risk.” i see page 2
Contributed photo
Credit card only.
Riding recommended
Additional MLA eyed for Surrey Tom Fletcher Black Press
Evan Seal photo
Firefighters carry the casket of Kevin Hegarty toward Peace Portal Alliance Church, following a procession for their longtime colleague Monday.
South Surrey firefighter ‘turned his battle into helping others’
Advocate for mental health mourned Tracy Holmes Staff Reporter
More than 600 firefighters from across Canada gathered in South Surrey Monday to remember one of their brothers – a man who “cared about people, cared about his job, cared about helping people.” “Today was a very sad day,” said Mike McNamara, following the private service at Peace Portal Alliance Church for his close friend and colleague, Kevin Hegarty. The acting captain at South Surrey’s Hall 13 died March 1 after years of helping others on
the job deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition he himself lived with. “He turned his battle into helping others,” fire Chief Len Garis said of the 53-year-old father. “That’s the kind of guy he was.” In Hegarty’s honour, Garis pledged that more would be done to continue the firefighter’s work. He was an advocate for mental health, worked with the BC Burn Fund and assisted the Surrey Fire Fighters’ Charitable Society. “He tried to help others with what he was suffering with,” Garis said. “That became him and he died from that. Kevin’s legacy will be
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something that we can build together, so this does not happen again.” McNamara said Hegarty’s death was a shock to all who knew him. In the days prior, Hegarty was “happy and jovial,” he said. Following the service, firefighters lined either side of the route leaving the church, saluting a final farewell to Hegarty as his casket passed. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Surrey Fire Fighters’ Charitable Society, the Canadian Mental Health Association or BC Burn Fund “in memory of Kevin Hegarty” are encouraged.
New MLAs for Surrey and Richmond and adjustments to other electoral boundaries have been proposed before the 2017 provincial election in B.C. The B.C. Electoral Boundaries Commission recommended the changes after studying population data and touring the province last year. If approved, they will bring the number of MLAs in the B.C. legislature from 85 to 87. Boundary shifts in fast-growing Surrey would produce two new constituency names, with Surrey South inserted between the existing Surrey-Cloverdale and SurreyWhite Rock seats. The other new seat is RichmondQueensborough, taking in an area of New Westminster to balance the population of the existing constituencies in the region. B.C. Supreme Court Justice Thomas Melnick said efforts were made to keep “communities of interest” together, while equalizing the populations of constituencies as much as possible. Even at that, the population of some urban constituencies is as much as 60 per cent higher than rural seats, where travel by the elected representative is much more time-consuming. i see page 2
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