Gardening: French don’t get enough credit for horticulture. 27
Community: Earth Day about environment . 3
Sports: Ridge baseball growing game. 36
Friday, April 10, 2015 · mapleridgenews.com · est. 1978 · (office) 604-467-1122 · (del iver y) 6 0 4 - 4 6 6 - 6 3 9 7
Homeless are not criminals: doctor Affordable housing is ‘a huge struggle’ By P hi l M e lnychu k pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
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line-by-line trimming. • The largest amount is just under $400,000, which will come from the trimming its supplies budget. Instead of automatically increasing for inflation, services and supplies will be kept at the previous year’s levels. That could be helped when the province creates a central purchasing agency that could cut costs for school districts through volume buying, although it’s not certain if that will make a difference, added Murray.
hile one couple says homeless people are hurting their business, a neighbour wants people to know that those who have nowhere to live are not the root of all the downtown problems. “They’re not criminals. They’re just people,” Dr. Liz Zubek said about the homeless. Zubek runs Shepherd’s Hill Medical Clinic, beside Maple Ridge Pool and Spa, off the Haney Bypass, by the Salvation Army Caring Place. Spa shop owners Ben and Joanne Pinkney said last month that homeless people near the Salvation Army on 222nd Street and Lougheed Highway are ruining their business and making the place a mess. But Zubek says there’s a difference between the homeless and those who rob and steal. “The homeless who are being targeted are not the ones causing crime in Maple Ridge. It’s just that they’re visible.” People think that by moving homeless people they’re solving the crime issue, she says, and that’s just not true. Like the spa shop, the medical clinic is also on Cliff Avenue, just off the bypass. On a sunny morning, she drives up in her van with her daughter, and a group of homeless people are sitting nearby. “Come and meet them,” she says. “Christina, [her five-year-old daughter] they’re so respectful of her,” Zubek says.
See Budget, 5
See Homeless, 4
THE NEWS/files
The school district is cutting some school bus service in the coming year’s budget, and may end all of it the following one.
Trustees find a surplus Technology, buses part of the cost savings By Phil M elnyc h u k pmelnychuk@mapleridgenews.com
The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board has turned red ink into black, even producing a small surplus, while complying with provincial dictates to cut its administration costs. Now, if only trustees can talk the parents into going along with cut-
ting school buses, slightly increasing class sizes for kindergarten next year and requiring elementary kids to use their own laptops or tablets in the next few years. With several nips and tucks, the school board has turned a $1.68-million deficit, which includes Murray $720,000 in provincially ordered administrative cuts, into a small surplus of $272,082. School board chair Mike Murray
DEBBIE SHEPPARD 604-312-3705
said he didn’t consider cutting school busing, requiring parents to buy their kids computer tablets or increasing class sizes as indicating that there was fat to be cut. “These are things we are having to do to make ends meet. They are going to have an impact on families and that is of concern.” The district found almost $900,000 in savings as a result of its
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