CITY CRACKING DOWN ON VACANT HOMES THEY SAY ENDANGER LIVES Officials call recent rash of vacant home fires work of arsonist
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THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2015
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Deep cuts tabled by district
There goes the neighbourhood
Staff reductions, cuts to programs, and new fees all up for discussion BY GREG LAYCHAK glaychak@chilliwacktimes.com
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Paul J. Henderson/TIMES
One of the dozens of “visitors” to a notorious drug house on Rotary Street salutes the neighbours across the street.
A single home making life on Rotary Street a daily nightmare BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
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drug activity and even assaults—videos captured from their eight surveillance cameras. “I understand it’s a bit like bullying, putting it up online, but there are no names,” Nicole told the Times last June when they started posting videos. But what if those you try to shame are shameless? “One guy ‘liked’ his own video on Facebook,” Rob said during a visit to the street this week. “It’s just a con-
stant battle.” “We are trying to be sane,” Rotary Street resident Deborah Walker said. “This isn’t how we want to live.” The lack of shame at how detrimental the behaviour is to the neighbourhood was evident on Monday. At 3:30 p.m., I arrived at Walker’s house, where Rob and Nicole were present. We watched as two rough { See NEIGHBOURS, page A4 }
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eighbours of a downtown Chilliwack house notorious for drug and prostitution activity have tried everything they can think of to reclaim their cul-de-sac, their lives. Surveillance cameras. Security systems. Informal neighbourhood watch. Calls to police and city hall.
No apparent results. Then there’s the paintball guns. Verbal assaults. One neighbour has even taken to throwing eggs at the sketchy folks who come and go from the Rotary Street house, which sits just metres away from Chilliwack secondary school. Shame? They’ve tried that in spades. Rob and Nicole Iezzi have posted a number of videos on YouTube and Facebook of trespassing, theft, yelling,
he announcement that the school district will be restoring a fee-based school bus system was in the Chilliwack education spotlight last week for good reason— it affects the families of nearly 3,000 students who use the service. But it was just one item in a long list of proposed reductions presented by Gerry Slykhuis, secretary treasurer of the district, during his budget update to the board of education that same evening. Obviously the district’s overall goal to cut $2.7 million will have a much farther-reaching effect than any one item up for consideration. According to Slykhuis, a preliminary public look at the 2015-16 budget considerations was important because of the magnitude of the reductions this coming year. Included in the proposal were some CUPE and non-union job cuts, the closing of the Sto:lo alternative school, halving schools’ shares of international student income and the amalgamation of tech departments. “Even within my own department losing staff is pretty tough,” said
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