EMPTY CLASSROOMS LEAVE BEHIND A HINT OF MELANCHOLY FOR TEACHERS Once so full of life, now they sit idle awaitingg next year’s kids { Page A6 }
times Chilliwack
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THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2015
Valley Huskers planning to stock team with more homegrown talent
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Residents’ complaints heard loud and clear
› Cover Story
Higginson Road project takes on a different look BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
A
A hard life Dignard, who is Kelly’s birth mother, was young when she had Kelly and she was trying to get on her feet. “I was young and naive,” she said of when she signed guardianship papers over to the Rideout family in Peterborough, Ont.
proposed Sardis housing development sent back to the drawing board in May, was back before city council Tuesday with big changes. The Higginson Road project that proposed construction of as many as 174 homes, including townhouses, was roundly criticized by dozens of neighbours at a public hearing on May 19. The property owned by William and Irene Higginson was removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in an Agricultural Land Commission (ALC) decision a year ago. The property is surrounded on three sides by homes and on one by Kinkora Golf Course. After two hours of comments at that public hearing, Mayor Sharon Gaetz made a motion to refer the proposal back to staff to rework the development and deal with the concerns of residents. “We can’t make everyone happy . . . . We can’t give everyone lower rooflines,” Gaetz said, and added, “We can try a little bit harder.” Couns. Jason Lum, Chris Kloot and Sam Waddington agreed.
{ See KELLY, page A23 }
{ See PROJECT, page A4 }
Paul J. Henderson/TIMES
Kelly Rideout’s mother Nicole Dignard came to town from Montreal to help in the search for her daughter who went missing four years ago and is presumed murdered.
FINDING H
BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
KELLY
simple. “It’s been four years,” she says at the home of her granddaughter’s father, Duane Stamper, in Agassiz. “Where’s my daughter? I’ve got absolutely no closure.”
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Closure is all her mother wants
ead-high blackberry bushes blanket much of the property behind the Chilliwack Motor Inn like an impenetrable shield hiding what’s below. A cursory look around the fringes of the dilapidated motel property elicits fast food wrappers, cups, cushions from a chair, a used condom wrapper. The thorny bushes are so dense that without a backhoe, it’s impossible to know what else might linger
deep beneath the overgrowth. This past Saturday family and friends of Kelly Rideout wondered if maybe, just maybe, the missing woman’s body is there at the place where she was last thought to be staying. A dozen people gathered at the motel on July 4 to search for Kelly, who was last seen exactly four years ago this Friday, July 10, 2011. Kelly’s mother Nicole Dignard came to Chilliwack from Montreal for the search for her daughter—a search they feel police have given up on. Dignard’s angst about the whereabouts of her daughter is raw and
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