THURSDAY, august 15, 2019 Vol.A- 75, No. 33
Serving Fort St. John, B.C. and Surrounding Communities
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Downtown intersections to be upgraded matt preprost editor@ahnfsj.ca
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Fort St. John city councillors have approved two intersection upgrades downtown that will be key to the rebuilding of 100 Street. On Monday, council approved $500,000 in spending to add traffic signals at 98 Street and 100 Avenue, and to upgrade the signals at 102 Street and 100 Avenue. Upgrading both are needed ahead of 100 Street upgrades, planned to start in 2020. “Regardless of what we do, we need these signals to handle the traffic diversion around the downtown core,” engineering manager Jim Stewart said. The city plans to start re-
building 100 Street in 2020 to replace aging underground infrastructure. The work will run between 96 and 105 avenues, and take up to five years to complete. The upgrade at 98 Street and 100 Avenue is long overdue. City staff note the dangers of the busy crossing, and ICBC statistics show there were 35 crashes between 2013 and 2017, with 10 of those causing injury or death. The intersection is “underutilized intersection as it is hard to go straight across or turn left,” Victor Shopland, general manager of integrated services, wrote in a report to council. Meanwhile, the city will reconfigure the signals at 102 Street and 100 Avenue to add
a left turn to alleviate existing and future traffic backups to 99 and 101 avenues. “With more traffic being directed along 102 St this would only be exacerbated. The addition of left turn lanes will rectify this problem,” Shopland wrote. The city is paying for the upgrades through an extra onetime payment of $885,000 in gas tax revenues. The rest of that extra payment will go into reserves. Including the extra payment, the city is receiving $1.3 million in gas tax revenues this year. The city has spent gas tax monies on trails, sidewalks, street lights, garbage and recycling carts, and the new dog park.
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The two Port Alberni teens suspected in three northern B.C. murders killed themselves, a Manitoba medical examiner has ruled. Kam McLeod and Bryer Schmegelsky were found dead in the Manitoba brush near the Nelson River Wednesday, Aug. 7. “The RCMP can also confirm that the two died in what appears to be suicides by gunfire,” police said on Monday. The pair led police on a crosscountry chase since two bodies were found on the side of the Alaska Highway in northeastern B.C. Four days later, another body was found on Highway 37 near Dease Lake. “Police can also confirm that two firearms were also located with the two deceased males and forensic analysis is underway in order to definitively confirm that these weapons are connected with the northern B.C. homicide investigations,” police said. It was apparent they had been alive while police searched the Gillam, Man., area for two weeks, police said. What led police to the area was a burned out vehicle belonging to Leonard Dyck, a retired University of B.C. lecturer, whose body was found by a road near Dease Lake on B.C.’s Highway 37. Canada-wide warrants were issued for McLeod and Schmegelsky, who were charged with second-degree murder in connection with Dyck’s death. His body was found a few kilometres from the teens’ burnedout pickup truck on Highway 37.At first, police said the teens were missing. The childhood friends were also suspects in the killings of American Chynna Deese and Australian Lucas Fowler. Their bodies were found along the Alaska Highway July 15 near their van. Police said last week the Dyck and Deese-Fowler homicides were related. B.C. RCMP will be completing a review of the case “within the next few weeks” after which the families will be updated and information released publicly. RCMP assistant commissioner Kevin Hackett said Aug. 7 that the suspects’ deaths do not mean the homicide case is over, he said. Hackett said the B.C. case remains open until all evidence is assessed to confirm investigative theories. That would include ruling out any other possible suspects. There is significant evidence that links both crime scenes together, Hackett said, but added there doesn’t appear to be anything linking the victims.
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