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Delivery 604-942-3081 • Friday, December 6, 2013
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Your source for local sports, news, weather and entertainment! >> www.burnabynow.com CHRISTMAS BUREAU
Pancakes for presents Crowds filtered into the Hilton Thursday morning for hot pancakes, live music and Christmas cheer. The second annual pancake breakfast fundraiser for the Burnaby Christmas Bureau drew an estimated 600 to 700 people and $20,000 in donations of toys and cash. The yearly fundraiser is organized by Scotiabank, the Hilton Vancouver Metrotown and the Burnaby Firefighters Charitable Society, which brought 160 firefighters out to help. All of the toys collected and money raised go to the Burnaby Christmas Bureau, which provides gifts for children from low-income families and hampers for seniors during the holidays. The fundraiser was broadcast on Breakfast Television, and various musicians, including blues legend Jim Byrnes, performed for the crowds. “It’s amazing how the community got together to support the Christmas Bureau,” said Jeff Clark, vice-president of the Burnaby Firefighters Charitable Society. Clark said Hilton staff were up at three in the morning, preparing the room and the food. – Jennifer Moreau
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Jennifer Moreau/burnaby now
For the kids: The annual pancake breakfast fundraiser for the Burnaby Christmas Bureau was held on Thursday. Front,
from left, Scotiabank’s Cheryl Westgard and Jeff Clark from the Burnaby Firefighters’ Charitable Society are two of the event’s key organizers. Back row, from left: NOW account manager Cam Northcott; Stephen D’Souza, Burnaby Community Services;, Hilton general manager Ed Jaskula; and Rahim Rajan, Burnaby Community Services chair. Blues musician Jim Byrnes is smack dab in the middle, wearing green.
TransLink spends $300,000 to retrack in city Stefania Seccia staff reporter
TransLink is coming to Burnaby to update the aging SkyTrain trains and is dedicating a significant chunk of change to re-track an area that once had tracks. And that, says city councillor Colleen Jordan, is yet another example of a shortsighted decision by TransLink. Recently, TransLink announced that it will use $37.9 million, $28.5 million of which is derived from the federal gas tax fund, to refurbish aging SkyTrain vehicles
from the Millennium and Expo lines. More than $309,000 of the approved budget cost has gone towards 80 metres of tracks at the Operation and Maintenance Facility Two in Burnaby, which had rails previously. According to Sun Fang, vice-president of maintenance for the B.C. Rapid Transit Company, the Burnaby building was owned by the province until 1999. Then from 1999 to 2004, Bombardier owned the site. It built 60 first-generation Mark II SkyTrain vehicles and installed the tracks to transport the vehicles to a
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B.C. Rapid Transit Company maintenance facility. Now, TransLink is leasing out the Burnaby facility. In 2004, the Burnaby facility underwent construction to expand and accommodate the new Mark II vehicles. That’s when the rail tracks were taken out by Bombardier. After 2004, the building sold for $8.2 million and again in 2005 for $13 million, according to Burnaby Coun. Colleen Jordan. She said that two years ago, the 100,000square-foot building was being rented for $12 per sq. ft. TransLink spokesperson
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Jiana Ling said the authority is leasing out the building for $60,000 a month. “In 1999, the site was rezoned to build the Bombardier Centre for Advanced Transit Systems,” Jordan told the Burnaby NOW. “The rezoning states that the building is to accommodate offices and the assembly of SkyTrain cars. That was part of the deal, to at least build some of the SkyTrain cars for the Millenium Line here in B.C.” In 2003, council received a rezoning request to change the property from light TransLink Page 8
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