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WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
Disgraced cop buried stabbing confession Cornelia Naylor
cnaylor@burnabynow.com
A Vancouver cop recently sentenced for breach of trust and sexual exploitation decided not to tell Burnaby RCMP that one of his victims had confessed to stabbing a man in Burnaby in 2015. On June 8, 2015, a man was stabbed in a Safeway parking lot at 9855 Austin Dr. at about 10:30 p.m. Witnesses reported seeing a man and woman involved in a physical altercation with the stabbing victim, according to court documents. The pair then fled the scene in what turned out to be a stolen vehicle. A woman later told former veteran Vancouver police officer James Albert Stanley Fisher, who was working with the VPD’s counter exploitation unit at the time, that she had been the woman at the scene and done the stabbing, but Fisher kept that information from his RCMP colleagues. On Aug. 21, Fisher was handed a 20-month jail sentence and two years’ probation for breach of trust and sexual exploitation in relation to kissing a 17-year-old girl and a 21-year-old woman who had been witnesses in prostitution-ring cases Fisher worked on. In his sentencing ruling, Judge Robert Hamilton touched on the Burnaby stabbing. It turned out the 21-yearold Fisher kissed – referred to only as B because of a publication ban – and her ex-boyfriend had been the man and woman at the scene, according to court documents. Continued on page 5
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‘We’re baaack!’
WELCOME BACK: Chaffey-Burke Elementary School kindergarten teacher Heather Androsoff welcomes two students to her classroom on the first day of school. Schools
around the district had a part day Tuesday. At Chaffey-Burke, students met back at their old classrooms before being organized into new classes with new teachers. Androsoff used the time to read through some of her old students’ summer journals. PHOTO CORNELIA NAYLOR
Scaled-back daycare plan moves ahead Kelvin Gawley
kgawley@burnabynow.com
Overdue, overbudget and scaled back, the City of Burnaby’s plan to build child-care facilities is finally coming to fruition. City council approved a contract with Britco Boxx to build, deliver and install two modular buildings that will serve as daycare centres at local schools. Each building will cost the city more than $1.8 million. “I’m very happy to see this report coming forward.
2018
I’m very sad about the price,” Coun. Colleen Jordan said at a recent council meeting. The municipality has planned for a long time to create child-care spaces and lease them out to non-profit operators but has faced several setbacks. In October 2014, just over two weeks before the last civic election for mayor, councillors and school trustees, city council and Burnaby’s school board – made up entirely of Burnaby Citizens Association members – announced a
plan to triple child-care spaces in the city. The plan was for the city to fund the construction of 12 new facilities on school district lands, supposedly tripling the number of spaces in Burnaby. In November 2017, council approved $6 million in density bonus funds from developers for the first four buildings, creating 100 daycare spaces for toddlers on school sites (Capitol Hill, Montecito, Cascade Heights and Stride Avenue). Now, with less than two months to go before the
next election, city council has approved funding for construction of two of those 12 facilities. The delays and swelling costs have been out of the city’s control, according to Jordan. A 2016 Supreme Court of Canada decision reinstated class size and composition rules and left school districts across B.C. scrambling to create more classroom space. That rush drove the market value of portables “through the roof,” Jordan said, and forced the city to
recalibrate its plans for the projects. Work on the first two buildings, slated for Montecito and Capitol Hill elementary schools, is expected to begin immediately. Two more facilities, at Cascades Heights and Stride, will follow, subject to further council approvals. Once the buildings are complete, the school district will be in charge of coordinating operators, with the city footing maintenance bills. Continued on page 4
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