The Chilliwack
Progress Friday
3
6
38
News
News
Sports
Funding
Bingo
Soccer
Archives’s funding drive gets a major boost
Great Canadian pays $10M for CBA
Soccer academy coming to Slesse
120 YEARS YOUR COMMUNITY
NEWSPAPER
1891-2011
Y O U R C O M M U N I T Y N E W S PA P E R • F O U N D E D I N 1 8 9 1 • W W W. T H E P R O G R E S S . C O M • F R I D AY, M AY 1 3 , 2 0 1 1
Sanborn handed conditional discharge Robert Freeman The Progress Former city employee Grant Sanborn received a conditional sentence Thursday for using a forged document to make a client in his private consulting business believe he had made an application to the Agricultural Land Commission for a homesite severance as promised. Provincial court Judge Roy Couper Dickey said he found no public benefit in a harsher sentence, and no benefit to Sanborn in terms of deterrence or rehabilitation. “(It is) not necessary to enter a conviction to deter him or rehabilitate him,” Dickey said. Sanborn, 52, has no criminal record. The conditional discharge means he will have no criminal record, if he meets probation terms and other conditions. The judge said the forgery was “dramatically out of character” for Sanborn, who had also served as chairman of the Cultus Lake Park Board, and volunteered his time with community organizations like the Rotary Club, Tourism Chilliwack, Community Futures and the YMCA. Dickey also noted that Sanborn did not profit from the forgery, whose only purpose was to “placate” a client, and give him additional time to make the application as promised. “His only benefit was to retain the client,” Dickey said. However, Dickey said he took issue with defence counsel’s characterization of the forgery as a relatively minor infraction that would normally go before a professional body for disciplinary action. Continued: SANBORN/ p12
Police surround a home on Unsworth Road after reports of gunshots Wednesday. RCMP located a large grow-op inside. GREG KNILL/ PROGRESS
Seven suspects flushed from drug house Robert Freeman The Progress Chilliwack RCMP officers descended in force on an Unsworth home late Wednesday after a passerby’s report of gunshots and suspicious activity, flushing seven men from the residence, all of whom were swiftly captured. Four of the men arrested are Mexican citizens, and because of their current status in Canada, they will be released to immigration officials. Two of the seven are known to police, and it was expected that three would be released Thursday. Police said a large marijuana grow-op was found inside the residence, plus more than 40 lbs of
clipped marijuana bud with an estimated street value of $90,000. About 600 marijuana plants were also discovered with an estimated value of $150,000. A loaded prohibited handgun was also found in the residence. “The residence itself contained reinforced doors, steel bars in the windows and very hazardous wiring throughout,” RCMP Cpl. Tammy Hollingsworth said. The basement floor was covered in two inches of water, with wiring and electrical outlets sitting in the water, she said. The dozen police officers who responded to the call – which included members of an Emergency Response Team, Police Dog Services and the Fraser Valley
Traffic Services – were initially stopped by a heavily fortified gate at the 6868 Unsworth Road property. Hollingsworth said after receiving the report, police set up a perimeter on the roads surrounding the property. “We just kind of waited until we were all ready to go, and then we noticed the men running out the back of the house,” she said. A footchase through the surrounding fields began, but all seven suspects were soon in custody. Staff Sgt. Marty Blais, head of the RCMP’s crime reduction unit in the Fraser Valley, said the officers “did an excellent job containing the area and protecting the public.”
The home was long-suspected as a “drug” house by some area residents. RCMP Const. Bryan Martell, a member of the Chilliwack RCMP general investigative support team, said marijuana grow-operations “pose a significant risk to those who occupy them, and to the community around them.” “Violence and weapons go handin-hand with the illegal drug trade, and the Chilliwack RCMP asks for (the community’s) continued support in combating this pervasive issue,” he said. The city has now slapped a ‘No-Occupancy Order’ on the house under its anti-grow-op bylaw, and the electrical power supply has been shut off.
$1.25
Harry Mertin
45930 Airport Road 604-795-9104
COME SEE OUR BEAUTIFUL
EXPANDED SHOWROOM and PARTS & SERVICE AREA
4-11F 4-11 4 44-1 -11F -11 -1 1 11F 1F M1 M1
DLN 8692
OUR RENOVATION IS COMPLETE!
5-11F M13