Inviting new and current clients to join us on April 26 10 am to 5pm
Grand Opening Celebration & Open House Mosaic Vision Care (and formerly Courtenay 1-Hr Optical) now has a second convenient location at Crown Isle Shopping Center
Door prizes, refreshments, eyewear promotions
www.mosaicvisioncare.com • 250-338-1665 • 444 Lerwick – Crown Isle Shopping Centre • Open Monday – Saturday
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www.comoxvalleyecho.com Friday April 11, 2014
Price: 57 cents plus GST
Volume 20, No. 29
City backs off funding extra cop after hearing the cost By Philip Round Echo Staff The cost of recruiting an extra RCMP member to boost policing in Courtenay has proved too much for City Council. Last summer the municipality agreed in principle to fund its 90 per cent share of another recruit to strengthen the ranks, but now the figures are in, the Council has backed
away from that offer - at least for now. Comox Town Council has similarly declined to fund an extra officer in 2014 because of the high additional cost and impact on taxpayers - in its case, it would have had to find 70 per cent of the cost. The problem for the municipalities is that it is not just the wages of the additional RCMP member they have to cover. There are plenty of “add-
on” costs that go with every member of staff under a revised RCMP funding formula over which City and Town Councils have no direct influence. In Courtenay’s case, it currently pays for 30.4 RCMP members at the Comox Valley Detachment along with its share of all the related costs that go with those positions. Last year’s total policing bill for those posts was about $5.2 million, of
which the City’s share amounted to more than $4.7 million. The balance came from the federal government. Most of the City’s allocation was collected directly through local property tax bills, but four of the posts were funded from other sources - two from some of the profits the municipality receives from Chances Gaming Centre, and two from refunds of provincial traffic fine revenue. But, said Courtenay’s director of
financial services, Tillie Manthey, even without paying for an extra RCMP member the 2014 bill is set to rise by $63,000 under the revised funding formula, due to mainly salary, allowance and pension cost increases. If the City stuck with the plan to fund its share of another member, the bill would go up by $219,000 - an increase over last year’s costs of 4.64 per cent. (Continued on page 2)
Soccer pitch dream about to become reality By Philip Round Echo Staff
Local astrophotographer Les Disher will be photographing the total lunar eclipse that will be visible across Canada, including the Comox Valley, on midnight Monday from 9 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Look up Monday night for celestial event By Michael Briones Echo Staff A rare celestial event will be gracing our skies this coming Monday night. A total lunar eclipse will be occurring and will be visible roughly from around 9 p.m. to around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. It’s an opportunity for people who have a sincere passion for stargazing, and for those who’ve never seen this rare event way above the clouds. You can watch it unfold from any location in the Comox Valley depending on the weather. “Your backyard will do fine,” said local astrophotographer, Les Disher. “It will be way up in the sky and you will be able to see it right from home. But it will be more spectacular if you’re at a high point place or out on the beach. It would be quite visible as long as the weather cooperates.” A lunar eclipse occurs when the moon,
Earth and sun line up, with the Earth being in the middle. During the eclipse, our planet’s shadow is projected onto the full moon, slowly darkening its surface until it is completely covered. Disher said capturing the rare celestial event on film is not that difficult. “As long as you can fit it stationary some place, you can photograph it with a camera,” said Disher, whose hobby is snapping photos of things outside the solar system with a refracted telescope. “It’s happening at a good time of the night. The moon would be quite visible.” Disher had no plans to shoot the eclipse but is now considering it if the weather is half decent. “I am not sure who is going to be looking at it but it would be relatively spectacular to look at it through binoculars,” said Disher. “It would be quite a sight to look at visually. It doesn’t happen that often.” Eclipses happen periodically because
the plane of the moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted at about five degrees to the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun, said Disher. During a lunar eclipse, a portion of the bright moon would be subdued in colour as it moves into the umbra of the earth’s shadow. Half of the moon will be bright and a part of it would be more orangey and reddish in colour. With all the traces of direct sunlight gone, the moon will glow fiery orange for nearly an hour. This month’s eclipse is only the first of four that will occur over the next year or so. The next visible one will be on October 8, 2014 and again on April 4, 2015. The moon will blush red a fourth time on September. 28, 2015. The weather forecast for Monday night in the Comox Valley shows clear skies with patches of clouds.
A long-held dream of local soccer players to have an artificial turf pitch on which they can play all year round is about to become a reality. Contracts worth almost $1 million will soon be signed to get the work underway so the field can be built and available for play by the fall of this year. The Comox Valley Sports Centre Commission considered contractors’ competitive tenders on Tuesday, and recommended approvals to the regional district board. The board will meet on April 29 to formally accept them, after which preparation work will quickly get underway on the site below G. P. Vanier Secondary School. Six contractors submitted bids to undertake the construction work to prepare the site for the pitch, including essential drainage works. Leighton Contracting (2009) Ltd. submitted the lowest price at $562,551 excluding GST. The company, described by the tender assessors as “a local contractor with a good reputation,” has committed to starting work in May and completing its part of the job by August 29. Leighton’s will recruit subcontractors for some elements of the project, including concrete, asphalt and fencing works. Once the site is prepared, the synthetic turf will be laid along with a shock/drainage pad that will help extend the life of the field and provide an even safer playing surface than originally envisaged. Eight specialist contractors put in bids for those elements of the job, with Richmond-based AstroTurf West Distributors Ltd. coming out top in the assessment process, which considered 11 different options for implementing the project. The cost of the synthetic turf and its installation will be $319,000 and the additional shock/drainage pad will add another $116,000. Those two items take the total value of the contracts to $997,551, but yet to be added are approximately $100,000 in consultant fees and the costs other items of equipment still to be ordered, such as soccer posts and nets. All the sums come well within the agreed budget of $1,340,000, of which $400,000 has been pledged by Comox United Soccer Club, $850,000 by the City of Courtenay (found from the sale of an existing playing field alongside Lerwick Road for the new hospital development), and the balance from the regional district. School Board 71 owns the landand is a full partner in the project.
Cumberland mourns the loss of historic King George Hotel By Drew A. Penner Echo Staff You could always find old loggers, coal miners and pool sharks at the ready in the heart of the old King George Hotel if you were to take a gander down Dunsmuir between Second and Third Streets. But this family-run establishment which played a critical role in the history of Cumberland has been forced to shut its doors, leaving plenty of fond memories behind. “It brings tears to my eyes, it really does,” said Dee Burns, an ex-employee who spent about 15 years of her
life serving and bartending at the watering hole. “It’s the end of an era.” Last week the province officially shut the bar down and the word spread around town quickly. Officials confirmed the owners owed thousands of dollars in tax, although there is an opportunity for the business to pay that debt in a set amount of time. The building has been listed with Dale McCartney of Royal LePage for $429,000. Burns says she will always remember the unique energy of the place that kept Cumberland’s social scene pumping.
“It was iconic,” she said. “It was pretty near and dear to my heart.” Part of her job was to play pool with older gentlemen who would come in for a drink. “It was all rough and tumble but so were the other bars at the time,” she said. “You just never knew when something would transpire.” While the rabblerousing dynamic has been muted somewhat with the changing demographics of the community, many Cumberlanders still feel close to the business. The hotel opened in 1911, although it was rebuilt after the big Cumberland fire that knocked out half the down-
town area - a fire supposedly started by the late first owner’s widow. The Brown family purchased the building in 1971, endearing itself to the local community through its support of community functions such as Empire Days throughout the years. Mayor Leslie Baird says the King George was the place she used to go as part of a softball league. “We used to go there every night after a ball game and sit and drink,” she said, tipping her hat to the Browns. “They were wonderful.” Baird remembers the many sandwiches and other items that were offered to the pipe bands during
Empire Days festivities. “The pipe bands were always welcome there,” she said. “They actually fed them during the day.” In recent years the Brown’s daughter, Julie Gibson, has operated the business, although it is no longer a hotel that rents rooms. In an interview with the Echo, owner Gibson explained she didn’t want to comment on the possibility of reopening, noting options are still being discussed. “It’s a sad thing,” she said of the closure. “That’s where I grew up.”