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Volume 20, No. 55
Regional District agrees five-figure payout over 3L complaint By Philip Round Echo Staff
A client of Cliff’s Chinook Charters Fishing shows off the huge chinook he caught just a couple of days ago. Chinook and coho are returning in good numbers,
No fish tale, chinook and coho stock returning in great numbers By Michael Briones Echo Staff The fish at sea are biting. And anglers are snaring them in great numbers. Since the Department of Fisheries and Oceans opened up the tidal fishing season last month, fish tales abound. And this time there’s some truth in them. The chinook stock is up, said Bryce Gillard of the DFO, but also coho. They’re allowing fishermen to catch two coho, and one can be wild. “This is the first time in ten years or so we’ve had that kind of opening,” said Gillard. “I have been seeing coho liking pink and purple hoochies.” Anglers in Campbell River have been catching daily limits of chinook salmon since late May. Anglers in Powell River, the Sunshine Coast and Howe Sound have reported brisk and steady fishing for more than three weeks. Cliff Moors of Cliff’s Chinook Charters confirmed fishing
this season, so far, has been unusually good. “There’s lots of chinook salmon but coho has just started to show up in the last week, big time,” said Moors. “There’s lots of coho and it’s good.” The areas that have reported an abundance of fish caught are at Kitty Coleman, Grand Rift, off French Creek, and the bottom of Hornby. “They have been very good and very productive areas for chinook fishing,” said Gillard. The reasons they’re seeing a fairly good healthy return so far, Gillard said, is due to proper management and conservation by the user groups, good productive water, and good weather conditions. Salmon fishing, Gillard said, is restricted to the ocean right now. They’re urging anglers not to fish in areas in the Comox Valley including the Puntledge River because of the early summer chinook runs. “They’re a unique stock we’re trying to protect,” said Gillard. (Continued on page 2)
There’s a new twist to the mystery surrounding the effective gagging of the two most senior people at Comox Valley Regional District over controversial proposals to develop land alongside Stotan Falls. As first revealed in the Echo last month, the chair of the board, Area C director Edwin Grieve, and the regional district’s chief administrative officer, Debra Oakman, have withdrawn from all involvement in considering proposals made by 3L Developments Ltd. Whenever 3L is slated to be on any agenda, a separate meeting is now arranged where no other item is discussed, chaired by another director and advised by other senior staff. The decision by Grieve and Oakman to remove themselves was taken after high-level advice from lawyers and had something - it has never been made public precisely what - to do with a human rights complaint following an alleged reference to an individual associated with 3L some months ago. Today the Echo can reveal there were serious financial implications resulting from the fallout, too. In order to prevent the complaint going any further, the regional district board met ‘in-camera’ (behind closed doors) to receive advice from Young Anderson its Vancouver-based lawyers. And at that meeting it agreed a five-figure sum should be paid over as part of a settlement of the complaint, in addition to accepting the withdrawal of Grieve and Oakman from future deliberation on 3L issues. The exact sum subsequently paid through its lawyers to the complainant is not known, but more than one source has indicated it is in the region of $10,000$20,000. (Continued on page 2)
Judge tells two teens to read pair of classic poems Verses from “If” and “The Road Not Taken” assigned for break-and-enter on Hornby Island By Drew A. Penner Echo Staff If they can manage to make better decisions in future when they see two roads diverging in a wood, a pair of high schoolers might not be back in court to explain why they took the road less traveled. In sentencing two youths who broke into a Hornby Island residence for a night of drinking and card playing, Judge Rod Sutton hopes an assignment of reading Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” and Rudyard Kipling’s “If” will make all the difference to helping the teens keep their heads in the days to come when all others are losing theirs. “That’s not an order; that’s a request,” Sutton told the two 16-yearold boys in Courtenay Provincial Court July 3, giving them absolute discharges. “Unfortunately for you two, you took the wrong road. I’m satisfied you’re not going to do that again.” On March 28 the pair had been on
Rudyard Kipling Hornby Island and wanted to have a Friday night beach fire. They decided against it because of the weather, and they thought it might be fun to head into what they thought was an empty house nearby. There was no one inside so they broke out the playing cards and began to pour themselves drinks with the liquor they found in the cupboards. They went through one bottle
Robert Frost of wine and then another. They also located a bottle of tequila, which they began to drink from. One of the boys grabbed another bottle of wine to take with him before they left. Police received a complaint the next morning and arrived to discover the couch had been moved, cabinets gone through and alcohol missing. Just after noon one of the boys was
dropped off at the house as the police were carrying out their investigation of the break in. With a bottle in hand he fessed up to the crime and returned the extra bottle of liquor that was stolen. Already one of the boys paid $40 and the other $55 in restitution to the woman who had been renting the house at the time unbeknownst to them. Judge Sutton rebuked the boys for their impulsive actions, but said it’s better they learn their lesson now instead of getting caught up in more dangerous actions like drinking and driving. “The back part of the brain is probably overruling the front part of the brain,” he said, adding, “It wouldn’t be the first time youth have done something like this.” One of the boys chose not to address the court. The other took the time to apologize for what he described as an out of character loss of his sense of responsibility. “I’m very ashamed of what I did,”
he said. “I would like to put this behind me.” The Crown was seeking a 9-month conditional discharge, 20 hours of community service and a variety of additional conditions. Sutton considered all defence and prosecutorial arguments during a short break in proceedings. When he returned he handed the two teens two classic pieces of 20th Century writing. The first, Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” was written in 1909 as a reflection on a friend an important player in the Boer War who kept a stiff upper lip in the face of deceit and who rose to political power in South Africa. This man, Dr. Leander Starr Jameson, was tossed in jail by the British Empire after leading a military expedition the government had supported in private. Over the years the verses, many of which start with “If you can,” has become a mantra of personal integrity and level-headedness for many. (Continued on page 2)