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www.comoxvalleyecho.com Friday July 18, 2014
Price: 57 cents plus GST
Volume 20, No. 57
Sage Hills developers hit with $12 million fine By Carla Wilson Special to the Echo The B.C. Securities Commission has imposed $12 million in fines and permanently banned two Vancouver Island men and two companies for fraud, illegal distribution of securities, and breaching a cease trading order relating to a failed Comox Valley development. Independent Academies Canada (IAC) owned the 2,040acre Sage Hills property, south of Courtenay. Promoted as a sports and education complex to be developed over two decades, it ended up in foreclosure. Theodore Ralph Everett, Robert H. Duke, IAC, and its subsidiary Micron Systems Inc. were earlier found by a Securities Commission panel to have distributed securities to 126 investors for $5.1 million, without filing a prospectus, between 2002 and 2011. They also traded securities despite a cease trade order, the panel said. They were found to have perpetrated a fraud between November 2009 and July 2011 by selling securities to 55 investors for more than $1 million without revealing that Sage Hills was in foreclosure. (Continued on page 2)
The book, handwritten note and five $20 bills all bundled in yellow tape when delivered to Prince George Library.
Sorry I’m a bit late returning this book - will $100 cover it? By Philip Round Echo Staff It’s a feeling many keen readers have had - finding a library book that’s past its return-by date and knowing there will be a penalty to pay for forgetfulness. But for one man that feeling must have stirred a deep sense of embarrassment, because the compensation he voluntarily offered was way beyond anything ever previously recalled by library staff in Courtenay. For the book had been borrowed 30 years ago, and has only just been returned - and in a bid to make amends, the borrower
slipped a note of explanation inside the cover, along with $100 in cash. The book, ‘Camping and Woodcraft’ by Horace Kephart, is a classic of its genre. It was borrowed from the shelves at the old Courtenay Library back in 1984 and returned to Prince George Library a few days ago. A note accompanying it read: “To whom it may concern. From Courtenay Library - please find $100 for courier back to Courtenay and for overdue. I shall contact you next week to ensure all is in order. Thanks.” (Continued on page 2)
Record number of passengers riding Valley buses By Philip Round Echo Staff
It goes here: Courtenay branch library manager Colleen Nelson checks out the place on the shelves where the missing book would normally be located.
Growth in bus ridership in the Comox Valley last year was nearly three times the provincial average, according to BC Transit’s latest annual report. It states that across BC, ridership went up by 2.7% - but in the Comox Valley the figure was 7.4%. Locally, a record 626,043 passenger trips taken in the 12 months to March 31, up from 582,598 the year before. That put the local area in fifth place for passenger growth - the runaway success story of the past year was Summerland in the Okanagan, which saw a 33.4% increase, followed by Squamish with 14.7%, AgassizHarrison up 10.5% and Salt Spring Island increasing by 8.4%. Across BC as a whole, 51 million transit journeys were made over the 12 months. Province-wide operating costs were $222.3 million, which was 3.8% ($8.7 million) below budget, said to be due to operational efficiencies that helped reduce the burden on taxpayers in funding public transit. In the Comox Valley, the provincial government through BC Transit - provides about half the money needed to run local bus services, with the rest coming from ticket and pass income and an annual subsidy from Comox Valley Regional District. (Continued on page 2)
$2.1 million excavation contract issued for new hospital By Drew A. Penner Echo Staff They’re firing up their vans and loading their trucks. Already some of the hundreds of contractors and trades people that will be necessary to raise the Comox Valley hospital from the dirt have been called in to contribute to what officials say will be a project with a significant economic impact on the local community. Now that Courtenay has issued a $2,149,039 building permit for excavation work at the hospital construc-
Expires July 31/14
tion location at Lerwick and Ryan roads, and is in the midst of examining a building foundation permit, the long-awaited influx of employment has begun. Knappett Industries of Nanaimo is working with local dumpsites and organizing detailed and bulk excavation workers who can haul out and import materials or operate heavy machinery, as part of the building a site access road and digging the hospital footprint. “We will open it up to local contractors as much as is feasible,” said Greg Parnell, construction manager
for Graham Design Builders, the company tasked with managing construction. “It just makes financial sense.” About 1,900 jobs for 145 trades will be required during the full construction process, officials expect. Bruce Black, the procurement-stage project director for Tandem Health Partners, the consortium behind the North Island Hospitals Project, said the team plans to bring local business owners on board consistently, since they have a vested interested in making sure the hospital stands the test of time. “If that person is driving by that
project each day, and if that person’s grandmother of daughter is going to use that hospital, they’re going to do high quality work,” he said. “You get very good response time as well.” Meanwhile project staff estimate well over 200 room nights have been booked at local hotels in the past few months as administrators tour the region to connect with the North Island population and organize the next steps of construction. The Courtenay facility will cost $331.7 million and comprise a total of 428,700 square feet and will include a University of British Columbia
teaching space. Together with the Campbell River facility the NIHP will carry a $606.2 million price tag. In order to get work on the Public Private Partnership-style development up and running, $231.5 million in debt was issued through a climate-themed bond, at a 4.39 per cent interest rate for a 32.3-year term. Insurance companies and fund managers snapped up the financial product, including some new buyers, in an oversubscribed sale. (Continued on page 2)
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