McDermott ready to ‘tell stories out of school’ Valley shines at Bridgman: Cow High takes title
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Friday, October 18, 2013
MAPLE BAY ELEMENTARY GOES DIGITAL
Kelly Bannister
Bernie Jones
Opponents plead for Echo Heights SARAH SIMPSON CITIZEN
Grade 7 students, from left, Skyla Foss, Allison Berg, Jenna Batty and Logan Anderson show off some of their school’s iPads during a special class at Maple Bay Elementary School Thursday, Oct. 17. Grasping quickly how to use them for school, the class was preparing to mentor a group of younger children later in the afternoon. [LEXI BAINAS/CITIZEN]
Mom sounds alarm after man approaches 16-year-old SARAH SIMPSON CITIZEN
A North Cowichan woman is asking the public to be on the lookout after she said a man tried to abduct her 16-year-old daughter on the afternoon of Tuesday, Oct. 15. The 16-year-old girl had been
walking home from school along Philip and Mary streets in Duncan about 2:25 p.m. “She was just at the end of Mary Street,” worried mother Laney Haywood explained on Wednesday. “She was walking just where Philip and Mary divide and he was driving in the opposite direc-
tion and he pulled over and yelled ‘hey!’ and took off his seatbelt and approached her.” When the stranger got to the front of his white Dodge Ram, which he had left running, the scared teen girl took off running. See Vehicle stopped • page 3
The three-minute slideshow of the natural wonders that are contained within Echo Heights was set to a soundtrack of birds and other animals that make up the urban forest in Chemainus. The audio-visual beauty ended abruptly with the buzzing of chainsaws highlighting images of massive timbers being piled atop logging trucks. An abrupt end to Echo Heights development plans is exactly what the Chemainus Residents Association wants, and they said as much during their multi-media presentation to North Cowichan during council’s regular meeting Wednesday afternoon. Led by CRA Chair Bernie Jones, the group urged council to not move forward with a plan to develop 20 per cent of their beloved 52-acre forest. “Preserving all of Echo Heights makes sense from a number of perspectives,” Jones said. “And the community has demonstrated its support time and time again.”
In June, council voted to all but abandon a 2011 development plan that would see about 40 per cent of Echo Heights built out, in favour of a new idea that would cap construction at 20 per cent, and confine it to the already disturbed southeast corner of the property, while preserving the remainder. On Wednesday, council got to see what that 20 per cent build out would look like but the new plan, no matter what it looked like, still didn’t sit well with many Chemainus residents. While others spoke to economics, culture, education and more, Dr. Kelly Bannister, who holds a PhD in ethnobiology, highlighted the ecological significance of the forest. “The disturbed area is a recovering habitat — an opportunity for increasing biodiversity and the multiple uses even further,” Bannister said before congratulating council on their award-winning Climate Action and Energy Plan. See Development • page 5
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