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MURDER SITE TORN DOWN
FROM AN AD TO THE WORLD CUP
Seven years of bad memories crushed
City referee set to officiate big tourney
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KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK THURSDAY
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APRIL 2, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 40
BUS STOP: PROMISED 8,500 EXTRA TRANSIT HOURS CANCELLED DAVE EAGLES/KTW
Police tape surrounds the spot in Riverside Park where Kamloops firefighters doused a woman who was on fire. The incident remains under investigation.
Woman dies from burns in Riverside Park fire TIM PETRUK STAFF REPORTER tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
Three Kamloops firefighters were taken to hospital with inhalation injuries after responding to a woman who was on fire in the wee hours of the morning in a downtown park. The woman later died from her injuries in hospital. Kamloops Fire Rescue Capt. Darryl Cooper said emergency crews were called to an area in the west end of Riverside Park at 2:17 a.m. on Tuesday, March 31, for a report of a person in medical distress. “It turned out there was a female on fire,” Cooper told KTW. “It was pretty rough. She was talking, but her lower body was pretty badly burned.” Cooper said firefighters worked to extinguish the blaze. Paramedics then rushed the
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woman to hospital. A trio of KFR firefighters was also treated at Royal Inland Hospital after they inhaled dry extinguishing chemicals. Cooper said the firefighters spent the night in hospital and have since been released. None are expected to miss work due to their injuries. Counsellors are available to firefighters who were involved in the traumatic incident. BC Coroners Service spokeswoman Barb McLintock said the woman succumbed to her injuries shortly before noon, and that it is too early in the investigation to suggest her death was suicide. “It is much too early to suggest anything of the kind, and it may well end up being something else entirely, such as an accidental death,” she said. The investigation is ongoing.
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In March 2014, the City of Kamloops agreed to BC Transit’s offer of more than 8,000 new hours of service. In March 2015, — Tuesday, March 31, to be exact — BC Transit officials told the City of Kamloops all those hours were being withdrawn because the provincial government has not increased funding to the Crown corporation to cover the costs of adding those transit hours. BC Transit senior regional transit manager Erin Felker was at city council to deliver the news that Kamloops won’t be adding 6,000 hours to regular bus service and 2,500 hours to HandyDART — and does not plan to extend the offer in the next three years. “It’s not just
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Kamloops. All BC Transit systems were held to zero expansion hours in this year,” Felker said. Councillors Denis Walsh and Donovan Cavers expressed disappointment in the province’s decisions on transit funding. “What would be the justification for walking away for almost four years?” Walsh wondered, referring to the province’s plan to freeze BC Transit funding until at least the 2018 budget. In March of last year, BC Transit needed an early answer from city council on the additional 8,500 hours because it required lead time to order four new buses — three regular and one HandyDART. The extra hours were set to begin in September of this year and would have added $132,000 to the city’s transit budget in 2015
and $420,000 to that same budget in 2016. In an earlier interview with KTW, Minister of Transportation Todd Stone said the province is asking BC Transit to look for cost-cutting measures and reassess its service levels in communities across the province, a move he said is in line with what the government has asked of other Crown corporations since the last election. Even with a flat budget, Stone said, B.C. will still have a higher per capita spending on transit than any other province. “We’re No. 1 in Canada and will remain No. 1,” he said. Cavers, who called the cancellation of the addition transit hours “extremely disappointing,” wants to see the government reconsider its plan.
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