FIRE ON COLDWATER
ROPIN’ AND RIDIN’
MFRD responded quickly to a fire just off Coldwater Road / Page 2
Ranch rodeo and barrel racing events set the mood for this weekend / Page 9
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MERRITT HERALD Coldwater BARN BURNER BUSTED Avenue paving
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TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2015 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
grant denied Michael Potestio THE MERRITT HERALD
Merritt resident Tyler Litke plead guilty to the arson of this building. It was set ablaze in the early hours of June 7. Michael Potestio/Herald Michael Potestio THE MERRITT HERALD
A Merritt man will be spending one year in provincial prison for committing arson and assaults with weapons. In a Kamloops courtroom last Thursday, 19-year-old Tyler Litke pleaded guilty to multiple charges, the most serious of which were for burning down a barn behind the Spring Island Trailer Court in Merritt back on June 7, and assaulting multiple people in the weeks that followed. Litke received a year in jail for the arson with two years of probation, six months in jail for assaulting his roommates and three months for assaulting a stranger on the street. Crown prosecutor Frank Caputo told the Herald the assault charges are concurrent, meaning Litke will serve those nine months at the same time he serves the one year sentence for arson. The sentence is less the month and a half of time Litke has already served, Caputo said, adding that the defense asked for a seven month jail sentence. On June 7 at about 2:30 a.m., the Merritt Fire Rescue Department responded to a barn fully engulfed in flames. Firefighters had the abandoned structure at 1500 Spring Street behind the trailer park extinguished in an hour.
No one was hurt, and no other properties were damaged by the flames. Police charged Litke and fellow 19-year-old Kayla MacDonald with arson after receiving information from the public that the two had been seen at the barn at about the time of the fire. The court heard that Litke simply decided to burn the barn down with no further reasoning, Caputo told the Herald. Using a cigarette, Litke lit some tar paper on the barn to start the fire, he said. MacDonald is expected to appear in court next week. On June 18, Litke assaulted two of his roommates with a baton, baseball bat and brass knuckles. “He came home and he was locked out,” Caputo said. “He got angry and retrieved weapons.” On July 29, Litke assaulted a man he thought was someone who had assaulted a relative of his, however the man was not someone he knew. No injuries stemming from these incidents were discussed in court, Caputo said. Caputo said the two years of probation is more than what is usually given. “We seldom see probation orders that long,” he said.
CREDIT
The City of Merritt will have to stop short on its plans to repave Coldwater Avenue from Main Street to Voght Street this year. Council received word that their submission for a matching grant from the New Building Canada Fund for Small Communities was denied. A letter from the provincial co-chair of the oversight committee for the Small Communities Fund in the council agenda states “the program received significantly more applications than could be funded.” With the help of the grant money, water and sewer lines below that stretch of road as well as the asphalt above would have been replaced. Sans grant, this project only covered the 1400 block of Coldwater Avenue, which was replaced this past spring. While the final number hasn’t come in yet, public works manager Shawn Boven said that work cost the city about $640,000 prior to the road being paved. There will be a second intake of applications for the grant, but a date for that hasn’t been determined yet. To be eligible for this grant, the city put up $1.5 million for the government to match, funds which Boven said he’ll recommend council hang on to in order to maintain eligibility for the second intake. In addition to the 1400 block of Coldwater Ave., the water and sewer lines and the asphalt road for a portion of Clapperton Avenue and the Langstaff Place cul-de-sac were replaced this year. The City of Merritt also had Voght Street from Merritt Avenue to Nicola Avenue, and Houston Street from Nicola Avenue to Priest Avenue repaved.
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