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High hopes for a new high school Project agreement for new school expected in April BY NIKI HOPE REPORTER
nhope@royalcityrecord.com
Chipped paint, rotting wood and rats – sounds more like a neglected prison than a place parents want to send their children. For more than a decade, New Westminster families have waited to hear that the aging, worn-out New Westminster Secondary School will be replaced for the roughly 2,000 students at the city’s only public high school. The project has been derailed over the years for reasons ranging from political gridlock, poor soil conditions and an old cemetery on the site, which altered the usable portion of the land. Could 2014 be the year the district and the province finally reach a long-overdue project agreement to get the school built? Trustee Casey Cook thinks so. “We’re expecting we will have a project agreement in place in April,” Cook told The Record. “Those are our expectations.” The job of building two new schools in the city is on track, and the $23.2-million replacement elementary school for John Robson – Qayqayt (pronounced Kee-Kite) Elementary – is slated to open on schedule this fall. As well, the province and the district announced the builder for the new middle school (which will be built on the former Robson site) last fall. The middle school is scheduled to be built by 2015. The replacement high school – a project that has been in the works for approximately 14 years – is the final piece in the
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Bright future: Families in the city have waited more than a decade for a new school. Trustee Casey Cook predicts there will be a project agreement between the New Westminster school district and the Ministry of Education by the spring. puzzle. “It’s unfortunate that it’s taken the time that it has, but I think we are moving towards resolution,” Cook said. In the meantime, the 60-plus-year-old school looks a little more haggard each year.
Despite the aging building, high school parent Stephen Bruyneel said the education going on inside is solid. “It’s really interesting. Until you have your kids go there, I think the perception is that it’s this thing that’s falling down and all of this kind of stuff. Once they get there,
my experience talking to my kids’ friends and stuff, is kids love the school. They love the teachers. They love the camaraderie,” he said. Still, he acknowledged that the school needs to be rebuilt. ◗Cook Page 3
Transportation plan update is top priority for 2014 BY THERESA MCMANUS REPORTER tmcmanus@royalcityrecord.com
It’s not much of a surprise what the City of New Westminster’s engineering department has planned for 2014. “There is probably three things at the top – transportation, transportation and transportation,”
said Jim Lowrie, the city’s director of engineering. “The very high priorities are to complete our master transportation plan. That’s number one.” The city expects to wrap up its master transportation plan this spring. The plan was last updated in 1998. The new plan will address all types of transportation
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including walking, cycling, public transit, goods movement and vehicles. “We are at the final stages. We have some draft policies that we will be taking forward to our advisory committee in the month of February,” he said. “We will be preparing a draft plan and hopefully take that to the public in the
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springtime. So it’s pretty close to being completed.” Transportation issues have long ranked as the Number 1 concern of New Westminster residents. Lowrie also expects the city to make some headway on planning for a replacement Pattullo Bridge this year. The city has been working with TransLink and Surrey on
a “collaborative strategic review process” to find a long-term solution for the Pattullo Bridge. “That’s coming out for public consultation again in February,” he said. “It’s gone from 25 options down to six, and in this next round of consultation, one of the objectives is to narrow that down
◗Transportation Page 9
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