THE WEDNESDAY
2010 WINNER
JULY 20, 2011 www.tricitynews.com
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INSIDE Tom Fletcher/10 Letters/11 Community Calendar/21 Sports/26
Mayor plans to bow out Trasolini won’t run again in November By Todd Coyne THE TRI-CITY NEWS
TODD COYNE/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
A contractor speaks with Laura Kolstad about the damage to her Angela Drive apartment in Port Moody after what appears to be a random drive-by shooting. The incident occurred late Sunday night and PoMo police are asking the public for information.
Shots frighten mom, teen No explanation for Port Moody drive-by By Todd Coyne THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Laura Kolstad and her teenage son are lucky to be alive after a hail of bullets shot up their Port Moody apartment in what appears to be a random drive-by shooting. Kolstad was at home in her Angela Drive apartment with her son and a roommate at about 11 p.m. Sunday when she heard what sounded like fireworks coming from the street below.
“Then I heard a big crash and someone yelled, ‘Phone the cops!’” Kolstad recalled in her living room Monday, still visibly shaken by the incident. At least six bullets brought significant damage to Kolstad’s second floor patio, ripping cleanly through steel banisters, shattering the glass of her double-paned patio doors and punching into the door frame, yet, miraculously, none of the bullets made it through the steel and double-paned safety glass into the living room or upstairs where the three residents were at the time. Kolstad said they moved into the quiet Port Moody apartment beside
Death on West Coast Express tracks — see story page 4 Seaview elementary in January and she has no idea who would do this to them or why. “For all I know it could be just punks who got a hold of a gun and decided to have a little fun. But according to the police officers, they were a pretty good shot and, if it did go through, somebody would have definitely been
hurt,” Kolstad said. Port Moody police are equally baffled, asking the public to come forward with any information they may have. Police recovered bullet casings from the scene Sunday night, Kolstad said, and spent hours talking to residents of the apartment building and surrounding homes. But few residents that The News talked to on Monday morning reported seeing or hearing anything unusual in the neighbourhood before the police showed up with lights and sirens. see SHOTS HEARD page 12
Por t Moody Mayor Joe Trasolini will not seek re-election in November. The four-term mayor has served as the city’s top politician since 1999 and as a city councillor for three years before that. Trasolini told The Tri-City News Monday that he had already decided not to run for another term during the 2008 mayor’s race but didn’t want to announce it in the middle of his final ter m out of fear of becoming a “lame duck” mayor. “And this gives a couple months too for potential candidates to get organized TRASOLINI and seek the office,” Trasolini said Monday. No candidates have officially announced their nominations yet for Port Moody mayor in the Nov. 19 general election. Trasolini said he felt there were three issues he needed to tackle in his final term as mayor and, for better or worse, those issues have now been resolved. “For the Murray-Clarke overpass and the Evergreen Line, I’ve done all that I can at the municipal level. It’s in the hands of TransLink and the provincial government now,” he said. “And for [Port Moody] Fire Hall No. 1, we just finished a very successful process of building a state-of-theart fire hall at the most affordable price. So things have been put to rest and it’s an opportune time.” Mayor Trasolini said he is not the kind of person to rest on his laurels and may likely stay involved in politics, possibly at the provincial level. “I will be evaluating my opportunities in the more relaxed summer months that hopefully lay ahead,” Trasolini said. “Anything is possible. I am not eliminating anything at this time.” tcoyne@tricitynews.com