This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Dec. 1, 2017
It may not have the girth and renown of Stanley Park’s Hollow Tree but Dave Menzies and his wife, Nola, think a centuries-old cedar stump on Burke Mountain is worth saving as development encroaches ever closer.
Menzies, 77, found the stump when he was exploring the woods near the couple’s Burke Mountain home, where they’ve lived since the 1970s. The retired firefighter and fire inspector makes frequent forest forays with his metal detector to root out artifacts from the mountain’s logging past, hiking along old, grown-over trails that were once used by shake-splitters for transporting cedar logs.
It was along just such a trail he encountered the big old hollow stump, its interior charred likely decades ago from — Menzies surmises — a forest fire that swept across the mountain in 1914. The trunk of the tree fell over and was absorbed into the forest floor years ago, possibly weakened by the fire, as he can find no evidence that it had been logged.
Menzies recalled his first impression of the stump, which is big enough that up to 10 people could stand in its hollowed interior: “I was in awe.”
Over the years, he and Nola have brought their children and grandchild to visit the stump and marvel at its history.
Menzies estimates the stump could be 500 years old — maybe as old as 1,000 years — and it probably soared 200 or 300 feet into the air at the peak of its health.
“You don’t get to see them this close anymore,” he said. “I can sense it has the history.”
But its days may be numbered.
Developers are moving into the area. Roads have been built, trees have been tagged. The wild mountain is being tamed by subdivisions of expansive homes.
“Everything is just turning into progress,” said Nola Menzies, 75.
She’d like to see the stump saved, protected from the march of bulldozers through the woods or maybe even uprooted and moved to where it can become an educational monument to what the mountain once was.
“It’s real, it’s natural,” she said.
But first, people have to know about it, which is why the Menzies have pulled on their gumboots and stomped across the loamy, rain-saturated forest floor to show it to a reporter.
Said Dave Menzies, peering up through the hollowed stump towards the sky: “This is amazing.”
The story of the COVID-19 pandemic is still being written. While the immediate fear and uncertainty of the public health scare has faded into the background of our memories, its impact on our daily lives endures. The first story, about a pair of local athletes preparing to represent Canada at the World Ultimate Championships, was actually ready to go into the Tri-City News when the pandemic hit. A quick rewrite of the lede accounted for the unknown we were all facing at that time while still sharing their journey. Of course, the pandemic turned out to be more than just a minor speed bump, and three years later I was able to connect with the same athletes to reflect on how it had shaped their lives and aspirations and their own plans to move forward.
A pair of Ultimate players from the Tri-Cities will have to wait a little longer to get to know their teammates on Canada’s national U20 team.
A special four-day training camp that was scheduled to be held at Coquitlam’s Gleneagle secondary school March 19 to 22 has been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Coquitlam’s Devon Bringeland and Port Coquitlam’s Ricky McLeod are among the 28 Ultimate athletes who will compete for Canada at the 2020 World Junior Ultimate Championships in Malmo, Sweden, July 18 to 25.
Bringeland, who turns 19 this week, said it was Ultimate’s supportive, nurturing spirit that attracted him to the sport when he was in Grade 6 at Stratford Hall, an independent school in Vancouver.
“In Ulitmate, we’re all in it together,” said Bringeland, who’s now studying kinesiology at the University of British Columbia.
McLeod, who’s also 19, said the community vibe of Ultimate is a marked contrast to the negativity he experienced when he was playing competitive soccer.
“Being nice to your opponent is part of this sport,” said McLeod, who finally made the national team after he failed to make in his first attempt a few years ago.
MARIO BARTEL/TRI-CITY NEWS
Ricky McLeod and Devon Bringeland get ready to play for Canada at the World Ultimate Championships in Sweden in 2020.
Not that players’ competitive zeal is diminished by their collegial attitude, that’s been a touchstone of the sport since it was invented at a high school in New Jersey in 1968, said the national team’s head coach, Michael Fung.
To get named to Canada’s roster, athletes first had to catch the eye of coaches responsible for selection camps in each of the sport’s regional hubs in Canada — Vancouver, Winnipeg, Metro Toronto and the Ottawa-Gatineau area. Prospective players were tested for their fitness and then run through various drills and scrimmages to showcase their skills. Those who made the cut then attend two training camps prior to worlds to get to know each other and learn how to work together.
“Chemistry is huge in Ultimate,” Fung said, adding each part of the country approaches the sport and its strategies a little differently.
Turning disparate athletes into a cohesive unit when everyone is mostly apart, doing their own thing on club or school teams is an ongoing challenge, he said. Players stay in touch via a Facebook group, they review game recordings and strategy sessions together online, and they share fitness challenges.
“We have to create a platform for them to get to know each other,” Fung said, adding the training camps, that are often based out of someone’s home, can be especially beneficial to achieve that as players have to live, cook, and eat together in close quarters.
He said routine tasks like navigating meal times, cleaning up and sharing bathrooms, as well as planned bonding activities like ping pong and video game tournaments can help develop the synchronicity and communications skills that are vital to success in actual games. It also helps save money as, aside from some small sponsorship to pay for uniforms, everyone on the team pays their own way.
Bringeland said the sacrifices are worth it, especially as the sport’s popularity grows beyond its power base in the United States and Canada; 30 teams will compete in Sweden.
“It’s the next level,” he said of competing at the worlds, which are contested every two years. “It’s what everyone in the sport is driving for, to represent their country.”
Tri-City Ultimate athletes getting a second chance to represent Canada
MARIO BARTEL/TRI-CITY NEWS
Three years after they were denied their opportunity to compete for Canada at the World Ultimate Championship because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ricky McLeod and Devon Bringeland are getting a second chance.
There’s nothing like having something snatched away to motivate you to want it even more.
Port Coquitlam’s Ricky McLeod and Coquitlam’s Devon Bringeland were about to participate in a special training camp for Canada’s national Ultimate team heading to the U20 world championships in Malmo, Sweden, three years ago when the global COVID-19 pandemic yanked away their dream.
This year, they’re back as members of the U24 national side that will be one of 15 teams competing in the open division at the 2024 championships in Nottingham, England, July 2–8.
In between, McLeod and Bringeland had to soothe the sting of missing their chance to compete at the 2020 worlds and embarked on busy studies at the University of Victoria and the University of British Columbia, respectively, recommitted to their training and stepped up their game playing for Canada’s top men’s club: the Vancouver Furious George.
All with their eyes firmly fixed on the prize of being the best in the world.
MARIO BARTEL/TRI-CITY NEWS
Port Coquitlam’s Ricky McLeod stretches to make a defensive play during a recent training camp in Burnaby for Canada’s national U24 Ultimate team.
Bringeland said getting robbed of the worlds in 2020 was “an emotional roller coaster” that took him a while to ride out.
“It was heartbreaking,” he said. “Making Team Canada was something I’d dreamed about.”
McLeod said the COVID-19 shutdown in the spring and early summer of 2020 put his Ultimate aspirations at a crossroads.
“You could quit, or you could work even harder.”
By late summer, as public health restrictions eased and sporting activities resumed, the fire to compete had reignited in McLeod and Bringeland.
“I was missing it,” McLeod said. “As soon as I got a taste of it, I was hungry for the future.”
Bringeland said the competitive progression from U19 to U24 is significant. Speed, intensity, athleticism, skill and strategy are all kicked up a notch.
“It’s a huge step up from juniors,” added McLeod.
In anticipation of their next opportunity to play for Canada, McLeod and Bringeland hit the gym to develop their strength, power and explosiveness.
They ran 10 X 400 m laps around the track for endurance.
They honed their fitness to prevent injury and to sharpen their competitive instincts, they tried out — and made — the Furious George side that has won 11 Canadian championships.
They also play for their respective university teams that are part of U.S.-based leagues.
Bringeland said at its top level, Ultimate is no longer about the good-time vibes and tie-dye shirts that come from the sport’s hippie roots, although games are still self-refereed that commands a high level of respect and communication between opposing players.
“It’s a pure level of competition,” McLeod said. “But you don’t yell at people.”
Aside from the physical preparation to compete on the world stage, there’s also a playbook of set offensive and defensive strategies to learn — much like football — and money to be raised.
Canada’s national Ultimate program doesn’t receive government funding, so the athletes have to pay their own way to competitions — about $5,000 for the season. That means bunking down en masse at someone’s family home during training camps, carpooling to and from the fields and cooking communal meals.
It also obligates team members to launch personal GoFundMe campaigns and hit up corporate contacts for whatever support they can muster.
All while keeping up with their studies and part-time jobs.
“It’s a lot of late nights,” said Bringeland.
But the payoff will be worth the sacrifices, said McLeod.
“We take it very seriously,” he said. “Our goal is to dominate.”
A proposed development that could triple the population of the village of Anmore will have deleterious impacts on Port Moody’s utilities infrastructure, traffic, environment, wildlife, parks and recreation facilities, says the city’s mayor.
Meghan Lahti says a plan by developer Icona Properties to build 2,200 new homes on 150 acres of property the company owns at the corner of 1st Avenue and Sunnyside Road will even increase the risk of a human-caused wildfire by further expanding into the wildland-urban interface.
The draft assessment, to be considered for endorsement by Port Moody council at its meeting on Tuesday, May 27, expands on a preliminary review of Icona’s development proposal sent by Lahti to Anmore at the end of March, along with a request for more time so city staff could thoroughly evaluate several technical studies that weren’t made publicly available until April 10.
While Anmore council agreed to extend its deadline for Port Moody to submit its comments to April 30, several members were irked.
“We can’t let another municipality drive our decisions,” said Coun. Polly Krier.
“They seem to be getting overly involved in Anmore’s business,” added Coun. Kim Trowbridge.
In the latest assessment, that spans 10 pages, Lahti details a number of “significant concerns” with the proposed project, which requires an amendment to Anmore’s official community plan (OCP) along with agreement from Metro Vancouver to expand the region’s urban containment boundary before it can proceed.
More infrastructure for utilities
They include significant expansion of infrastructure like water, sewer and drainage services in Anmore, much of which would have to be built through Port Moody.
But, said Lahti, the village has yet to engage its neighbour to explore how such construction might proceed, where it could occur and how it would be paid for.
“While coordination with the city could be explored if a coordinating or shared project is identified, no such discussions have taken place to date,” Lahti said.
She added Port Moody is currently upgrading water and sewage infrastructure along Ioco Road and any further work to accommodate growth in Anmore would require full resurfacing of the busy roadway.
“If the village is interested in partnering on this infrastructure, time is of the essence.”
Lahti also said an alternate routing of utility services through Bert Flinn Park is a non-starter because of its designation as a park and the risk to environmentally sensitive areas like Mossom Creek.
“Adding an additional 4,500 residents in close proximity to Bert Flinn Park will add pressure on the natural environmental values of this park,” she said.
Strain on road network
Adding so many new residents would also strain the only two roads — Ioco Road and East Road — that connect Anmore to the rest of Metro Vancouver.
Lahti said the routes could only support about 40 per cent of the anticipated traffic the new development would generate without significant upgrades. But physical constraints like topography, property accesses and limited capacity at some intersection make them unfeasible.
Suggestions put forth in the technical reports to ease traffic along the two-lane roadways, like the construction of bus laybys and increasing transit service also aren’t realistic, said Lahti. The former poses safety and livability concerns while Translink hasn’t confirmed any plans for the latter.
A possible private shuttle service operated to link residents of the new development to transit in Port Moody would also have to run all day to be effective, Lahti said.
“Without a realistic and coordinated transportation strategy, the Icona development risks overwhelming the existing network in the area,” she said.
That assessment echoes an independent review of the proposed development’s traffic impacts conducted by Port Coquitlam transportation engineer Alon Weinberger on behalf of the Anmore Neighbours Community Association.
He said vehicle trips during peak hours on weekday afternoons would be almost double the estimate provided in the technical study commissioned by Icona. And the numbers would only increase further on warm summer weekends when visitors from around the region flock to Buntzen Lake and Belcarra Regional Park.
Environment and wildlife also impacted
Lahti said Port Moody’s environment and wildlife would also be negatively impacted by the proposed development, including the water quality of Schoolhouse Creek’s watershed, increased risk of erosion along its banks, decline in forest health because of changes in light availability and fewer trees and a narrowing of wildlife corridors.
As well, Lahti said, Port Moody will bear the pressure of more residents accessing its parks, playgrounds, sports fields and recreational amenities like its pools and arena as the proposed development includes only one park, a 5 km network of greenways for casual users and a 20,000 sq. ft. community centre that likely won’t include a pool or ice surface.
“The future residents will need to leave Anmore to meet these needs,” Lahti said.
As part of its process to consider Icona’s proposal, Anmore also solicited comments from Belcarra, local First Nations, TransLink, Metro Vancouver, Fraser Health, BC Ambulance, RCMP, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and village residents.
Anmore planning consultant Tim Savoie, who recently retired as Port Moody’s city manager, said all interested parties will have more opportunities to provide commentary if the development proposal gets to a public hearing and again if its referred to Metro Vancouver for its approval to expand the urban containment boundary.
The company building Port Moody’s largest-ever development project wants to make it even bigger.
Dean Johnson, the vice-president of development for Vancouver-based Wesgroup Properties, told council’s city initiatives and planning committee Tuesday, May 20, that it will need to add a seventh residential tower to the six already approved as part of its expansive 14.8-acre Inlet District project in the former Coronation Park neighbourhood.
Johnson said the additional density is required to offset recent changes to rules about development cost charges (DCCs) levied by Metro Vancouver that help pay for regional infrastructure like water, sewers and drainage.
He said those changes will cost the company an additional $30 million for its Inlet District development that currently comprises more than 2,500 new homes in six residential towers up to 31 storeys along with three low-rise buildings, a four-storey office building, as well as a grocery store and daycare facility, all built around a 2.5-acre central park.
“This cost is something we have to deal with in this project,” Johnson said, adding it was unforeseen last July, when Wesgroup achieved final approval from council for the zoning amendments required for the development’s first phase to proceed.
Johnson said if the company can’t build an additional tower, it may have to cut back on some of the project’s amenities to help offset its increased costs. Those include:
$6 million towards construction of a new pedestrian overpass across Ioco Road to the Inlet Centre SkyTrain station
a 186 sq. m. civic facility for community use
$4.8 million of public art
more than $8 million in community amenity contributions
Johnson said the seventh tower would be part of a future phase of the project’s construction, which is already underway and is expected to take about 25 years to complete.
Johnson’s preliminary pitch rankled at least one Port Moody councillor.
Haven Lurbiecki said it’s “irresponsible” and accused the developer of “moving the goalposts now.”
At one point during the project’s protracted journey through council’s approval process that commenced when Wesgroup finished acquiring the last of 59 mid-century single-family homes that formerly occupied the site in 2019, the company had hurled a similar charge.
In 2022, Wesgroup’s senior development manager, Evan French, expressed frustration at Port Moody’s implementation of a new inclusionary zoning policy that requires at least 15 per cent of units in dense new developments be affordable rentals shortly after it had received approvals for changes to the city’s official community plan so the project could proceed and just as it was preparing to apply for necessary zoning amendments.
And while those zoning amendments were ultimately passed by council in Dec., 2023, without a requirement for affordable housing units, Wesgroup did provide a letter of intent that it would continue working to secure such a component.
Tuesday, Johnson said those efforts have borne some fruit.
He said a program through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation that provides low-cost financing for the construction of affordable apartments could mean all 288 units in the project’s second tower could become rental apartments, with 20 per cent of them available at below-market rates.
Johnson said Wesgroup had previously tapped into the program for projects it built in other communities like Burnaby and New Westminster.
“We are very familiar with this framework and we’re really excited about bringing this to Port Moody.”
But, Johnson added, time is running short and an endorsement letter from the city would speed the process, a request councillors readily granted.
A popular series of live music concerts at Port Moody’s Inlet Theatre will receive a $5,000 boost from the city.
The art, culture and heritage grant allows promoters Bill Sample and Darlene Cooper to continue booking top touring and local musicians like Shari Ulrich, Roy Forbes and The Paperboys while maintaining affordable ticket prices.
It’s one of $40,000 worth of grants approved by council’s finance committee Tuesday, May 20, for distribution to several local organizations.
Cooper said the concerts have put the city “on the map as a bit of a cultural hub.”
She and Sample, who are both accomplished musicians themselves, launched the series in 2022 after moving to Port Moody from Vancouver and finding the local live music scene somewhat lacking, especially after the demise of Bistro Gallery that burned down in 2019.
Sample said the little bistro on Clarke Street had become a popular performance venue for local and guest musicians, poets, writers and visual artists. But with no place to play, many were bypassing Port Moody while on tour.
“We need music in our lives,” Sample said, of the series that presents up to eight concerts during the fall, winter and spring months in the venue that can seat as many as 208 patrons.
In March, 2024, Port Moody council voted to extend an agreement with Sample and Cooper to waive rental fees at the theatre for two more years to help keep concert costs down.
Devin Jain, who was then the city’s manager of cultural services but recently retired, said the promoters have “brought a consistent and professional music series to the community” which has “filled a gap within the cultural landscape of Port Moody.”
Other organizations awarded grants include:
Big Sisters of BC Lower Mainland and Big Brothers of Greater Vancouver will each receive $2,608 community grants to enhance their mentoring and youth leadership programs
Crossroads Hospice Society will get a $3,000 community grant to bolster its activities that enhance the quality of care for it patients
PoCoMo Meals on Wheels Society will get $3,000 to help keep the price of meals affordable
SHARE Family and Community Services also gets a $3,000 community grant to offset the cost of emergency hampers for vulnerable community members
The Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention Centre also gets $3,000 to boost its operational support for mental health care
Port Moody Men’s Shed society’s $1,404 community grant will help its members build community bird houses
Port Moody Heritage Society will receive a $5,000 arts, culture and heritage grant to help fund a new exhibit
POMO Players will use its $4,500 arts, culture and heritage grant to fund booking of a venue, creative costs and insurance for its production of “A Christmas Carol”
The Port Moody Art Association will get $3,000 for room rental, permits and insurance costs
Arts Connect gets a $2,500 grant to help it attract top musical acts to Port Moody
As well, five artists will share a total of $4,717 in grants to help them put on exhibitions, open a studio, produce a short film or acquire materials and equipment. They are:
Crystal Koskinen
Amy Narky
Ramin Mohseni
Husein Kamrudin
Samira Messchian Moghadam
Port Moody Mayor Meghan Lahti said she was pleased by the quality of the recipients.
“They all look like very good applicants,” she said.
According to a staff report, Port Moody received 47 applications for its three grant programs. Each was evaluated by staff and the city’s citizens advisory group based on criteria like:
the extent to which the grant will help address a need in the community
how the grant will promote the well-being and quality of life of Port Moody residents
how much of the money will be spent in the city and benefit the community as a whole
the needs of the organization or group requesting the funding
how the funds will be directed to support equity, diversity, inclusions and reconciliation initiatives
the involvement of volunteers and promotion of community spirit
This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Feb. 28, 2021
There may be no “I” in team, but a Port Moody teen is learning there’s a whole lot of support and love, especially when the chips are down.
Dec. 13, Hailey Kress and her family were displaced from their Glenayre home in the middle of the night by a fire that destroyed their garage and deck, heavily damaged an adjoining bedroom and inflicted lots of smoke and water on the rest of the structure including the basement.
That’s where Kress, 13, stored her hockey equipment.
Nobody — including the family dog — was hurt in the 3:15 a.m. blaze. But the emotional toll of that night has been especially difficult on Hailey, said her mom, Monica.
As the family moved in with relatives, then to an Airbnb, and finally to a rental home on the opposite side of Burrard Inlet, Hailey struggled in class at Banting middle school. She said she’d have panic attacks, feeling frozen and overwhelmed by the enormity of that night’s events and the impact it was having on her routines and sense of security.
“It was important to get back to normal,” said Monica. “We needed to somehow concentrate on something other than the fire, get her mind off the negative.”
Hockey is Hailey’s other.
The day after the fire, Monica received an email from Heather Fox, the president of the Tri-City Predators female hockey association where Hailey has been playing for three years, reassuring her that efforts were already in motion to ensure her daughter could keep playing.
Back on the ice
Two weeks later, Hailey was back on the ice. All of her equipment was brand new, courtesy of The Hockey Shop, in Surrey. Her new Predators bag, socks, pants and even hockey tape were donated by Rocket Rod’s at Planet Ice in Coquitlam.
n a season that’s been all about disruption because of public health restrictions to temper transmission of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, Hailey said practising with her teammates made her feel normal, that everything was going to be OK.
“It was really fun to be with my friends again,” she said. “It made me forget about everything for an hour.”
Hailey, who’s also played baseball, jiu jitsu and acro-gymnastics, started playing hockey after a sleepover at a cousin’s house meant she also had to attend that cousin’s game the next day.
She said she liked what she saw.
“It looked super fun,” she said, adding she especially enjoyed hockey’s aggressive nature.
Monica said she was initially taken aback when Hailey expressed an interest in playing hockey herself. But the positive benefits of being part of a team and forming new relationships outweighed the downsides of the sport’s expense and sitting on cold arena benches.
“It makes for a really well-rounded kid,” she said.
Values camaraderie
Hailey said she enjoys the challenge and responsibility of playing defence, including learning how to skate backwards. But she most values the camaraderie of her teammates and coaches.
“It’s like always having people around you who care about you,” Hailey said.
That care was delivered even before Hailey returned to the ice, as her teammates put together a package for her family of food and personal items like blankets and skin care products.
Monica Kress said she’s been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from Hailey’s team and the Predators’ hockey community.
“You always think you pay a lot of money for these sports, you think you’re just a number to them,” she said. “But it’s such a good group of kids and parents.”
Hailey said the experience has given her an appreciation for the importance of having sport and teammates in her life. It’s also made her more determined to keep getting better at her game.
“Everything that they’ve done makes me want to try harder to show I’m grateful.”
This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Sept. 12, 2021
You can’t call an Uber from the new phone booth installed at Port Moody’s Pioneer Park, but you may be able to chat with your favourite Nana who passed away in 2015.
The Phone of the Wind is an initiative of the Crossroads Hospice Society that gives visitors to the park an opportunity to work through some of their grief at losing a loved one by placing a call to them from the vintage rotary-dial wall phone mounted in a wonderfully stained and lacquered wooden booth.
And while the phone doesn’t have a special line to the afterlife, the act of picking up the handset and talking into the mouthpiece can be comforting in a time of loss and sorrow, said Amelie Lambert, the adult bereavement coordinator at Crossroads’ nearby hospice facility on Noons Creek Drive.
“It helps people not feel crazy all the time when they’re grieving,” she said.
“It helps to normalize grief,” added Brittany Borean, the bereavement service coordinator who helped bring the phone project to life after a volunteer let her know about a similar effort in Washington.
The first Phone of the Wind was erected in 2010 in Otsuchi, Japan when a landscape designer named Itaru Sasaki installed an old phone booth in his garden shortly after a beloved cousin died of cancer. In a 2017 article in Bloomberg, he said the phone offered him a way to maintain a relationship with his departed cousin.
In 2011, Sasaki’s private installation became a kind of public shrine after an earthquake and tsunami destroyed dozens of coastal communities including Otsuchi and people who lost loved ones in the disaster made their way to his garden to seek comfort by placing calls from his booth.
Since then, wind phones have been built in places like: Oakland, Calif., to commemorate the 36 people who perished in a warehouse fire; Dublin, Ireland; Marshall, North Carolina; and Aspen, Colorado.
The concept has also caught the imagination of novelists and filmmakers who’ve incorporated it into stories of love and loss.
To realize Port Moody’s Phone of the Wind, Borean enlisted the help of the city’s superintendent of parks, Robbie Nall, and carpenter Roy Balbino, who took his inspiration to craft the booth from an old-style phone booth he happened to spy one day while driving along St. John’s Street.
MARIO BARTEL/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Port Moody’s superintendent of parks, Robbie Nall, and carpenter Roy Balbino helped bring the Crossroads Hospice Society’s vision for a phone of the wind to life in Pioneer Park.
Some of the wood is reclaimed from old memorial benches in the adjacent labyrinth healing garden, while the vintage black wall phone was discovered on Facebook Marketplace.
Lambert said having the Phone of the Wind in a public setting helps bring the grieving process out from the shadows where western society has tended to lock it away as a very private process.
“We don’t acknowledge grief,” she said. “We don’t have to hide it.”
In fact, Borean added, accepting grief can help ease some of the pain that comes from losing a loved one.
“It sends a message that it’s okay to grieve,” she said. “It’s not about ‘time will heal all wounds.’”
The phone can also provide a way for families to bridge generations.
Lambert said since the phone was installed in August, families have brought their kids to talk with members who may have passed before they were born or were too young to remember.
“It drives connections,” Borean said. “It creates a sense of community that you’re not alone.”
This story first appeared in the Tri-City News on Dec. 10, 2021
A Coquitlam city councillor is taking the phrase “boots-on-the-ground politician” to heart.
Except she’s wearing sneakers.
Teri Towner recently finished running every street in the Tri-Cities — including Anmore and Belcarra. The quest took her more than 12 months. She ran on 1,943 streets, covering about 2,000 km. She wore out four pairs of shoes.
The quest started when Towner read an article in the Tri-City News about Pamela Clarke’s conquest of every street in Port Coquitlam last year when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic cancelled a marathon she’d planned to run in Berlin.
Towner, an avid runner since she was a teen, set out to run every street in Coquitlam.
But when she finished that, she said she was having so much fun she just kept going.
SUBMITTED
A map of all the streets Coquitlam councillor Teri Towner ran in her year-long quest to run all the streets in the Tri-Cities.
Her last street was Marpole Avenue in Port Coquitlam, where a congratulatory reception and beverage reward awaited at Patina Brewing.
Along the way, Towner said she learned things about her community and the rest of the Tri-Cities she knew at an abstract level but had never experienced in a real, visceral way.
Like the diversity of the region’s neighbourhoods that took her from trailer parks to high-rises, from mansions up on Westwood Plateau to blueberry farms out in Minnekhada.
She saw llamas and horses.
“It energized me,” Towner said. “I always felt like I learned something or found something I didn’t know existed.”
It also increased her awareness of issues like illegal dumping, pedestrian accessibility and safety, street lighting, signage and parking.
SUBMITTED
During her runs of all 1,943 streets in the Tri-Cities, Anmore and Belcarra, Coquitlam councillor Teri Towner came across all kinds of unusual finds, like a large spring on Winter Crescent.
Towner said she must have driven Coquitlam’s engineering department nuts with all her calls and messages about trash, missing signs and burnt out street lamps.
But overall, she said, the city is very clean.
Planning her routes on the social activity app Strava to link streets as efficiently as possible, Towner became acutely aware of which neighbourhoods were designed with pedestrians in mind, and which prioritized cars.
City planning has evolved over the years, but planners still have work to do to create truly walkable communities, she said.
Most importantly, Towner said, she came to appreciate the communities’ spirit.
As the pandemic’s second wave rolled through last fall, she noted the colourful rocks in gardens painted with messages of hope, the signs thanking essential workers in windows.
During the holiday season, she timed her runs for the evening hours so she could enjoy the twinkle lights and decorated trees.
SUBMITTED
Coquitlam councillor Teri Towner said she especially like running at night during the Christmas season so she could enjoy all the lights and decorations.
“There’s a lot of positivity,” Towner said.
Her running journey wasn’t always smooth sailing, though.
Shortly after Towner embarked on her mission, she was knocked off course for about a month when she was concussed by a low-flying drone while riding her bike through Mundy Park.
And she had to take more time off last September to recover from a month-long Coquitlam Crunch challenge.
Of course, some runs were easier than others.
Among the more difficult legs, Towner made room in her pain cave for the hills of Anmore and Westwood Plateau that she’d both ascend and descend.
She gained a new affection for the flatlands of Port Coquitlam.
Her conquest of hometown streets and sites complete, Towner said her next running challenges will be further afield — a half marathon in Las Vegas next February and the full 42 km pull at the 50th BMO Vancouver Marathon in May.
“It frees my mind,” she said of her love for the sport.
An Acura has a smashed rear window and Port Moody police are looking for a suspect after a road rage incident Thursday afternoon.
Port Moody Police Department spokesperson, Cst. Sam Zacharias, said the confrontation occurred at around 4 p.m. in the westbound lanes of St. Johns Street at Moray Street.
He said it’s believed to have started as a verbal exchange several blocks to the east, near the Coquitlam border, then escalated when the suspect allegedly got out of his car and smashed the window with some sort of object.
“We aren’t exactly sure what sparked it,” Zacharias said.
He said the suspect also allegedly pointed a weapon at the Acura’s driver, who wasn’t injured in the altercation.
The suspect is described as a heavier-set Middle Eastern male, in his late-20’s or early-30’s, with black hair and a beard. He fled the scene in a grey Honda sedan.
“We are looking to speak with any witnesses who observed the rush hour altercation,” Zacharias said, adding anyone with further information or even dashcam footage can contact PMPD at 604-461-3456.
The plastic lane delineators creating chicanes to slow traffic on Port Moody’s Moray Street could soon be gone.
In their place, new curb bulges will be built at Pinda Drive and Brookmount Avenue, along with new lane markings and crosswalks. But a planned bike lane on the east side of Moray Street will have to wait.
Tuesday, May 20, Port Moody council’s initiatives and planning committee will consider spending an additional $353,000 to construct the new, permanent elements. That’s on top of the previous budget of $795,000 that had been approved in 2022.
Since then, though, construction costs have risen, additional design work was required and $187,000 will be allocated to a new multi-use path on the west side of Moray, resulting in a total budget of $1.248 million, said a staff report; $100,000 of that will be covered by the city’s street lighting relocation program, and another $155,000 will come from a TransLink grant.
A pilot project to slow traffic using Moray Street that was implemented in the summer of 2022 resulted in a 5-6 km/h reduction of speeds on the busy connector route to Coquitlam, according to the report.
But some residents said the temporary measures, that included the plastic lane delineators, new markings on the pavement to configure curb bulges at intersections and a temporary sidewalk on Moray’s west side, actually made the situation worse.
“It may have calmed traffic on the east side, but they’re going faster on the west side,” said one resident prior to a meeting last June when council decided the traffic calming measures should be made permanent.
Subsequent feedback from residents following a public information session earlier this year revealed further concerns like the loss of several on-street parking spots, worries about pedestrian safety from cyclists speeding down a northbound bike lane and turns lanes at the St. Johns Street intersection too short to accommodate the volume of vehicles.
As a result, said the report, further refinements have been made to the permanent calming plan, including:
the addition of eight new on-street parking spots on the east side of Moray, between Brookmount Avenue and Portview Place
the removal of the northbound cycling lane on the east side of Moray; instead, cyclists heading down the hill will be directed to use Brookmount Avenue and Clearview Drive while staff consider further options
additional curb bulges to be built at the intersection of Moray and Brookmount, as well as a new marked crosswalk on the north leg
adjustments to the lane geometry at Moray and St. Johns to extend the turning lanes so they can accommodate more vehicles
The report said the permanent changes should be in place by the end of the year.
MARIO BARTEL 