No more major oval trips

Matthew Hoekstra, Staff Reporter

Richmond’s top bureaucrat offered assurances this week Olympic related trips for staff and politicians has wound down, but stopped short of ruling out more travel.

“To the greatest extent the bulk of the travel has been completed,” said George Duncan, chief administrative officer. “There may be smaller trips for individuals...(but) there certainly won’t be a need for any more significant group travel that I’m aware of at this point.”

The city has spent $576,000 on Olympic-related travel since 2004. On Monday, civic politicians received a report detailing staff time spent on the oval project—an equivalent of $1,581,177.

City staff are now preparing a budget of all oval related costs to the year 2010 that aren’t included.. Originally a $155-million project before a $23-million parkade was added to the design, other known oval-related costs exceed $20 million.

Councillors said disclosing the real costs should go a long way as a show of accountability.

“We’ve been falling all over ourselves trying to be transparent,” said Coun. Derek Dang, citing the time since the city revealed its secret bid for the Olympic facility.

Coun. Harold Steves said once the city has a budget for ancillary oval costs, council will have clear objectives of extra items related to the venue and politicians will be able to keep the project on budget.

“It’s extremely important to know the exact costs of the oval. It’s not just the $178 million, it’s all the other costs on top of that and how they’re paid for.”

The only council opponent who voted against the original motion to pen the report, Coun. Rob Howard, said he was “a little amused” at all the attention the oval is getting, when council never asks for staff to account for time spent on other projects.

Rabbits wreak havoc on farms

Matthew Hoekstra, Staff Reporter

Farmer Bill Zylmans has farmed Richmond all his life and never seen anything like it: rabbits bounding freely through his fields, digging up seeds and munching on whatever vegetables they can sink their teeth into.

“Years ago we never saw rabbits in the wild or on the farms,” he said. “They’re out of control.”

Rabbits, which have called the Richmond Nature Park home for years, have now spread to the southwest corner of Richmond.

Zylmans said they’ve been destroying lettuce, cabbage and other vegetables and have now overtaken an eight-acre pumpkin field by digging up seeds and eating them.

He estimates his losses in that field alone at $30,000.

“I’ve been totally at a loss for what (to do). I’ve never had this experience before.”

The Sharing Farm at South Dyke, which grows vegetables for the Richmond Food Bank, has also been hit hard this spring by hairy critters.

The Sharing Farm’s Mary Gazetas said crop damage due to rabbits is much worse this year than last.

Gazetas said volunteer farmers have tried several methods of stemming the problem. Last year they tried inflatable snakes and owls and this year they laid a cloth over the seeds and plants—but the rabbits are eating through it.

“It’s reached a point where you just have to do something about it or we’ll lose everything,” she said.

Coun. Harold Steves called on the city this week to do something about it.

“The population has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger and now it’s damaging crops.”

Steves said the city’s role in controlling wild animals has been limited to trapping and relocating beavers, which were building dams across drainage canals and flooding fields in East Richmond.

According to one farmer, city staff are also going to be trapping and relocating the rabbits.

Most rabbits have an average lifespan of seven to 12 years. Females have the ability to reproduce every month, yielding litters as large as 10.

Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty for Animals Richmond branch manager Kim Marosevich said there’s a large population of wild rabbits indigenous to the Lower Mainland that are a problem for farmers.

But the real issue, she said, is the release of pet rabbits into the wild.

Marosevich said people have come to the SPCA shelter having witnessed a rabbit being set free, as some pet owners—seeing other rabbits running free—dump their pets in Richmond after discovering the effort and cost in keeping them.

In order for the SPCA to take any enforcement action against those owners, they must be caught in the act and the SPCA must find a sympathetic judge.

“That tends not to be the biggest fish that everybody has to fry in the justice system, so it is difficult,” said Marosevich.

Life expectancy in the wild is dismal, as most pet rabbits become food for coyotes, raccoons, owls and hawks. But some survive long enough to have babies.

Therein lies the problem, said Marosevich. While owners of dogs and cats are getting more and more accustomed to spaying and neutering their pets, rabbits don’t get the same treatment.

Rabbit welfare groups and the SPCA have argued pet stores that sell rabbits should spay and neuter them—or not sell them at all.

The Richmond shelter has 25 rabbits. The SPCA keeps its adoption fee low, $50, which covers the cost of spaying or neutering.

Although sympathetic to the farmers’ plight, Marosevich said a cull of the rabbit population in Richmond is only a short-term solution. She said the city could set a precedent for other municipalities in enacting a bylaw around the sale of rabbits.

“As long as we have people contributing to the feral and the domestic population in Richmond, it’s going to be a chronic problem in Richmond.

“We have to get a hold of those people who are producing those rabbits, who are turning them lose and stop them.”

YMCA closes two daycares

School district’s charges increased group’s costs by $117,000

Martin van den Hemel, Staff Reporter

A rent hike of $117,000 has forced the YMCA to shut down its child care services at two local schools, and only a last-ditch effort appears to have spared the operation at a third.

Bill Stewart, president and chief executive officer of the YMCA of Greater Vancouver, told The Richmond Review the closure at Mitchell and Cook elementary schools—which will take effect in September—is a direct result of the Richmond School District’s decision earlier this year to increase the rate for renting space in its schools.

Before the rent hike, the YMCA was already subsidizing its Richmond operations, Stewart said.

But now, he said, the YMCA simply can’t absorb another $117,000 in rental increases.

“From our perspective, any loss of child care spaces is too many,” Stewart said. “We feel badly...”

Stewart says some 40 local families had their childcare services subsidized by the YMCA because they simply couldn’t afford to pay. That subsidy amounted to between $20,000 and $25,000 last year.

Now those families are not likely to find child care they can afford elsewhere, he said.

Last September, there were 17 full-time children at Cook’s YMCA Kids Club, and 22 full-timers at Mitchell. Those numbers have dropped dramatically, with just nine full-time kids who have been re-registered at Cook and nine at Mitchell.

According to Stewart, these two child centres operate in “economically challenged” areas, and organizers believe the numbers have dipped to less than half because of the fee increases the YMCA has introduced to offset the rent hikes.

The YMCA’s childcare service at Brighouse Elementary was also on the brink of being cancelled because of a shortage of parents, but a surge of last-minute sign-ups following an appeal to parents means the YMCA Kids Club will likely continue there in September after all.

Stewart said the YMCA sent its complete financial statements from each of its dozen child care operations in Richmond to school trustees last week, but as of Tuesday, no word had been received from the Richmond School District.

News that the before- and after-school care YMCA program at Brighouse was being cancelled due to a lack of enrolment caused plenty of consternation at the school.

“They (parents) were upset that this was so late in coming,” said Brighouse Elementary principal Gillian Rudge.

The news prompted some parents to enrol their children at other schools with the child care services they needed, but a last-ditch effort to get more parents to enrol in the program saved it.

Trustee Sandra Bourque said she empathizes with the plight of parents desperate for affordable day care.

“I’d love to be able to solve the daycare problem...(but) the school board can’t do it,” she said.

Bourque said she had to sacrifice her career aspirations—she has a master’s degree in zoology—to have children because there wasn’t day care available. Had there been, she could have had her family and a professional career too.

Bourque said her mandate as a trustee is to look out for kids from Kindergarten to Grade 12.

“It’s not my business as a school trustee to look at the financial affairs of businesses that operate in our schools.”

The school board’s decision to increase rent rates to $6 per hour, Bourque said, was a reasonable decision. She noted that amount is still in the lower quarter charged by all other regions in the Lower Mainland.

She believes universal day care is the answer and that senior levels of government need to take care of funding that.

“I think society needs to give its head a shake.”

Without access to appropriate daycare, women are in some cases still being forced to choose between having a family and a career.

Richmond school district secretary treasurer Ken Morris said the YMCA was asked months ago to confirm whether it was going to operate in those schools, and it said it would be.

This week’s news has placed the district in a difficult bind. Finding another daycare operator to be put in place at those schools will be difficult.

But Morris said he will take the extraordinary step of soliciting for day care providers through an advertising campaign in hopes someone will be found and able to open by September.

Morris also indicated he will be meeting with the YMCA later this week.

Getaway driver testifies in murder trial

Mitul Devia says he drove Roy Dalen to scene of the attack

Martin van den Hemel, Staff Reporter

A day out of the office appears to have saved the life of an Esso manager who more than a decade ago fired Roy Dalen, the Steveston man currently charged with first-degree murder.

Dalen is accused of killing his mental health case worker in January of 2005, and on Monday, a B.C. Supreme Court jury heard that Dalen had threatened to kill a former boss for firing him and giving him a bad reference.

But when Dalen confided in Coast Mental Health’s Dave Bland and told him about his plan back in 1999, Bland soon after contacted the police.

Dalen had been working for Esso as a gas station manager when he was fired toward the end of 1995.

Four years later, Dalen went to his former boss’s office in West Vancouver with an apparent plan to kill her. He claimed he had an appointment to see her, but Dalen was told by office staff that she wasn’t in, a jury of six men and six women were told on Monday morning.

Richmond administrative Crown counsel Grant Wong took the witness stand this week to testify about that case in 1999 because he successfully prosecuted Dalen for uttering a death threat.

After visiting his former boss’s office, Dalen told Bland that he felt “lost” and that if he ever saw his manager on the street, he’d “lose it,” Wong said, reading from a transcript of those court proceedings.

Bland asked for clarification and Dalen repeated that he went to her office with the “full intention to murder” her, Wong read.

Soon after Bland heard the threat, he reported it to the Richmond RCMP and Dalen was investigated and prosecuted. Dalen pled guilty to uttering a death threat and received a three-year conditional discharge.

Crown counsel Karima Andani said in her opening statement that Dalen killed Bland out of revenge for ratting Dalen out to police.

Mitul Devia, the North Delta man who has already pled guilty to manslaughter in Bland’s murder and received a conditional discharge, told the jury that he met Dalen for the first time in early 2005.

Currently working as a full-time welder, Devia, 26, was introduced to Dalen by New Westminster friend Pavin Yadav during a visit to Dalen’s body supplement store on Bridgeport Road. Yadav has also pled guilty to manslaughter but has not yet been sentenced.

Dalen talked about a mutual friend of theirs and described him as “a pussy or something like that,” for not agreeing to drive Dalen somewhere.

“(The friend) didn’t want to give him a ride. Then he asked me to give him a ride,” Devia said.

When asked by Crown counsel Richard Cairns if Dalen indicated what he wanted to do, Devia testified: “He said he wanted to go slap around some rat. This person had ratted him out five or six years ago.”

At the moment Devia was asked to drive Dalen, Devia testified that he looked at his friend Yadav who nodded his head in approval.

“I agreed with him and I said I’d help.”

Some time later, they were on their way to Richmond Centre to meet up with Dalen when Devia’s 1988 Ford Mustang broke down.

Dalen met up with Devia and Yadav at a mechanic’s shop when, according to Devia, Dalen said: “This f**king guy is lucky.”

Soon after, Devia and the two other men drove together to a parkade and Devia said that Dalen and Yadav went up an elevator while he waited in the car.

Bland was attacked and stabbed repeatedly inside the parkade behind the Coast Mental Health office. Although he died a few hours later, Bland apparently survived long enough to identify his attacker as Roy Dalen.

The trial continues.

Garden City lands shouldn’t become sports complex

City already has three sports hubs, Steves says

Matthew Hoekstra, Staff Reporter

The Garden City lands shouldn’t become the city’s fourth major sports and recreation complex, a Richmond councillor argued Monday.

“We’re just totally out of our tree to look at that sort of thing,” said Coun. Harold Steves. “For me it just doesn’t register whatsoever.”

Steves was reacting to one of a host of changes council considered Monday for the 10-year master plan for parks, recreation and cultural services—now officially adopted by council—meant to serve as a guide for facility and program development.

The veteran councillor said the plan infers the Garden City lands, if removed from the Agricultural Land Reserve, will become another major sports complex.

Steves said Richmond already has a sports complex at Minoru Park, which includes a running track, aquatic centre, arenas and seniors activity centre, and another at Riverport, home to Watermania and the Richmond Ice Centre.

Once the 2010 Games conclude, the oval will become the city’s third major sports complex.

Steves suggested when the final bills are tallied for the $178-million oval and for other priorities—a new seniors activity centre and downtown community centre—there won’t be any cash left over.

“I would suggest those are the only two priorities we’re going to be able to look at in the next decade, because we’re putting our sports complex in the oval.”

Steves added that phasing out leased facilities at Riverport and building new ones at the Garden City lands wouldn’t be fair to residents outside the city centre.

He said the best use of the city’s portion of the Garden City lands is a natural park that incorporates playing fields.

Council did, however, delete references to include a field house at the Garden City lands.

Musicians in the dock

Francisco Avelino Band launches Musical Expressions concert series

Don Fennell, Staff Reporter

Imagine dinner on the dock and an eclectic evening of music.

Apparently a lot of people can, as the first show in the Musical Expressions summer concert series at historic Britannia Heritage Shipyard is already sold out.

“It’s absolutely overwhelming,” said Cherelle Jardine, who came up with the Musical Expressions concept two years ago to help local artists gain some exposure.

M&M Meat Shops is supplying the food and Jardine the artists for the series, which begins this Saturday and continues through September. Jardine, who recently released her fourth CD, Head Traffic, will host this weekend’s show and be accompanied on her opening numbers by Bill Brooks. The headliner is the Francisco Avelino Band.

Accomplished musicians Ricky Francisco and Norm Avelino, both on guitars and vocals, have been playing together since 1994. Joined by promising young jazz musician Jen Hodge on bass guitar and percussionist Raphael Geronimo, the Richmond-based band will perform a blend of jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.

Avelino describes the sound as “jazz fusion,” a combination of jazz progressions, rock and sometimes Latin rhythms.

“I particularly like jazz fusion pieces that have a pretty up-beat rhythm,” he says. “Rarely do I enjoy this genre when it has a slow tempo.”

Growing up, Avelino was heavily influenced by his parents’ love for Brazilian sambas and bossa novas, as well as Spanish love songs. But he says it’s his brother Edgar who can really belt out these type of tunes, adding, “he may be the most soulful Brazilian guitar instrumentalist in Vancouver.”

“Brazilians themselves who have heard Edgar play cannot believe he is not Brazilian,” Avelino says.

Francisco, too, comes from a musical family. One of his sisters teaches piano in Richmond and another plays classical guitar and his parents played the violin and piano. He believes strongly in sharing his musical talents with the community and has played in a variety of groups including The Alleged Band and Ruckus.

“We get along so well together,” Avelino says. “Our major influences were Stevie Ray Vaughan, Duane Allman and Eric Clapton. As a result, forming a band was so natural.”

Ironically, the pair attended the same high school in the Philippines, but didn’t know each other. Avelino laughs when people bring it up now, but says, “there are hundreds of us that have come from the same high school that are living in this very city (now). It’s always fun to share notes.”

Originally, Francisco and Avelino concentrated on playing rock-style blues, but Avelino says he now wants to pursue more of the guitar work that led him to music back in Grade 5.

“It was the whole reason a few years ago I decided to take one-and-a-half years of private jazz lessons from Harris Van Berkel (who won a Juno Award in the 1980s),” he says.

As for Saturday’s show, Avelino promises it will be a memorable concert.

Avelino is excited about what Musical Expressions is doing for local musicians. He says people are discovering they don’t have to go to Vancouver to hear top-quality acts.

“If we continue to get support from Richmondites, this thing Cherelle has will be a big success,” he says.

The jazz theme will continue in July, with Lesismore offering up a refreshing mix of jazz standards spiced with jump, swing, pop and a healthy heaping of the blues on July 8 and Rumba Calzada taking to the stage July 29 with original and classic Latin jazz and salsa. On Aug. 19, North by West—in conjunction with the Maritime Festival—will regale a host of shanties and sailor songs, while on Sept. 9, Tillers Folly will wrap up the series with high-energy acoustic roots music with a northwest flair.

Tickets, including dinner, are $20 in advance at Britannia Heritage Shipyard, 5180 Westwater Dr. or by calling 604-276-4300. Add $4 at the door.