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The City of Abbotsford was caught off guard when Transport Canada told them they had to start putting a flagging crew at the Vye road rail crossing near Sumas Way.

Transport Canada says there is a public safety risk because a lot of cars go through that crossing and many of them ignore stop signs.

Mayor Bruce Banman says the City has tried to come up with a solution to the traffic backlog, suggesting a new traffic crossing on another road.

However he says Southern Railway hasn’t allowed any other solutions.

“Southern Railway has been less than cooperative with the city with regards to finding a solution for this. And our road was there first. And we’re not impressed with their attitude. I’m not impressed with their lack of trying to come up with a common sense solution.”

Banman says he’s disappointed in Transport Canada’s decision, saying providing flaggers will cost the city over 75 thousand dollars per year.

“We’re checking with our legal department to find out if Southern Railway is going to be on the hook for some of this because in all fairness they’re the ones that have caused the backup of traffic along there, not us.”

The flaggers will have to be there Monday to Friday from 8 till 4 until a more permanent solution can be found.

The Crown wants eight years in prison and a 15-year driving ban for Brent Parent.

The 42 year old Langley man was convicted of three charges including criminal negligence causing death in January.

21 year old Silas O’Brien was killed in March of 2008 in what has been described as a road rage incident.

The truck he was in was forced off the road on Hwy 16 in Aldergrove, and he was hit and killed when the other driver came back to the scene.

Parent pleaded not guilty, saying he didn’t know anyone was hit, until he heard news reports about it the next day.

However the prosecution maintained that Parent ran the truck off the road initially because the driver had “high-beamed” him.

During today’s sentencing hearing Crown brought up Parent’s 64 driving infractions, and said Parent was caught for going 108 km/h in a 60km/h zone on the two year anniversary of O’Brien’s death.

Defense says because of Parent’s remorse and lack of substance abuse he should serve 3 to 4 years.

As a teenager how would you like to spend an entire day and night playing games at Castle Fun Park?

Sounds pretty fun, but how would you like to do it while going 30 hours without food at the same time.

That’s not quite so fun, but Worldvision regional representative Liz Wiebe says that’s what over 500 kids will be doing this weekend for the 30 hour famine.

“It really consists of students choosing to go without food for 30 hours to raise support, and also raise awareness of the conditions that many children in the world face who don’t have access to basic necessities like food, water, education, and just basic child protection.  It’s not easy, but you’d be amazed. These students are just fantastic. They really pulled together and they accomplish great things. I mean last year in Canada we raised over three million dollars just with students getting together and doing this.”

Over five hundred kids are signed up for this weekend, and since each had to raise a hundred dollars to take part that means over 50 grand for the cause.

Crown is asking for a 21 year prison sentence for Jarrod Bacon.

He and father in law Wayne Scott were convicted in February for conspiring to traffic cocaine.

The two were arrested in a sting operation when a police agent negotiated a deal for 100 kg of cocaine.

Crown Counsel said Bacon made his intentions clear to distribute the drugs, and also pointed out that Bacon lied to the court during his testimony.

Jeff Ray, Bacon’s lawyer, said that since his client was arrested in a police operation, no actual drugs existed and therefore there was no threat of drugs being distributed.

Ray said 8 years would be a more appropriate sentence.

The judge is not expected to make his decision today.

Fraser Health is trying to encourage the City of Abbotsford to have a look at their anti-harm reduction bylaw.

Harm reduction sites provide programs to encourage safety among drug users, like needle exchanges and education to avoid overdoses.

Fraser Health public health director David Portesi says the bylaw is harmful to substance abusers.

“It essentially makes it far more difficult for them to get clean needles. If a user doesn’t have a clean needle their decision is not whether to use drugs or not, it’s where do they get their needle from regardless of whether it’s dirty or clean. So we want to be able to provide the clean needles so they can avoid Hep C and HIV.”

According to some data from Fraser Health Abbotsford is second only to New Westminster in the rate of people going to hospital for illegal drug overdose.

The Hepatitis C infection rate among needle users is also higher than the provincial rate, and nearly double the national rate.

Portesi says Fraser Health hopes the City will reconsider the bylaw banning harm reduction programs.

“I’m encouraged by the fact that the City is asking questions, and wanting to make an informed decision and they’re asking for data and expert opinion. At the same time I’m cautiously optimistic because I think there is still a lot of resistance out there, but that’s why we’re making ourselves available to answer questions and provide this type of information.”

The City will consider the data from Fraser Health at a future Council meeting.

BC Transplant is urging more people to sign up as organ donors during National Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness Week.
Executive director Dr. Greg Grant says when a person is fatally injured, making the decision on whether or not to allow their organs to be donated can be extremely difficult.

“When their loved one has filled out an organ donor registry card, we can bring that card to them and show them that this was something that their loved one wanted to have happen.”

BC set a record last year for number of transplants, but Grant says they still lose patients because there aren’t enough donors.

“We’ve got over 450 people on the organ transplant wait list, and we lose 13-15 patients a year, who die while they’re waiting for a transplant.”

In BC, only 18% of the population are registered organ donors.
You can sign up online at: http://www.transplant.bc.ca/index.asp

Mission RCMP say the woman found dead in the Fraser River on Monday was not the victim of foul play, although they still don’t know who she is.

She’s white, between 60 and 70 years old, and weighs between 200 and 220.

She’s about five foot six with short curly greying blonde hair and blue eyes.

Police are hoping someone can help identify her.

There aren’t any reports of missing people in Mission matching her description but are checking with other communities.

Abbotsford police are warning about a string of cell phone thefts near the bus loop at Sevenoaks mall, five over the last week.

Typically what happens is someone comes up to you asking to borrow your iphone and when you hand it over, they run off.

Police say if you have an expensive phone you should avoid making calls out in the open and making yourself a potential target.

If someone does steal your phone the first thing you should do, after calling police, is call your cell phone company and get them to disable your phone.

The Abby PD plan to keep a close eye on the area and are looking for two suspects, both stocky young white men.

Three Abbotsford teachers will continue to coach their respective rugby teams into the playoffs, defying the BCTF directive to suspend involvement in extra-curricular activities.
Abbotsford teachers association president Jeff Dunton says he doesn’t think there will be a lot of this volunteering.
He says many teachers started withdrawing volunteer services before the vote.

“Many teachers on their own decided that they didn’t want to spend the extra time above and beyond what their job description is and instead decided to take that time to volunteer in their own community or spend more time with their own family.”

Dunton says teachers who continue to be involved in coaching or other other activities won’t face repercussions.

“We had a precedent set in 2005 when we took illegal job action and we set up picket lines.  People did cross that picket line and they weren’t fined.  We’re asking colleagues to stand together with a carrot, rather than forcing them with a stick….the stick never works.”

Abbotsford Police have released the 2nd in a series of posters aimed at informing young people about the danger of street drugs.
Operation X was launched to teach kids that it’s not enough to just say “drugs are bad”.  They need to know that they have a choice, and they should be armed with enough knowledge to make an informed decision.  Police in both BC and Alberta have recently alerted the public about the dangers of ecstasy, specifically, after a number of overdoses and deaths.  The media attention to this helped save the life of a 24 yr old Abbotsford man in March.  Police hope kids will keep the discussion going.  The posters are going up around local secondary schools, rec centres and bus stop benches.