By Shawn Logan
The Eagle
Cochrane’s mayor says the town is making its “final stand” with a developer that is negotiating, with provincial assistance, a water and sewer access agreement that would bring permanent servicing to Bow Valley High school.
Town council met for around 90 minutes behind closed doors with the town’s legal counsel Oct. 24. Mayor Ken Bech said Oct. 25 the town won’t back away from its requirements for a sewer right-of-way on a piece of property owned by Keyland Development Corp., which neighbours Bow Valley.
“This is our final stand,” Bech said. “It’s gone on long enough.”
The latest chapter in what has been a contentious relationship between the town and Keyland raises doubt about when Bow Valley will see the permanent water and sewer services it has lacked since it opened in 2000.
Keyland is also embroiled in a $58 million lawsuit with the town, two of its staffers and the Municipal District of Rocky View, charging they conspired to force the developer to build a $6.5 million bridge across the Bow River to the property.
Last year, then-learning minister Lyle Oberg pledged $2 million (now $3 million) to service the school that has had to ship in water and truck out waste despite its proximity to the town.
Keyland and the town entered into mediated talks last summer with the announcement of the provincial funds, but the town’s requirement for a right-of-way access to the main sewer line to Calgary appears to have held up an agreement.
The issue was raised publicly during a hearing before the Municipal Government Board, which was considering Keyland’s appeal of a number of conditions of development imposed by the town.
The town’s right-of-way requirement, about 25-30 feet from the main sewer line, was approved by the MGB despite warnings from Keyland’s lawyer that the developer would demand the sewer line be removed from the property if the right-of-way was approved.
Hugh Ham argued that the setback could cost the developer the revenue from 40 to 50 homes that could not be built.
The sewer line to Calgary sits on Keyland’s property while a water line must cross the Bow River and would be most easily accessible from the developer’s land.
According to Bech, the town needs the right-of-way in case the line needs maintenance or upgrading.
Bech said Municipal Affairs Deputy Minister Dan Bader, who is negotiating with both sides, asked if the town would consider re-thinking its right-of-way requirement.
“We are very adamant in saying ‘No, we will not back down from that position,’” Bech said. “This isn’t new. It’s normal and it’s expected.”
Asked if the matter was a deal breaker, Bech noted Keyland has also expressed a strong opinion on the right-of-way requirement.
“My understanding is that they see this as very important that (the requirement) is severed,” he said. “Probably as important as (our position that) it is not severed.”
Keyland’s Ray and Rosina Smith, and their lawyer Hugh Ham, could not be reached for comment Oct. 25.
Bech noted if Keyland doesn’t relent, the town will look at a “second option” to bring water and sewer to the south side of the Bow River.
“We would look at a second option in the spring of 2006,” Bech said. “We have alternative options to pursue.”
He said the alternative solution would require the town’s sewer line be constructed across the Bow River. The water line would have to cross the river regardless of the solution.
Bech ruled out the possibility of legal action from the town.
“We’re looking to solve a problem; we’re not looking to start another lawsuit,” he said. “We’re doing everything we can to facilitate and ensure we protect the best interests of the community.

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By Warren Harbeck
The Eagle
Cochrane has had a very special humanitarian co-operative relationship with Mexico in recent years, thanks to the dedicated efforts of many local groups and individuals.
Teams of young people have built homes for the disadvantaged. Others have provided human rights surveillance, assisted financially in the construction of schools and orphanages, and offered consulting and seed money for self-help micro-enterprises among Mexico’s forgotten peoples determined to break free from the chains of poverty and oppression.
In all this, Cochrane’s emissaries have witnessed faces of despair transformed into images of hope.
Now, in a joint initiative with the Mission Mexico project of Cochrane’s St. Mary’s Catholic Church, the Cochrane Eagle presents the first in a series of images of hope as seen through the lens of Mexican photojournalist Rodrigo Cruz. (more…)

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By Wes Gilbertson
The Eagle
If there’s one thing the Cochrane High Cobras and Foothills Composite Falcons have both proven in Rocky View League gridiron action thus far this season, it’s that when either club gets a lead, they don’t waste much time adding to it.
So when the Falcons — who, like the Cobras, were undefeated heading into last weekend’s showdown at Cochrane High — took a 14-11 lead early in the second half, it was obvious the scales were tipping in their favour.
Not for long, though.
With the Falcons still celebrating their go-ahead score, Cobras return man Ryan McDermit took the fate of the game into his own hands, pulling in the ensuing kick-off and running the pigskin straight back to the Foothills end-zone, putting the mighty maroon back in control.
From there the Falcons, whose lead lasted all of one play, never caught up.
“You could see the momentum shifting their way,” said Cobras co-coach Bruce O’Neil. “Once we got (McDermit’s touchdown) it took a lot of wind out of their sails. That really changed the momentum.”
The 25-23 triumph marked the fourth consecutive time the Cobras have finished their Rocky View regular season slate with a flawless record. O’Neil said both the student-athletes and the coaching staff deserved credit for the team’s strong play against the Falcons, the result of a week of intense preparation.
“It was just a great week of practice,” O’Neil said. “The kids really committed to it and the coaches came up with a great plan.
“The kids played really, really well,” he added. “They really put in a team effort.”
With the victory over Foothills, the Cobras also reclaimed the top spot in Football Alberta’s Tier 3 rankings.
Next up for the squad is an Oct. 28 tilt with the Springbank Phoenix. The winner of that contest will claim bragging rights as Rocky View’s Tier 3 champion and will meet Calgary-based Notre Dame in the opening round of the provincial play-downs, which get underway Nov. 12.
The Bow Valley Bobcats gridiron squad wrapped up their league schedule Oct. 19 with a 28-14 victory over the Bert Church Chargers.
Because the Bobcats are the only Tier 4 team in Rocky View, they do not have any league post-season games but will compete for the provincial title.
However, the Bobcats, Alberta’s fifth-ranked Tier 4 team, travelled to Okotoks Oct. 25 for an exhibition match with Holy Trinity Academy, currently the third-ranked Tier 3 team in the province.

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By Jack Tennant
So when did Kyle change his name to Kelly?
Talk about a bad day.
One cutline and at least two mistakes.
It was the picture of Alex Baum being presented with the Citizen of Vision award and let me list how I screwed up.
First, I had that Alex and Cyndie didn’t attend the ceremony because they were visiting their son Kyle, who’s going to university in Halifax.
Factually correct except his name is Kelly not Kyle.
And a Rose by any other name is still a Rose — unless one screws up.
In the same picture and the same cutline I identified the Victim Services Society president as Rose Palen.
Half right. It’s Rose Ortman.
I know both Roses and have no idea why I named the wrong one. Other than that it was a good cutline.
Still with that week I had another oops.
I was driving home and a few blocks from the house I noticed my wife Brenda was following me.
So I started playing silly bugger and weaved all over the road and wouldn’t let her pass. Just having a little fun of course at 10 clicks an hour.
Get to the house and she passes me.
OOOPS. Big oops.
It wasn’t my wife Brenda, so I apologize to that lady who followed me in Glenbow no doubt wondering who the idiot was in front of her.
ß ß ß
No oops here.
Congratulations to Cochrane’s Chief Administrative Officer Julian deCocq who celebrated 10 years with the town last week.
Pretty darn good for a former pizza cook.
ß ß ß
And yes, I did get a deal on a pie at the annual St. Andrew’s turkey supper which served 535 folks — a whole pumpkin pie for just $5.
ß ß ß
Don’t forget the Ducks Unlimited dinner at the Cochrane RancheHouse on Nov. 5 with BBQs By Me doing beef.
Phone the big duck Greg Reynar at 932-2101 for ducats. Or is that duckats?

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By Shawn Logan
The Eagle
Cochrane’s newest community association, representing the Sunterra and Cochrane Heights neighbourhoods, told town council Oct. 24 it intends to be a proactive voice.
Darlene Ruff, president of the Sunterra Ridge/Cochrane Heights Community Association, said the group plans to work with council on issues that affect those neighbourhoods.
“We wish to work together with council,” Ruff said.
Prior to meeting with council, Ruff said the group coalesced during public hearings to redesignate land annexed by the town last year from the Municipal District of Rocky View. This vocal group opposed a move to designate a small section of land in Sunterra as high density residential, leading to talks about starting an association.
Community associations have increased prominence in recent years, participating in policy formation on noise and nuisance bylaws.
Recently, the West Valley/West Terrace Community Association questioned the town’s handling of a developer encroaching into environmental reserve lands and last year a number of community associations, led by Riverview’s, successfully lobbied to halt plans to build a 250-unit condominium on the driving range of the Cochrane Golf Club.
Ruff said the group will monitor issues such as plans to close part of a Fourth Avenue link to Highway 22.

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By Warren Harbeck
So, just what does “a living dog is better than a dead lion” mean? Pretty obvious: Life is preferable to death, regardless of one’s status. It’s a quote from Ecclesiastes 9:4, and apparently it was the most missed question in last week’s Bible literacy quiz in this column.
In fact, of all the delightful responses I received, less than a handful of readers reported they had correctly identified all six literary allusions to the Bible.
One of our Cochrane coffee companions went so far as to give the quiz to her theological students. Elaine Phillips wrote:
“I teach English at the (Southern Baptist) seminary up on the hill. My students this year are a diverse group of guys. One or two are new to the biblical culture; others are biblically literate but not as culturally versed.
“Just for fun I administered your quiz first thing last week and the results were interesting: I managed a five, along with a couple of other students. (Most of us missed the proverbial Ecclesiastes reference: ‘A living dog is better than a dead lion.’ We had no problem with Job.)
“Samuel, from Brazil, did really well. He’s a second language student with much to teach the rest of us about literacy in general! Your quiz opened my eyes to the importance of biblical allusions in English literature. I’ll set a similar one for my students next semester when I teach Christian Classics. Even for non-seminary students, I believe a knowledge of the Bible (as literature) can only add to their understanding and appreciation of some of the great literary classics.”
Both of our sons got in the act on this topic, with a bit of a twist.
From Toronto, son James polled the membership of the Editors’ Association of Canada, asking them for examples of quotes people often think are from the Bible, but are actually not. (He gave the example, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.) Here are three of their responses:
“Love the sinner, hate the sin.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves” — not an endorsement for shoplifting.
“Money is the root of all evil” – the actual biblical quote being “The love of money is the root of all evil.”
Son Reg, of Calgary, attributes quotes like these to the book of Hezekiah.
“Hezekiah was a king in the Bible, but didn’t get his own book,” Reg wrote. He pointed out our family tradition of saying such “biblical-sounding” references were really “from the book of Hezekiah” — i.e., they weren’t in the Bible at all.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness” is another example of a quote from Hezekiah.
Shakespeare is often the source of many biblical-sounding sayings. Returning to son James’ responses from Canadian editors, one wrote: “Almost anything from Shakespeare can be passed off as a biblical quote, and few people will know the difference.”
A really appropriate use of a biblical quote appeared in a note from Cochrane artist/writer Lindsie Haxton. Alluding to chapter 13 of St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, she wrote:
“Knowing the Bible is important. It is the pilgrim’s road map and instruction book. That knowledge, however, must be balanced with the practice of love, lest we become a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.”
Which brings me to our final response for this week. Tina Fox, highly-respected elder of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation at Morley, wrote about last week’s column:
“That was funny — I mean the answers some of the people gave to biblical questions. Kinda cute, but I don’t agree that one is culturally illiterate if one is biblically illiterate. Not all cultures’ religion or belief is based on the Bible, but they are just as good.”
Tina raises a very important point. True, last week’s column was specifically about the Bible’s influence on English literature.
But as Tina noted, similar things can be said about other cultures, too. Are we sensitive to the values and worldviews expressed in their oral and written literature, music, dances and paintings?
As Lindsie stressed, love is fundamental.
And fundamental to love is listening — hearing others as we would have them hear us.
(c) 2005 Warren Harbeck
warren@harbeck.ca.

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By Sarah Junkin
Last year at this time I was criticized by some people who told me they disagreed with my views on Halloween.
As I recall, I’d pointed out that Halloween is nothing but a greed fest when children are literally encouraged to behave poorly and gorge themselves with chocolate.
Dressing as evil characters and begging for candy from virtual strangers have few redeeming qualities that I have ever been able to see.
But this year, I’d be amazed if even my most vehement critics could condone the celebration of a custom that’s based on Satan and evil when half the world’s less fortunate children are enduring the painful aftermath of some of the most terrible natural and unnatural disasters of our time.
While tens of thousands of terrified Pakistani children remain cold, hungry, and vulnerable to disease in remote parts of earthquake-torn Pakistan, some Cochrane parents will quite cheerfully allow their little munchkins to cram dozens of ill-gotten Mars bars into their self-centred mouths, oblivious of this global irony.
And while scores of Gulf Coast children remain unclaimed and, in some cases, unidentified according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we don’t seem at all appalled by the thought that we are sending our own precious babies out into the dark on an annual mission that evokes images of mayhem and greed.
The plight of African children hasn’t changed much in past years though focus has moved away from them as more recent disasters have stolen some of their limelight.
According to recent United Nations’ studies, this Halloween night, just like every other night, 300 million children in 13 African countries will go to sleep hungry.
But thankfully not our children.
No, this Oct. 31 most of the kids of Cochrane will flop down on their soft beds before falling blissfully into a sort of sugar-induced coma.
The “good” news is our kids’ chocolate addiction is keeping their African counterparts in work.
I’m being sarcastic, of course. TransAfrica Forum is a leading non-profit organization that serves as a major research, educational and organizing institution for the African-American community on issues related to Africa.
The head of Forum, Bill Fletcher, reported at a news conference last June that Western chocolate manufacturers are turning a “blind eye” to a horrible truth: that thousands of children from West Africa have been kidnapped, sold into slavery and forced to work on the sweltering plantations that produce more than half the world’s cocoa.
Save the Children Canada has reported that 15,000 children between the ages of nine and 12 have been sold into forced labour on cocoa farms on the Ivory Coast over the past few years.
Youths working the 600,000 cocoa farms are often beaten if they try to escape, and some die from malnutrition since they are sometimes fed only corn paste for their one meal of the day.
Only a very few chocolate companies have taken a stance in protest. The Sara Lee Corporation has withdrawn from doing business with Ivory Coast cocoa farms because it doesn’t want to be associated with the practices on some plantations.
But law enforcement agencies along the Ivory Coast say though files on missing children are piled high, it’s very difficult to prove whether child slavery is involved.
Meanwhile, back home in Cochrane, where we all care about the well-being of our children, more than anything else in the world, retailers struggle to keep giant bags of candy on the shelves this time of year, so concerned are they that we don’t “run out” of chocolate this Halloween.
Trouble is, children on the other side of the globe are being enslaved to produce that chocolate, the food that for most of us here symbolizes romance, happiness and luxury.
Our town’s recreation department is hosting Halloween parties for our kids, and so are some local churches and schools, all of whom should know better, in my opinion.
It’s a national disgrace, and I feel like screaming when critics tell me to lighten up and try to see the fun in a tradition that is, as I see it, based on evil, horror and gluttony.
Halloween is a tradition that perpetuates the abuse and neglect of the very children we claim to care so much about.
sarah@cochraneeagle.com.

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By Shawn Logan
The Eagle
While the impact of any spread of the mountain pine beetle won’t be known until the spring, the woodlands manager of Cochrane’s Spray Lake Sawmills said there are indications the problem may be on the decline.
“With the initial checks, it looks like the Bow corridor is in pretty good shape,” said Gord Lehn Oct. 24. “It might be premature but so far it looks like all the monitoring and cut and burn programs were reasonably successful in holding them in check.”
Spray Lake holds lumber quotas stretching along Alberta’s eastern slopes from Sundre to a recently acquired interest in the Crowsnest Pass.
With the recent acquisition of the wood supply of Blairmore-based Atlas Lumber, Lehn said the local mill now has an extra 100,000 cubic metres of wood per year (approximately 2,500 truckloads) in the one area in the province that has the most concerns about the pine beetle’s spread.
“Our biggest concern is the Crowsnest Pass area,” Lehn said. “Foresters seem to think it’s the biggest area that is going to have to be watched.”
The insect, which has devastated British Columbia’s forestry industry, migrates in the summer, burrowing into lodgepole pines and spreading blue stain fungi, killing the tree.
In B.C., the infestation has grown from 25 sq. km in 1994 to more than 100,000 sq. km in 2003.
The size of the infested area stretches over 1,150 km long and 550 km wide, more than three-quarters the size of Sweden.
Alberta has aggressively tried to thwart the spread of the beetle through constant monitoring and controlled burn programs.
Lehn said any beetles that survived will have burrowed into trees and the extent of any spread won’t be known until the spring.
Trees infected by the blue stain fungi turn a reddish hue.
But Lehn was hopeful the pest’s impact is on the decline.
“The beetle is all around but touch wood, we’re okay so far,” he said. “They’re not gone but they haven’t gotten out of hand.”

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By Shawn Logan
The Eagle
Plans to develop a predominantly residential area in northwest Cochrane is slated to move forward despite lingering questions about a joint planning zone that will be administered by the town and the Municipal District of Rocky View.
At an Oct. 24 public hearing, Cochrane council heard the Harmony Park development, north of Highway 1A and bordered on the west by Horse Creek Road, will be able to redesignate to a residential area although details about the joint planning area directly north of the site remain unresolved.
The Harmony Park land overlaps some of the areas designated in the town’s annexation agreement with the M.D. as Area B, which evoked a response from the M.D. suggesting a concept plan for the development was “premature.” Council heard the M.D. has agreed to the southern boundary of Area B, allowing the development to move forward.
Jamie Dugdale, planning and development officer for the town, said the ongoing talks over Area B won’t impact the development.
“Area B lands are not affected by this amendment and will not be rezoned until a later date,” Dugdale said, noting the boundary will be “defined in the future,” by a joint task force.
Council heard the Phase 1 plan for the development, which will include a mix of single family and high density residential homes as well as a small commercial zone, aligns with the southern boundary agreed to by the two municipalities.
Two other zones in Area B are owned by the developer and a third section may be also acquired. They will likely involve some industrial development that will see tax revenues split between the town and M.D.

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