By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
A suspect in the theft of a truck that rolled in a Cochrane ditch has alluded police.
On May 31, a 2005 grey GMC Sierra rolled on Fourth Avenue north of the entrance to Sunterra Ridge.
The accident happened at approximately 5:45 p.m., and the truck had been reported stolen 15 minutes earlier from Centre Avenue. While no one saw the accident, people in the area heard it and observed a suspect fleeing on foot.
Police used a canine unit in an attempt to locate the suspect, but were unsuccessful.
By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
The Nan Boothby Memorial Library Board is inviting all book worms, movie buffs and bargain hunters to come out and scour its sale of books, CDs, DVDs, and pictures for hidden gems.
The sale will take place June 13 at the Frank Wills Memorial Hall. On June 14, there will also be a half-price sale in the library parking lot.
By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
The Catholic school board is questioning the necessity of a parental rights clause in human rights legislation, the controversial Bill 44 that the provincial government adopted June 2.
The legislation require parents be notified when the topics of sexuality, religion, or sexual orientation are taught as part of the curriculum.
Parents would then have the option of pulling their children out of the lesson.
Teachers that fail to notify parents could be subject to a human rights complaint.
The legislation received it’s third reading June 2, passing on division, but has yet to reach royal assent.
The Calgary Catholic School District (CCSD) is just one of the boards disappointed with the legislation.
Chair Margaret Belcourt questions what Bill 44 would mean for Catholic schools, including Holy Spirit Elementary and St. Timothy High School in Cochrane.
“We exist because of our religion,” she said. “Religion relates to everything. Catholic values are going to come in and you don’t want children being exempt.”
Belcourt said the legislation is problematic and CCSD believes parental rights are covered well enough under the School Act.
“You know you’re going to have to be so cautious,” she said.
“It just seems so complicated. You live for those teachable moments where something comes up in class that wasn’t planned and it could deal with sexuality, it could deal with religion.”
Teachers are also concerned, Belcourt said.
“They just think that this is a terrible mistake and it might create all kinds of changes, all kinds of human rights complaints.”
While she didn’t know if there was an appeal process, Belcourt said the CCSD would be asking that its schools be exempt.
“Instead of guaranteeing rights it’s going to be more restrictive than ever,” she said. “It just seems to go contradictory to the purpose of our school.”
Alberta Education spokeswoman Carolyn Stuparyk said “at this time Bill 44 will apply to separate schools.”
Stuparyk said the bill is not meant to stifle conversation in classrooms, or to interfere with teachable moments.
“Basically, it’s just to confirm the rights that parents have,” she said, adding that only lessons built into the curriculum warrant parent notification.
For example, a social studies unit dealing exclusively with world religions would require parental notification.
“That’s the kind of thing a parent would require notice on,” she said.
The Eagle
The Alberta government has joined with Parks Canada to start fires to restore a piece of land in Kananaskis to a more natural state.
On May 29, burning operations started at Mount Nestor in Spray Valley Provincial Park and in Banff National Park.
The goal is to restore diversity of vegetation and key wildlife habitats, reduce the spread of mountain pine beetles and reduce the threat of large wildfires to communities within the lower Bow Valley and surrounding area.
For information about the prescribed burns, signs will be posted throughout affected communities or visit www.Kananaskis-Country.ca or by calling 1-866-916-INFO.
By Sarah Junkin
The Eagle
It was a busy weekend for Team Taro, a band of tireless volunteers trying to support the family of Taro Okada, a Cochrane teen suffering from leukemia.
On May 30, a game of flag football between rival schools Cochrane High and Bow Valley High drew a crowd of more than 100 people, many of whom wore Team Taro shirts.
During the course of the game, a dozen people had their heads shaved in support of their fellow student and teammate, and in so doing raised approximately $9,000, according to Team Taro boss Debbie Phibbs.
“Also, the T-shirts are sold out and people are still ordering them,” she said.
Later that evening more than 100 items were on the silent auction block at an event at Ducks on the Roof.
A shirt signed by Taro brought in $1,400, and Moose Mountain Log Homes, where his father Shojiro works, donated a picnic table he had made. It raised $2,600.
Though final figures have not yet been tallied, Phibbs said the family’s “bank account is full.”
Meanwhile, Taro, who currently calls the Alberta Children’s Hospital home, is responding well to his second round of chemotherapy.
“I texted him from Ducks to tell him how much the T-shirt went for, and he texted back: ‘r u kidding me?’” said Phibbs.
“He’s such a shy kid and this is overwhelming.”
But Phibbs added the town was ready to get involved in a project of this kind.
“We needed something like this to remind us why we all moved to a small town,” she said.
“Cochrane has such a spirit. I get chills all the time. There have been so many tears and not all from me.”
Next up is a community garage sale June 6 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. The event will take place at the Royal LePage Allstar office on First Street and items may be dropped off there no earlier than June 4.
Phibbs said a Royal Bank trust account has been set up for the Okada family in the name of Shojiro Okada for anyone wanting to donate cash.
By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
On the afternoon of May 28 at the Cochrane RancheHouse, 27 people sat down to discuss what they would like to see Cochrane known for in the future.
They were part of the invite-only steering committee for the town’s $65,000 branding project.
While a majority of the group was made up of town council, staff and organizations, public members were invited on a basis of diverse opinions.
“The essence of the workshop was to bring everyone up to speed with the branding,” said Chris Field, a brand strategist for Twist Marketing.
Field said with the information from the workshop, reading town documents, their own research, touring around Cochrane and one-on-one interviews his company will jump into the creative process to come up with a new brand that will be presented at a September open house.
“It’s not just a pretty logo and slogan,” he said. “Branding is everything in marketing: campaigns, signs, advertising.”
Some issues brought up at the meeting included the nature of the western theme for town buildings.
Critics claim the “Hollywood style” western-themed structures are not a true depiction of historical buildings, while others proclaim it keeps the feel of a small town.
Field said the cute, western buildings feel small town, even if the buildings are nothing like the ones that stood here decades ago.
“It translates into a human production scale, so not high rise glass towers,” he said.
Field said the deeper challenge for Cochrane would be to get away from being known as a bedroom community to Calgary.
He said if Cochrane works hard to be self-sufficient and create more local employment it could happen.
Field said while branding has become a trend it is not the flavour of the month.
“Communities are waking up to marketing and branding to achieve their strategic goals in a 24/7 world of marketing,” he said.
One highly criticized rebranding was the recent $25 million campaign by the province that bizarrely used a picture of two children running on a English beach to promote Alberta under the banner: “Freedom to create. Spirit to Achieve.”
Many said the only reason it was noticed is because the blunder was covered by international media.
Field said there are ways of monitoring the success of the project. For example, direct feedback, website hits and community survey feedback.
“Everything should have a tracking,” said Field,
“. . . or you could waste a lot of money in little time.”
Mayor Truper McBride said so much is changing in Cochrane — like the efforts with sustainability — that he would like to see it reflected in town marketing.
He hopes that better planning and not perpetuating the idea of a bedroom community is part of the rebranding.
McBride defended paying $65,000 for the branding process in a recession because in a slowdown the first thing that goes is marketing, and instead Cochrane should be advertising for the community.
He said whatever comes out of the process the Men of Vision statue will remain, but they are also hoping for a new slogan and advertising direction, which includes entrance signs and signs throughout town.
“It will be everything that is presented to the public,” he said.
McBride said in the end the brand will need to be approved by council, and while he is confident the brand will not be rejected it will have to inspire councillors to get approval.
“We will have constant updates to see what is going on,” he said.
By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
Anthony John Allen, 50, a Bragg Creek man facing charges relating to two incidents involving weapons, will appear in Calgary Provincial Court June 26 for election and plea.
On March 23, Allen entered a Calgary treatment facility to meet a person he knows. He allegedly showed the person firearms, but put them away and left.
On March 24, Allen entered an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting at Weedon Hall where he is accused of showing members two weapons. AA members secured the weapons and gave them to police.
Allen is facing numerous charges related to the Weedon Hall incident, including two counts of pointing a firearm and two counts of carrying a concealed weapon. He is also facing five firearms charges stemming from the March 23 incident.
By Cori Lee Miller
The Eagle
After living under a boil water advisory since the 1970s, Bragg Creek residents are getting closer to obtaining a steady supply of clean, drinkable water.
Sitting on gravel and sand, effluent from septic fields is believed to have leached into the soil around the hamlet, contaminating groundwater as well as affecting wells and the Elbow River.
The Municipal District of Rocky View has plans to build a water treatment plant in a grader shed located in an M.D.-owned lot on Burnside Drive.
Derek Lovlin, Rocky View’s director of infrastructure and operations, said the project is off to a good start.
The M.D. recently received $2.7 million from the provincial and federal governments through the communities component of the Canada-Alberta Building Canada Fund.
Working with a budget of $6.8 million, Lovlin said the extra money will allow the M.D. “to contemplate what we would have perceived as future phases,” such as piping water into commercial spaces.
“That will allow us to look at the funding we had already set aside and do some other work as well.”
The M.D. plans to build the $4.1 million water treatment plant as the first phase of the project. A potable water storage tank and truck fill station will be located next to the treatment plant.
Intake for the plant will be on the south side of the Elbow River, using the M.D.’s right-of-way, bordering the Tsuu T’ina First Nation, which has submitted a letter of concern to the M.D regarding the project. A Tsuu T’ina representative did not return phone calls.
Lovlin said Rocky View will be in talks with the Tsuu T’ina First Nation in June.
Once the plant is built the M.D. estimates it will have five water trucks available during business hours to service Bragg Creek residents.
For residents “there will be a cost for the water and the trucking,” said Lovlin.
Waste systems in the hamlet will remain as they currently are.
Bragg Creek resident Brett Gilmour, who has been living in the hamlet since 2007, currently buys bottled water and has a well on his property.
Living near the site of the proposed water treatment plant, Gilmour said he has concerns about the truck traffic and the noise created by the plant.
He said the hamlet’s narrow roads and residential areas would make it difficult for trucks to navigate and safely transport water.
“That road is not designed to have trucks on it,” he said. “They’d be breaking their own laws in order to do that.”
Gilmour said the hamlet currently has 70 water trucks pass though it a week, and he wasn’t sure the 35 trucks that would be working a week under the M.D.’s plan could meet the demand.
“At some point, who knows when, a truck would show up and bring potable water to our house,” he said.
The resident said he wants the water treatment plant, but would prefer if the M.D. installed a pipeline to the community centre or mall and “put water delivery to the trucks” at one of these locations.
Gilmour said he was also told at an open house approximately a year ago that residents would be required to tap into the main water line once it has been built at a minimum cost of $50,000, to the homeowner.
“They said you wouldn’t have the option, you would be required to connect.”
Lovlin said policies are not yet in place to govern how access to the water will work.
“We’re not about to force anything on anybody out there without some sort of discussion and consultation to what this might mean for the community,” he said.
Lovelin said no concrete date for construction has been set yet, but the project would begin this year.
Alberta Environment notified the M.D. on May 26 that it would require more detailed information on its application. Rocky View is currently waiting for approval on a Water Act license allocation transfer, approval to construct an infiltration gallery, and Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act approval to construct and operate the plant.
Alberta Environment asked the M.D. for justification on the volume of water it is requesting from the Elbow River, as well as for more detailed information on schedules for water delivery, storage, delivery locations and how water will be returned to the river.
Environment Alberta spokeswoman Cara Van Marck said they try to work through applications as quickly as possible, and do notify downstream users and landowners in the area.
“So if there’s any impacts to downstream users, landowners in the area then their concerns are addressed.”
By Rachel Maclean
The Eagle
Milk and liquid cream containers are now accepted at the Cochrane Bottle Depot.
As of June 1, the local bottle depot will be expanding its service as the province-wide container-refund system kicks in allowing people to milk more money out of their recyclables.
A red-inked “AB Deposit” stamp will now be on the milk containers to differentiate from those sold before June 1.
But in Cochrane the bottle depot will accept milk containers that do not have red ink but the old, black expiry stamps if the container is under one litre. Containers over a litre need the red ink confirmation of deposit.
For containers one litre and under, the deposit/refund will be 10 cents, and 25 cents for containers over one litre.
According to the province, the current rate for recycling plastic milk jugs is 60 per cent, and milk cartons is 22.5 per cent.
In Alberta each year, more than 2 billion beverage containers are sold and 500 million are not recycled.
A representative from the local bottle depot said patrons should make sure the cartons are rinsed well because they are trying to avoid working around the stench of dirty milk containers.
By Sarah Junkin
The Eagle
Cochrane and Area Humane Society officials are excited that a major country music star will be performing at their upcoming gala.
Jessie Farrell, Canadian Country Music Award’s female artist of the year in 2008, will perform June 13 at the Cochrane RancheHouse.
“It’s pretty exciting because she’s young and current and has won some major awards,” said Nicky Blackshaw, the shelter’s event awareness co-ordinator. “She might encourage some new people to get involved.”
The gala, Saving Lives–Changing Lives, will include dinner, silent and live auctions and entertainment.
Tickets are $125 with all proceeds going towards animal care.
“We only have six tables left,” said Blackshaw.
To buy tickets call 403-932-2072 or e-mail
tickets@cochranehumane.ca.
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