Flags not lowered half mast after Ottawa shooting

Parliament Hill (Wikipedia)

The events which unfolded last Wednesday caused the entire nation to go into grieving mode.

Mayoral candidate for Maple Ridge, Nicole Read, took to Facebook Wednesday afternoon to call out city hall for not lowering their flags half mast for the fallen soldier.

The city officially says that they had in fact lowered their flags, and would keep them as so.

Read decided to drive past city hall herself to witness the lowering of the flags, but saw nothing different.

“I got in my car and drove down to City Hall at 1:30am. Neither have been lowered to half mast,” Read said.

Mayor Ernie Daykin says he’s disappointed in Read’s public call out as opposed to contacting him or City Hall directly.

“A set of flags were missed. No one is perfect and the lessons learned will ensure appropriate timing and action in the future,” Daykin said in an email. “If the roles were reversed based on what I view as a possible relationship… I would have called her first before posting.”

Maple Ridge, meet Chelsa Meadus

Chelsa Meadus (Twitter)

Chelsa Meadus is running for a council position in Maple Ridge, but isn’t promoting herself like most other candidates are. As opposed to engaging just the population, Meadus has decided to include all age groups, starting with youth who aren’t yet old enough to vote. “When I decided to run for council I thought prior to putting my paper work in that I needed to have a strong team that was somewhat of a representation of the public,” Meadus said. “So I gathered people together from really different walks of life. Meadus has also decided to add more diversity to her group in order to hear opinions from every spectrum. “We’ve got a youth component to our team most of which can not vote . . . we also have seniors on our team, and we also have people on our team that have suffered from homelessness and addiction,” Meadus said. One of the reasons she decided to run for counsel was because people can do a lot of talking with very little action in return. “They talk about all the promises they’re going to make and all the things they’re doing to do, and we thought ‘we’re not going to do that, we’re actually going to demonstrate what we’re talking about.” Meadus has also started something that’s never been done before. Starting in November, Meadus will be hosting  “citizen-led engagement discussions” in order to address different issues in the community coming from different points of view. The first meeting will be on Nov. 3.

Maple Ridge property crime down

As Block Watch celebrates its 25 year anniversary, more neighbourhoods are accepting this program as a means of preventing property crime.

Maple Ridge alone has a number of neighbourhoods under the Block Watch program, which may have an impact in the drop in property crime.

Property crime in Maple Ridge has gone down 5 per cent from 2012-2013.

According to Maple Ridge’s website, Block Watch is a “key component of our enforcement strategy.”