May
• RCMP were asking for the public’s help in finding a missing 27-year-old woman with connections to Salmon Arm. Ashley Marie Simpson was reported missing on Saturday, April 30 but was last seen the previous Wednesday, according to Vernon RCMP.
• The District Parent Advisory Council (DPAC) had been a primary voice regarding spending in the school district. Concerns had intensified following the discovery that over the past five years approximately $10.5 million in operational surplus funds was transferred to fund capital projects. These capital funds were used, in part, to fund the new $9.3 million District Education Support Centre. In the wake of a 2015 DPAC report critical of the school district’s policy regarding vehicle use and expenses, School District #83 introduced a new policy outlining regulations including the need for school district vehicles to be identified as school district property and the stipulation that they not be used for private or personal purposes.
• On Monday, May 9, Troy Mick was rewarded with a five-year contract extension as president and GM of the Salmon Arm Silverbacks.
• Three years after a murder-suicide took place at an Anglemont residence, a report from the BC Coroner’s service has established the identity of the victim. Tracy Lynn Nichol, 45, of Anglemont was found dead April 30, 2013 in a home on Greenwich Close Road, along with the body of her 15-year-old stepson.
• Some 200 residences of mixed densities in an area south of the Mall at Piccadilly were the subject of a three-month residential curbside food waste collection pilot project.
• In the third week of May, local fruit and berry farmers were forecasting an early harvest due to the warmer than normal temperatures over the past few weeks
• Four bears were dead and Salmon Arm residents were to blame. That was the message from the BC Conservation Service, who euthanized the bears who had become habituated to human food.
“We had hoped they’d move on, but they didn’t,” Conservation Officer Service Staff Sgt. Terry Myroniuk says, of an earlier decision by the Conservation Service to let a mother bear and her three cubs graze in the city’s green spaces and head up neighbouring mountains as natural food sources became available there.
• The Salmon Arm RCMP and BC Coroners Services were investigating the discovery of human remains after being called to an area on Sixth Street NE on May 20.
• Salmon Arm efforts to give Syrian refugees a new home was knitting the community together in unexpected ways. The group initiated by Deo Lutheran Church welcomed a family of five – a mom, dad and their three boys. Deo Lutheran Pastor Erik Bjorgan was not only excited to be welcoming a family of five, he was surprised and thrilled by the way his volunteer group came together.
“We could have told ourselves two stories – we’re too small, too old and too busy, or we could take a more accurate stock of what we could do,” he said of initial reticence to take on a refugee family and the decision to invite members from the community at large.
June
• The Salmon Arm and Shuswap Lake Agricultural Association appealed for help in raising the estimated $75,000 needed to fix the asbestos problem in the SASCU Memorial Indoor Arena. The association relies on the building to house exhibits and vendors for the Salmon Arm Fall Fair. It leases the indoor arena for a host of community events including the Canada Day Children’s Festival, indoor soccer and archery.
• June marked six years since Leanne MacFarlane and Jeffrey Taylor were killed in a house just outside Cranbrook, in what police said was a case of mistaken identity. MacFarlane, 43, and Taylor, 42, had moved from Salmon Arm to Cranbrook to open a second business in addition to their cell phone retail store, Shuswap Wireless Connections.
• Interior Health removed the water-use advisory on the Shuswap Lake shoreline near Canoe Forest Products that was established immediately following a spill of run-off water at the mill on March 14.
• A jury found a Salmon Arm man guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the shooting death of a romantic rival eight years ago. The now 24-year-old man found guilty of first-degree murder cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was 16 when Tyler Myers was killed. The accused’s ex-girlfriend, now a 25-year-old woman, was also charged with first-degree murder and will stand trial later in the year. She cannot be named because she was 17 when Myers died.
• Salmon Arm councillors were divided over how to address concerns regarding the potential for wine sales in local grocery stores.
At its May 2 development and planning meeting, council had heard from Hideaway Pub and Liquor Store owner Gord Erickson, who asked the city to consider establishing a bylaw requiring future liquor retailers to locate a minimum distance of one kilometre from existing liquor outlets. At the June 6 development and planning meeting, council received a written and verbal report from city development services director Kevin Pearson advising against such a bylaw.
• Save our school! This was the message Dorothy Rolin, president of the Salmon Arm branch of the Okanagan Historical Society, delivered to Salmon Arm council, along with 1,259 names on a petition asking that “School District #83 and the City of Salmon Arm exercise their options and prevent the demolition of the Downtown Activity Centre (formerly Salmon Arm Elementary School).”
• Councillors mulled over a May 19 letter to council from Salmon Arm business owner Maggy Davidson, stating the boat launch area at Marine Peace Park has been allowed to fill in and has become unusable for many boats.
Chief financial officer Monica Dalziel advised the city has $500,000 in reserve, an amount that would not even address the removal of the silt.