Headlines from the past is a recurring feature looking back at stories we've covered over the past 40+ years.
Did a joke about a boat send British Columbia’s Attorney General scurrying from the grand opening of Coquitlam RCMP’s new headquarters in March, 1997?
Then-Mayor Lou Sekora thought so.
He told the Tri-City News that after a helicopter tour of the detachment prior to the ceremonies, he advised Ujahl Dosanjh he could speak if he was able to promise to deliver the city’s police force a new patrol boat and four additional officers.
“He got a little manure dropped on his yard today,” Sekora said about the conversation.
But Coquitlam’s director of corporate services, Don Buchanan, said Dosanjh had been called back to his office in Victoria, although he wouldn’t specify the nature of the urgency.
“You’d have to ask his office as to the reason,” Buchanan said.
Meanwhile, the city was close to reaching a deal to sell the RCMP’s old headquarters on Christmas Way along with the former city hall.
An Abbotsford-based group of doctors was eyeing the old police station for a private medical clinic and a tentative deal had been reached to sell the old city hall in Maillardville to developer Andre Molnar who wanted the property to build apartments and townhouses.
“It will be a very neat kind of French-Canadian architectural style,” he said, adding his company was consulting with the neighbourhood’s French community.
The Tri-City News has covered civic affairs, local crime, festivals, events, personalities, sports and arts in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody since 1983. Bound back issues of the paper are available at the Coquitlam Archives, while digital versions of several past years can be found at issuu.com.
