Every Friday we feature Valley history taken from our back issues.
Five years ago this week in the Comox Valley Record:
The Comox Strathcona Regional Hospital District decided to rescind its support of a single regional hospital model for the North Island.
Accessibility problems and taking services away from one community were big issues for some directors.
“I feel a growing unease about pitting one community against the other,” said Area B director Barbara Price. “To take something at the expense of another is wrong. I believe we can create a model whereby both communities are fairly treated.”
The board passed a motion outlining its support for upgrades and expansions to existing the existing hospitals in the Valley and Campbell River.
Ten years ago this week in the Comox Valley Record:
Comox Valley youth Taylor Green was attracting some major league attention as a 16-year-old Mark R. Isfeld student.
He earned Baseball America’s ranking as fifth-best Canadian talent for June in the 2004 draft.
“That’s huge,” said father Bill. “The big part is they’re seeing him and he’s being recognized.”
Taylor was also set to go to the Top Gun Showcase in Las Vegas in June, a premier showcase tourney only the best prospects in North America are invited to.
Fifteen years ago this week in the Comox Valley Record:
Courtenay councillors said council chambers were not a place for prayer sessions.
Council rejected a request from local Prayer Canada Team to pray in council chambers before meetings.
The organization, which had been around for 20 years, was founded to give Christian spiritual support to those in local, provincial and federal government.
“We now feel called to fully focus and concentrate our prayer in the place where the decisions take place,” said local organization representative Richard Spalton in a letter to council.
One councillor pointed out if one religious group was allowed to pray in council chambers then all should be welcomed, and another noted Courtenay’s policy permitting only council meetings in council chambers. Others suggested the place for prayer was in people’s places of worship.
Twenty years ago this week in the Comox Valley Record:
Statistics on the staggering number of cats that were put down at the local SPCA the year before came to light.
Almost 1,000 stray cats were taken in by the SPCA during 1993, but only 37 found homes.
The rest were painlessly put to death in a gas chamber near the SPCA in Comox.
“It’s really hard. We wouldn’t work here if we didn’t love animals, and the longer we keep them the more we get attached to them,” said shelter supervisor Lynn Huntley. “We’d love to just take them all home but we can’t.”
Most of the unnecessary suffering could be avoided if pet owners spayed and neutered their animals, said the SPCA.
Twenty five years ago this week in the Comox Valley Record:
Comox council hiked their own pay packets by 16 per cent.
Mayor George Piercy’s pay was raised from $8,280 to $9,600 per year while aldermen each went from $4,140 to $4,800.
This “brings us in line with other communities of like size and responsibilities,” said Alderman Garry Richardson. “I supported this very reluctantly because…we’re now catching up with perhaps where we should have been a long time ago.
“I hope that this is picked up not as a percentage-type increase, but as a cost of doing work as an alderman and a mayor in Comox.”
