A trip through the Sooke News Mirror time machine:
SIRC working toward final boundaries
July 22, 1998
Some residents in areas on the periphery of the proposed incorporation study boundaries will be receiving letters asking how they feel about being included in a Sooke incorporation study area.
After lengthy discussions on the boundary issue, the Sooke Incorporation Review Committee will be looking to include additional properties to the west, north and east of the original proposed boundary.
“The committee has started to come to the point where they’re looking at saying, ‘Well, maybe we don’t need the whole northern area in’ but there are some areas that the committee thinks should be included and try to come down to some rationale to determine a boundary for the final report,” SIRC chair Ed Macgregor said.
“So it will take us a few weeks to try and find out the status of these things.”
July 19, 2000
Deertrails construction workers come to the rescue again
An 18-year-old woman escaped the pounding current of the Sooke River alive, thanks to five workers on the Deertrails site.
The woman was swimming in one of the river’s upper pools July 13, when the current pulled her over the edge of the falls and wedged her between rocks and a log on the river.
“She got caught in debris and proceeded to take a thrashing from the river,” said Sooke Fire Chief Bob Kelsey.
Workers at the Deertrails resort construction site heard screams for help and immediately called 911.
The five construction workers, all with industrial first aid, went down to the river with a spine board, rope and first aid kit.
They arrived to find the woman wedged partially underwater and being battered by the current of the river. The workers used a rope to pull the woman, who was uninjured except for a couple of bruises, from the water.
July 21, 2010
Serving up hot food and some company
Three times a week, volunteers gather at the Sooke Community Hall to prepare wholesome, hot, cooked meals for seniors and those who are housebound.
Meals are prepared on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and delivered at low cost to those who subscribe to the service. The organization does not receive any government funding.
It’s all volunteer-based and those volunteers are stretched to the limit, especially when people take vacations in the summer months.
“Our organization needs volunteers to cook, be cook’s helpers and to deliver meals,” says Alma Anslow, president of Sooke Meals on Wheels.
Meals on Wheels is an important and much appreciated service to residents in Sooke. Meals are provided but as important is the regular contract visits with those who are incapacitated.
July 20, 2011
Marine Trail proposal gets public hearing
The CRD Land Use Committee A voted to move Ender Ilkay’s controversial Marine Holdings development to public hearing on July 13, in the next stage of a process that has been contentious ever since it was first brought to the board.
Committee members Mike Hicks, Langford Councillor Lanny Seaton, Sooke Mayor Janet Evans, and Colwood Mayor Dave Saunders voted in favour, while Metchosin Mayor John Ranns voted against the project.
“Our primary concern is to determine the public will,” he said. “Nobody can honestly say the public wants this. The first of our tests as public officials has failed.”
Ranns said the land use committee had been “seduced” by planning staff into thinking that the logistics of the project were more important than public opinion.
The whole CRD board, which does not have the right to vote, pushed the land use committee to reconsider the decision or refer it to the whole board for advice.
