JULY
• A 56-year-old Seymour Arm woman was killed in Chase after she was struck by a vehicle on the Canada Day long weekend.
• Salmon Arm RCMP urged people to call 911 if approached in parking lots by individuals selling gold jewelry. “Buying jewelry in a parking lot from people who are not known to you is not a good idea,” warned Salmon Arm RCMP Staff Sgt. Scott West. “If it seems too good to be true, or just a great deal, in a parking lot it is probably a scam of one kind or other.”
• A July 4 collision resulted in a ticket for a semi-truck driver and a second collision in the backed up traffic. At approximately 4:45 p.m. on Thursday, July 4, Salmon Arm RCMP and emergency crews attended a two-vehicle collision that occurred on the Trans-Canada Highway at the Old Hatchery Road intersection in Tappen.
• More than a dozen vehicles and a cache of weapons, including a gun that could be fired while inside a suitcase, were seized by Chase RCMP following execution of two search warrants in the North Shuswap. The search resulted in the seizure of more than $300,000 in stolen property, much of it taken from the Lower Mainland over the past three years. Four people, three men and a woman, were detained and later released without charges.
• The demise of Canfor’s Vavenby sawmill near Clearwater gave new life to the Adams Lake sawmill. This was part of the message Brad Bennett, woodlands manager with Interfor’s Adams Lake division, had for Salmon Arm council July 8. Bennett asked for council’s support of Interfor’s bid to take over the Canfor timber rights.
• James and Chelsea Keenan relocated from Surrey in 2017, and now raise a variety of livestock, along with their family of five children, on a 35-acre farm on Yankee Flats Road – Keenan Family Farms. The Keenans came to the Shuswap and started the farm with no prior agricultural experience, and in a challenging climate for medium-sized meat producers. Chelsea said it had been a serious learning curve getting their operation, which currently raises pigs, lambs, laying hens and bees for honey, up and running. Chelsea said the couple chose pigs because they can be raised with a relatively low start-up cost.
• Highway 1 was shut down for several hours west of Salmon Arm on July 22 following two crashes that resulted in serious injuries. Salmon Arm RCMP were called to a crash on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Sunnybrae Road. The occupants of both vehicles involved, a Toyota Camry and a Ford F-150 pickup truck, suffered serious injuries as a result of the head-on collision. While police were on scene, another crash was reported just west of Salmon Arm on Highway 1 near Second Nations Road that involved three vehicles.
• Stolen vehicles, illegal firearms and now stolen pet food. On July 12, Chase RCMP executed a third search warrant at a rural property located in the 4000- block of Leopold Road near Scotch Creek. In the process, investigating officers recovered $12,700 worth of stolen dog food. Police executed two search warrants at the same property on June 21, and seized $300,000 in stolen property, including several vehicles, as well as a cache of illegal firearms.
• At its July 18 meeting, the Columbia Shuswap Regional District board unanimously approved an alternative approval process to obtain elector assent to borrow $1.77 million to buy Centennial Field.
