Local briefs - July 29
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: July 29, 2009 12:11 PM
Body in river west of Rocky
RCMP are attempting to identify a body recovered Tuesday from the North Saskatchewan River about 25 km north of Saskatchewan River Crossing.
The site is about 160 km west of Rocky Mountain House.
Sgt. Patrick Webb of Calgary RCMP headquarters said the remains were discovered by tourists in the area about 10 a.m.
RCMP and Parks Canada personnel then located and removed the remains from a sand bar about 100 metres from the shore line. The body was taken to the Calgary Medical Examiner’s officer for an autopsy.
It was hoped the autopsy will reveal the cause of death as well as identification.
Webb said it can’t be determined at this time how long the body was in the river but it’s believed to have been recent.
Murder hearing on Aug. 18
Preliminary hearing arguments by Crown and defence for a man charged with first-degree murder will be made on Aug. 18 in Red Deer provincial court.
A preliminary hearing continued on Tuesday for Larry Allen Scott, 53, of Red Deer, who is also charged with being an accessory after the fact to murder.
A preliminary is held to determine if there’s enough evidence to warrant an accused being tried in Court of Queen’s Bench.
Judge David Plosz issued a publication ban on what was discussed during the preliminary.
Court heard earlier that Beckett accompanied three other men, including victim Sheldon Mark Hiller, 46, for a ride from Red Deer to the Raven area on April 16, 2007.
The Red Deer man’s body was discovered the next morning in a ditch near Raven. He had been stabbed numerous times in the chest and torso.
Brent William Crouse, 44, of Calgary, is also charged with first-degree murder and being an accessory after the fact to murder. His preliminary hearing will run from March 29 to April 1.
Charles Richard Beckett, 48, was sentenced to two years in jail, satisfied by time served, after pleading guilty to accessory after the fact to murder in Queen’s Bench. Beckett was in jail for a year.
Scott remains in custody.
Public art policy to be reviewed
The 13-year-old City of Red Deer’s public arts policy may be recrafted.
Council supported on Monday an administrative review as requested by councillor Gail Parks. The policy was approved in 1996 and revised in August 2003.
The policy allows the city to allocate 1.2 per cent of capital construction costs towards public art, if that new building, renovated area or parks project is worth more than $250,000.
Parks had asked for specifics, such as examining having at least some portion of art coming from Red Deer and Alberta artists at large. But the rest of council said the review would be too narrow in its focus.
City administration will prepare a report to explore alternatives concerning financing, corporate and private donations, location of art, approval process and integration with building design, and proportion of local artists to the general arts community.
Emergency room renovated
Visitors to the emergency room at Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre will notice some renovations underway to improve patient care.
All emergency services will continue to be provided, but there will be construction going on from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to improve the triage and registration areas.
“Ceiling tiles are opening up. Some walls are coming down. There will be noise and some inconvenience for patients,” said Sylvia Barron, director of emergency and critical care for Alberta Health Services in Red Deer.
Work started on July 20 and is expected to continue until the end of September to clearly define triage and registration areas and increase patient privacy.
Triage will still be available, but it will be temporarily shifted to another spot in the department for a few weeks.
The emergency wing is five years old, but upgrades were necessary as the number of visitors has increased, Barron said.
“Annual visits have been creeping up. We see about 60,000 a year. Five years ago, we saw about 54,000.”
Drugs, tobacco seized at prison
Drugs and tobacco worth an estimated $24,000 by prison standards were confiscated by staff at Bowden Institution last week.
Dave Pelham, prison warden, said on Monday that the contraband was seized on Friday from two visitors after a routine search.
Seized was 28 grams of cocaine, 56 grams of marijuana and a bail of tobacco.
The goods had an institutional value of about $24,000 Pelham said.
The price of prison tobacco was expected to jump when a blanket smoking ban in federal prisons took hold earlier this year, says a former con who served 14 years for murder.
Tobacco was more expensive than any other drug you can buy in prison. A bail of tobacco (small pouch of loose tobacco) that normally costs about $16 was about $300 in jail. “If you roll it and sell the cigarettes, you can get $500,” said Glenn Flett.
Flett, 57, is the founder of Long Term Inmates Now in the Community, a Vancouver-based program helping ex-cons stay straight.
Drugs in prison are worth as much as 10 times their value on the street, prison authorities said earlier.
The two visitors were arrested and taken into custody by Innisfail RCMP.
The contraband was seized prior to the visitors entering the prison.
Pelham said criminal charges are pending.
No names were released nor was the age or sex of the visitors.
Pelham said the Correctional Service of Canada has several regularly-used methods to control the flow of drugs into institutions. These include searches of offenders, visitors, ion scanners, drug dogs and searches of buildings and cells.
The medium security prison has about 600 inmates.
Impaired driving reports decline
Impaired driving reports, speeding and no-insurance tickets all fell significantly from the previous week in the week ending July 25, city RCMP report.
Drunk driving reports plunged to 12 from 28 the previous week while speeding tickets issued dived to 45 from 97.
The speeding tickets don’t include photo radar violations.
No-insurance tickets fell to nine from 21 the previous week.
Other weekly statistics included:
• 46 motor vehicle collisions.
• 12 hit-and-run collision investigations.
• three 24-hour suspensions.
• 17 liquor tickets.
• 45 non-moving violations, including suspended driving and equipment violations.
• eight red light and stop sign tickets.
• 53 seatbelt tickets.
• 46 bylaw and Environmental Protection Act tickets.
Green initiative by city staff
The City of Red Deer is launching a green team.
City staff will look at ways to improve the organization’s environmental practices and they’ll have no budget to do it.
Suggestions already made by staff include removing bottled water from meeting rooms and encouraging employees to save energy by turn.
Meetings would be held not more than monthly but not less than quarterly, and during regular office hours.
The committee will include 10 to 15 members from all city departments and/or major facilities.
“We’re really tickled with this,” said city Councillor Larry Pimm during Monday’s city council meeting. “I am really pleased we are involving front-line staff.”
Councillor Cindy Jefferies hopes the city’s efforts will spill out in other sectors.
“We need to find a way to share — to let our community know what we are doing,” Jefferies said.
Lagace returns to court Aug. 28
A man accused of trying to run down Red Deer Mounties while making a getaway amid police gunfire in May returns to Red Deer provincial court on Aug. 28 for possible resolution.
Steven Lagace, 24, faces 13 charges in connection with the May 7 incident in Glendale. The charges include assault with a weapon, resisting arrest, criminal flight from police and dangerous driving. He also faces numerous property-related offences.
More taxis in Red Deer
Three more taxis will pick up customers once the City of Red Deer holds its licence plate draw next month.
The draw for more licences stems from this year’s municipal census, which shows Red Deer’s population rose 2.4 per cent.
“We are able to lease one taxi plate for every 750 residents in Red Deer,” said licence/permit inspector Erin Stuart.
Only qualified applications are eligible for the 2009 taxi licence plate draw.
That person must have been involved in the Red Deer taxi industry as a driver or broker for 30 weeks for two consecutive years.
Applications can be picked up at the Inspections and Licensing Department on the third floor of City Hall. They must be handed in by Aug. 12. A list of applicants will then be on hand at the department on Monday, Aug. 17, so that any objections can be filed.
The draw takes place on Wednesday, Aug. 26, at 3 p.m. in council chambers.
For more information, call 403-342-8182 or email to licensing@reddeer.ca
For more on local events, see "Home Front" and "Switchboard" under the "Community" tab
