Tenth to the Fraser

Driving along 7th St in the West End two nights ago, we were drawn towards the festive glow coming from one end of the street. We meandered over and there it was, a Christmas light display that just had to make it on to the Blog!

I took some pictures with my trusty cellular phone and as you can see, the effect is less than crystal clear but this is only a beginning. I sense a series coming on, highlighting some of the best and brightest Christmas light displays in the New Westminster scene. Send us your pictures (see the email link above) and we will get them up here! Also, share your favorite light display neighbourhoods in the comments and check back for more of the best of New Westminster's Christmas light displays!

Who really won the recent New Westminster 2008 municipal election? Not us, because we are a bunch of chumps that can't make it to out to stuff a slip of paper into a box. Do we harbour some long hidden fears of elementary school gymnasiums? Terror at the nasty chance of an electoral paper cut?

Our manifest idiocy has not gone unnoticed by the scribbling classes. Even here, at Tenth to the Fraser, we have noted our past 26.2% participation lameness. Now, with renewed evidence of our callous disregard for our franchise, Shelley Fralic boldy scolds us in today's issue of the Vancouver Sun (Nov14, 08, A4) ,

And you know, Fralic is not alone in her keen perception. She rightly points out that while New Westminster is the kind of town where you can meet with several generations on a bright day in the park and know all of them, we must reconcile that community spirit with the dearth of spirit that is made plain by this year's dismal showing. Pat Tracy from the Record agrees in her blog and wants to cause a 'hoofra' of her own and call attention to the fact that with such apathy, even large families can sway a sizable portion of the poplar vote.

Strengthening the chorus of those who decry the poor participation, Niki Hope eloquently reminds us of what I have heard and also hold to be true, that:

It is pretty sad that so few people bothered to walk a few blocks to help determine how their hefty taxes will be spent and who will help guide their children’s education.

Now after that kind of drubbing, and from so many sources, come on citizens! I want to see you volunteering at the Shiloh Church food bank, donning an or joining a municipal committee. We owe it to ourselves to vote and further to participate in a meaningful way in our city. Dance with seniors, hug a hooded teen (or whatever); anything to ameliorate our mass participation in nothing on voting day.

New West has long known it needs new schools. The current high school is in need of upgrades and isn't adequate to house all of the city's kids. The original idea was to rebuild on the same site. The catch? Our secondary school is built on an indian burial ground. 

It's like something out of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I keep expecting some kind of monstrous hell-beast to emerge from a Hellmouth deep in the bowels of the school, threatening to bet all the city's kittens at poker and cursing the local mallrats with syphilis. 

So, we need new schools. And we can't build them on the site where NWSS has stood for 60 years in case executed Tsilhqot'in warrior Chief Ahan was buried there 144 years ago. 

Something has to give. And that 'something' seems likely to be park land. Three parks are currently being considered for a new middle school site, all in the West End:

He recently followed the New Westminster Station route, and what struck me was his assessment of our city:

New Westminster was the ideal location for a bustling metropolis, built up by the Royal Engineers as British Columbia's first capital. Today it is known as that suburb you drive through to get downtown.

My family is from here. My great grandfather came to this city through Montreal from Manchester, England. He raised a family in a duplex, still standing, on the corner of 10th avenue and third street. He was a carpenter at the BC Electric trolley factory at the bottom of 12th st. My grandfather studied at UBC and was a biologist for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on the Fraser. He and my Grandmother, a head nurse at Riverview, raised their family in a house on 7th street, across from Lord Kelvin Elementary. It was only recently torn down and replaced. My Grandfather shot the photograph on this post; the construction of the Putello Bridge in 1937.

I was raised on First Street with my family and now I raise my children in the West End, near Lord Tweedsmuir Elementary. This website is to illustrate just what kind of town New Westminster is. It has often had an undeserved reputation but I have always known it as the perfect jewel in the center of the Lower Mainland. Tightly knit, self sustainable yet fully a part of the greater metropolis around it, New Westminster sits at the intersection of our regional commerce and the heart of our regional identity.

Here, I hope, you will read interviews with notable personalities within ours, the Royal City; explanations of current events, political goings-on and a place to showcase features of our city in our past and present. It is an interactive site, so feel free to contribute.

There is a lot to look forward to! We have an upcoming civic election, featuring for the first time the newly formed Voice New Westminster slate. We have seen a vast change in the city since 1986 and certainly in the last five years. In my view, New Westminster could be the jewel box of the lower mainland. With defined, tightly knit neighbourhoods, heavily integrated transit options and a distributed commercial base, New Westminster is a city for its Citizens. I invite you to explore it with me.