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Flashback: New Year’s twins first born, assessment news, secret fluoride purge

A look back at the history of the Cowichan Lake area
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“Knock, knock…firemen peer under garage door of smoke-filled house at 33 Lakeview Avenue Sunday morning about 10 a.m. The house belongs to Carol Popplestone. No one was injured in the blaze, which Lake Cowichan fire chief Jim Sidhu estimates caused $15,000-$20,000 in damage. The fire started in the house’s electrical system, he said.” (Lake News/Jan. 12, 1983)

Welcome to Lake Flashback. Reporter Sarah Simpson has been combing through old newspapers with the assistance of the Kaatza Station Museum and Archives so we can jog your memory, give you that nostalgic feeling, or just a chuckle, as we take a look at what was making headlines this week around Cowichan Lake in years gone by.

This week around the Cowichan Lake area…

10 years ago

The Lake Cowichan Gazette of Jan. 9, 2013 featured the story of the New Year’s baby. Make that babies.

“Youbou twin girls are Cowichan Lake’s first babies in 2013” was the headline and the story is as follows:

“On Dec. 31, 2012, Justin Close and his partner Jessica Oyo, both of Youbou, welcomed in the New Year together. At that time, Oyo was a few weeks away from the anticipated birth date of her first baby.

“Then, three days later and with scarcely a word of warning, Oyo was holding twin girls whom she gave birth to at the Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.

“’It was a total surprise,’ confirmed the new father, Close. ‘I mean we knew it would be twins, but we thought it would be later in January.’ Alexis and Isabelle Close-Oyo, or ‘twin A and twin B’ as Close jokingly referred to them in a phone interview from the hospital in Nanaimo, arrived on Jan. 3 at 11:33 and 11:34 a.m., premature to the due date by a couple of weeks, Close said.

“Alexis Sandra weighed in at 5lb 3oz and Isabel Julia was nearly one pound lighter, at 4lb 6 oz. The couples’ twin girls are the first babies among residents in the Cowichan Lake area for 2013. ‘Everything went fine,’ he said reassuringly. “’It was a C-section. They were out within an hour, and they’re perfectly healthy — they’re just a little bit premature’.”

25 years ago

Assessments made up the top headlines on the front of the Jan. 14, 1998 Lake News. While one story claimed “Lower assessments may not mean good news for taxes”, another story was all about “Return-to-sender assessment notices has B.C. Assessments baffled as to what to do.”

First, the lower assessments story:

“Despite lower assessments in Lake Cowichan, you may endure a substantial tax increase this year. Exact amount is unknown because the Town has not yet established a tax rate. Nor has it received the amounts of the levies from CVRD, the School District, the hospital or the library, all of which it must collect on their behalf.

“Still, most people who received their assessments from B.C. Assessment Authority last week, were breathing relief.”

As for those who didn’t get their notices, it was likely at the post office.

“Peter Bretherton, of the B.C. Assessment Authority, Nanaimo has told the Lake News that a number of assessment notices have been returned undelivered. They didn’t have the right postal box number on them. ‘More than 73,500 assessment notices have been mailed to property owners in the Nanaimo-Cowichan area,’ he said. So far as he knows, Lake Cowichan Post Office is the only one which has returned notices.

“Ed Gilman, Town clerk-administrator, said he hasn’t received complaints about the amount of anyone’s assessment but ‘I have had complaints about notices that haven’t been delivered.’”

40 years ago

“Council secretly purges fluoride from water system” topped the front of the Lake News of Jan. 12, 1983.

“Parents are being urged to put their families on oral fluoride drops or tablets after village council, in a decision made behind closed doors, cut the village off from fluoridation in the water supply. The decision, made in an in-camera meeting last summer, came about after council decided it couldn’t afford to repair equipment that distributed fluoride into the water system.

“Because council’s decision was not discussed at a public council meeting, nor otherwise relayed to the public, citizens have unknowingly been without fluoridation since last spring.”

Also 40 years ago this week: “Firemen see red as parking vanishes”.

“The closure of the K&R and the subsequent increased business at the Lake Cowichan Co-op Store is proving something of a headache to the Lake Cowichan Volunteer Fire Department. The parking lot between the fire hall and the grocery store has sometimes been so choked with cars that there is no space left for firemen to leave their vehicles and there could be a chance that a fire truck might not be able to get out. Lake Cowichan village council learned of these concerns just before Christmas and is currently trying to find the best way to deal with the problem.”

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“Proud parents Justin Close and Jessica Oyo of Youbou hold Cowichan Lake area’s first babies of 2013, twins Alexus Sandra and Isabel Julia, born Jan. 3 at NRGH.” (Lake Cowichan Gazette/Jan. 9, 2013)


Sarah Simpson

About the Author: Sarah Simpson

I started my time with Black Press Media as an intern, before joining the Citizen in the summer of 2004.
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