Charlotte Helston

By Charlotte Helston City of Vernon planning staff hung out at Bean to Cup Thursday, chatting with the public and listening to their thoughts over coffee. Save for a few poster boards leaned up in the corner, it was nothing like a conventional input session—and that was the whole idea. It's all part of revising...

By Charlotte Helston A Vernon city councillor was found guilty today of failing to file his taxes on time two years in a row, in 2007 and 2008 and fined a total of $2,000 for two counts of failing to comply with the Income Tax Act. Patrick Nicol says his reason for fighting the charges...

'DESPICABLE AND DISGUSTING:' PROSECUTOR By Charlotte Helston A 19-year-old Vernon man will spend five months in jail for threatening to post nude photos of his ex-girlfriend on Facebook unless she agreed to perform sexual favours for him. Judge Mark Takahashi found the accused guilty of unlawfully confining and assaulting the girl. The man's trial revealed...

By Charlotte Helston A Vernon judge wants to wait for an 80-year-old man's medical test results to come in before sentencing him on production and possession of marijuana charges. James Gibson was the principle operator of a family run marijuana grow operation in Falkland. Last week, his son Rob Gibson was given 18 months jail...

By Charlotte Helston A high risk crime offender sentenced to five and a half months jail time wants to get out, and not just from prison. Shane Bradley, 20, told his lawyer he wants to get out of Vernon and the life of crime he's been immersed in since he was born. Bradley was sentenced...

By Charlotte Helston A Vernon business laid off 40 employees last week when the company's latest client demanded Americans do the work, not Canadians. SQM has been in Vernon for ten years and conducts customer service research surveys with people who have just used a call centre. The results are used to help SQM clients...

By Charlotte Helston Drivers could get ticketed next year if they leave their vehicles idling for longer than three minutes. And while refueling may seem punishment enough, the offense would carry a minimum $250 fine. The city passed a draft anti-idling bylaw presented by Clint Kanester, manager of bylaw enforcement, on Monday. Kanester said other...

By Charlotte Helston A parking fee petition went undiscussed at a Vernon city council meeting Monday. The petition urged council to halt the planned increase, which would raise metered parking from 50 cents to $1 per hour and, according to the signatories, negatively affect downtown businesses. Council said the petition brought no new information to...

By Charlotte Helston When Const. Kathy Szoboticsanec called in the student responsible for creating a Facebook page filled with violent threats, she couldn't help but expect a tough and hardened individual. What appeared timidly before her was a soft-spoken grade eight girl. "She was the cutest sweetest little thing,"  Szoboticsanec says. "When I asked her...

Vernon RCMP are alerting citizens to an email scam posing as a tax refund notification. The email appears to be from Canada Customs and Revenue Agency. "It looks very authentic," Gord Molendyk, spokesperson for the RCMP, said. After receiving several calls about the scam, RCMP are warning residents to watch out and read their emails...

By Charlotte Helston Exactly one week after two Vernon women were arrested for possession of powder and crack cocaine, a third woman is facing similar charges. Last Friday, Feb. 22, a traffic services unit stopped a 2004 Chrysler car in the area of 31st Ave. and 29th St. The male driver was of little interest...

"The customers have spoken," reads a roughly 100 signature petition spearheaded by Jeff Wuolle, owner of the Cracked Pot downtown Vernon. "You need to listen to the people," Wuolle states to city hall. When Vernon council decided to double the parking rate from 50 cents to a dollar an hour, downtown businesses reared up in...

According to a Vernon judge, where there's smoke, there isn't necessarily fire. Supreme Court Justice Allen Betton dismissed the four arson charges against Edward Wade, 47, of Coldstream today after deeming there was insufficient evidence. The four counts pertained to three fires: one set in a garbage bin at Okanagan College, and two others set...

By Charlotte Helston Six years after the litigation over Kin Race Track galloped out the starting gate, it's being tied to the hitching post. The Okanagan Equestrian Society, the City of Vernon and the Regional District of North Okanagan have all agreed to put legal action on hold, for now. The track is jointly owned...

By Charlotte Helston Cardboard boxes full of food, heaps of old VHS movies, garbage bags of kids clothes. These are the things Mike Carey discovered he had paid $210 for at Stor-It Place's Storage Wars event Thursday. But he expects to make his money back with the contents of a second unit which cost him...

By Charlotte Helston Two Falkland residents who admitted to running a huge marijuana grow-op walked out of Vernon Supreme Court with a free pass today after a warrant was tossed out of court. The evidence—5,000 plants—was pretty clear after RCMP searched the home of Margaret Dowler and Allan Kitkowski twice before charging them with production...

No one knows what's hidden in the six storage units up for grabs today at Stor-It Place in Vernon. Owner Ariel Tyk says units have gone for $3000 before, while others have gone for $10. "If no one comes today, one could go for a buck," Tyk says. "The bidding starts at zero." Items found...

By Charlotte Helston When Scott Fochler stopped by the old Vernon Secondary School yesterday, he found a big gaping hole where his heart was supposed to be. For weeks, Fochler has been trying get his hands on a piece of plywood on which he wrote his and his wife's names thirty years ago. The graffiti...

By Charlotte Helston Despite deaths like that of Shuswap woman Rhonda Bergen, the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaeclogists of Canada has ruled the risk of venous throboembolism (VTE) from taking hormonal contraceptives is very low. So low, they say in a new position statement, that pregnant women are at a higher risk of VTE than...

A cop ended up rolling his vehicle near the Spallumcheen industrial park on Hwy 97A while on his way to a suspicious person complaint around 4 a.m. Wednesday. "Two officers from the Vernon Detachment were responding in separate vehicles to a report of a suspicious person/ prowler complaint in the Enderby area," Gord Molendyk, spokesperson...

By Charlotte Helston Thirty years ago Scott Fochler took a pen and wrote his name and that of Doreen—then his girlfriend, now his wife—on the wall of the green room at Vernon Secondary School. He encircled their names in a heart. That declaration of love is still there amidst a collage of over 50 years...

By Charlotte Helston Residents of Grindrod can finally let their dogs out without worrying they might not come back whole. Or at all. And though the ordeal is over, they won't soon forget the fear that gripped them for a month as two young cougars—brothers—crept about their properties seeking convenient snacks. For Angela Giesbrecht, news...

By Charlotte Helston It would have seemed like an ordinary transaction: chip inserted, buttons pressed, card withdrawn. It wasn't until later that Chatters Hair Salon in the Village Green Mall realized they'd been the victim of a scam. Gord Molendyk, spokesperson for the RCMP says the suspect reversed the transaction, thereby transferring money from the...

By Charlotte Helston The hundreds of hours Kim Nasipayko spent calling and emailing government officials, walking door to door in her neighbourhood, researching, and worrying about the fate of South Bay were worth it. "I didn't think we'd win," she says. "But we stuck to our guns to save the bay." South Bay is located...