Frank Peebles Citizen staff
Pedestrian killed by motorist
A female suspect is in custody after a man was struck and killed by a passing vehicle on Saturday night. Alcohol is believed to be a factor in the fatal crash.
It was just before 8 p.m. when a 48-year-old male was walking along the sidewalk in the vicinity of Ospika Boulevard and Melody Crescent. For reasons the police have not disclosed, due to the ongoing investigation, somehow the man got hit by a dark-coloured SUV.
“The suspect SUV departed the scene prior to police or medical attendance,” said rCmp Sgt. Al Steinhauser, commander of the Prince George Traffic Unit.
The victim was pronounced deceased at the hospital.
“The vehicle was later located,” said Stein-hauser on Sunday evening. “It is a female suspect, and she is in custody at this time.” When asked how this suspect and vehicle came to the interest of investigators, Steinhauser merely said “we are good,” and deferred giving details until more of the evidence was sworn in court.
The name of the victim was likewise withheld pending more court disclosure and/or family consent.
The woman driver is currently facing charges of Impaired Driving Causing Death, Dangerous Driving Causing Death, and Failing to Remain at the Scene of a Collision.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call Prince George RCMP at 250-561-3300 or call Crime Stoppers at 1800-222-TIPS / www.pgcrimestoppers.bc.ca.
For comments or tips regarding this story, email: fpeebles@pgcitizen.ca
Monday, February 1, 2010
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Numbers don’t add up
Gov't evasive about Metis housing probe
Gordon Hoekstra Citizen staff
The B.C. government will not give a clear-cut answer as to whether it is looking into how two properties held by the Apehtaw Kosisan Metis Child and Family Support Society for 12 years ended up in the hands of a numbered company following a 2008 transaction that appears to violate B.C. Society Act rules.
As reported in The Citizen last Wednesday, the properties at 1224 and 1239 Houston Lane, one of which was turned partially into a pre-school with the help of nearly $900,000 in federal funds, was transferred to numbered company 0799573 B.C. Ltd. in mid-August 2008. The transfer was outlined in B.C. Land Titles documents. The numbered company is held by Ken and Murline Browning, according to B.C.’s corporate registry. Both were involved in the Metis child and support society, Ken Browning as president in 2007 and Murline Browning as bookeeper in the same year, according to society documents.
B.C. Housing - which has already launched an internal review of the Prince George Metis Housing Society, and replaced its board of directors before Christmas last year -would not respond to questions about the Apehtaw Kosisan Children and Family Support Society.
B.C. Housing has also refused to provide an official for an interview, instead only responding to written questions via e-mail.
The only piece of information B.C. Housing would provide is that the P.G. Metis Housing Society has a lease agreement with the Apehtaw Kosisan society for office space at 1224 Houston Lane.
The Crown agency would not answer a question on whether B.C. Housing considers itself to have an interest in the properties at 1239 and 1224 Houston Lane, and whether the province is taking any action to return the properties to the Apehtaw Ko-sisan society.
There were many inter-linking relationships between the P.G. Metis Housing Society and the Apehtaw Kosisan society, including that the two boards of directors were nearly exactly the same before B.C. Housing replaced the housing society board before last Christmas.
The property at 1224 Houston Lane was also a home originally owned by the P.G. Metis Housing Society before it was acquired by the Apehtaw Kosisan society with federal funding in the mid-90s.
A former P.G. Metis Housing Society employee, Charlie Ghost-keeper, has noted the Apehtaw Ko-sisan society was created under the auspices of the housing society in the ’90s. Ghostkeeper, who was a witness to the signatories that
Questions surround the Metis child and family support society and how two properties ended up in a numbered company.
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
created the society, does not believe it is proper the properties should have been turned over to the Brownings.
Another provincial agency, the B.C. corporate registry, is responsible for setting up societies and ensuring they file the proper annual paper work. But it is not their job to investigate the workings of the
26,000 societies in B.C., said Ron Townshend, the province’s registrar.
He noted that societies are largely self-regulating, and it’s up to the society’s members, or boards of directors, to ask questions. “Where were the minutes? Who made the decision given the circumstances? That’s certainly something I think the members would be interested in following up on,” offered Townshend.
He also expected that different levels of government providing funding would be interested in following up if the funds were not being used correctly.
Also, anyone can take a complaint to the police, observed Townshend. (The Prince George RCMP detachment said last Friday there had been no files opened on the Apehtaw Kosisan society property transfer).
Prince George-Mackenzie MLA Pat Bell, who acknowledged he did not know the particulars of the case, said last week he’s been told there are multiple ministries looking into the issues surrounding the Metis societies. “It’s not a single ministry because there’s a couple of potential issues here that come to bear. I’m not at liberty, beyond that, to say much more,” he said.
Of the Apehtaw Kosisan board members The Citizen has been able to contact, Mike Cunningham acknowledges he signed a transfer for the properties, but thought he
was signing it over to the Waskahikan Management Society. That society manages rural housing units for B.C. Housing in north-central B.C.
Theresa Loyer is also listed as a board member according to annual reports filed with B.C.’s corporate registry, but she says she is not on the board. Beverly Tourand, another board member, would not comment on the Houston Lane properties.
Provincial rules allow the public to see a copy of the financial statements of a society by asking. The Citizen could not, however, locate anyone who had any knowledge of where the Apehtaw Kosisan society’s financial statements were stored.
Cunningham - who would have had responsibility for the financial statements as secretary-treasurer -said he didn’t know where the society stored its documents.
The registered office of the Apehtaw society, according to B.C. corporate registry documents, is 11515 Second Ave., the location of the Garth Wright Law Corp.
Wright said no documents were stored at the office.
In society documents obtained by The Citizen, Apehtaw’s address was listed as 1224 Houston Lane in 2007. But staff at the office there, where Prince George Metis Housing is located, said it was not the home of the Apehtaw society.
Documents from B.C. Land Titles and the B.C. Assessment Authority show the sale of 1224 and 1239 Houston Lane to the numbered company was for a combined price of $149,100. That’s was well below the listed sale price of $499,800 for the two properties this year, and the province’s assessed value of the properties at
$430,800 in 2008.
The property at 1224 Houston Lane, which has a price tag of $399,900, now has a “sold” tag posted on the for-sale sign. (The realtor handling the sale said he could not provide any information because it would violate the province’s privacy laws).
The Society Act allows for the dispersal of society assets, but only if fair market value is received, according to information provided to The Citizen by the B.C. Ministry of Finance.
The act also forbids the sale of assets to members of the society, and while it is not clear whether the Brownings were on the membership list of the Apehtaw society in 2008, they were clearly involved in the society. Ken Browning was one of the signatories to the creation of the Apehtaw Kosisan society in 1992 - and as such, a member of the society -and was listed as president in 2005, according to B.C. corporate registry documents. Ken also signed correspondence as president of the society in 2007, according to society documents obtained by The Citizen.
Murline held the position of executive director while the society was operating federally-funded child care services in the late ‘90s, according to news stories at the time, and was named as the society’s bookkeeper in society documents from 2007.
The Apehtaw Kosisan society’s pre-school stopped operating in 2000 after the federal government pulled its funding. The society also received nearly $525,000 in funding - for family support and sexual abuse counselling - from the B.C. Ministry of Children and Families between 1998-2005.
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