TREATMENT CENTRE PLANS UP IN FLAMES

Former Maple Ridge Mayor Gord Robson's dream of an alcohol and drug
treatment centre at Boulder Bay has been literally burned to the ground.

Robson was involved in forming a non-profit organization called the
LifeLine Society, which planned to renovate the former youth
detention facility on the remote northern border of Maple Ridge and
Mission, and act as a landlord to an organization that would run a
treatment centre there.

However, this month the District of Mission, which owns the property,
allowed its district and provincial firefighters to burn the
buildings down in training exercises. All that's left is the
gymnasium and that's expected to be demolished in the next month as well.

"I think it's criminal," said Robson.

He added, more alcohol and drug treatment facilities are "critical."

"We all know no one can get into treatment and here's one (property)
that's way out of the way, ideally designed," he said. "To burn it
down it just shows the incompetence of government."

Dennis Clark, director of corporate administration for the District
of Mission, said the district decided destroying the buildings was
the best course of action after the proposal to turn Boulder Bay into
a treatment centre was withdrawn in January.

Robson said it was withdrawn because the Mission district wanted to
control who was on the board of directors of the non-profit
organization. However, he had hoped they could still work something out.

Clark said the Mission council members supported the concept of a
treatment centre, but when the proposal was withdrawn they had few
options because the buildings were deteriorating and it would cost
more than $2 million to upgrade them.

"We didn't want to spend any more money on security services to
protect the site and we didn't want to spend in excess of $2 million
to upgrade," he said.

In the proposal for the drug treatment centre, the non-profit
organization proposed a run-of-river hydro project to provide
electricity as well as geothermal to heat it.

Robson said they were hoping to negotiate an agreement with the Hope
For Freedom Society out of Port Coquitlam to run the treatment centre.