JULY

July 3

Only 10 per cent of Grade 8 aboriginal boys in the Chilliwack school district were fully meeting grade-level expectations in reading, according to a report presented to the school board.

The district-level tests also revealed only 46 per cent of all students in Grade 8 fully met expectations for reading this year, with just 32 per cent of boys hitting that benchmark.

July 3

A recent change to a private security company at Sunnyside Campground at Cultus Lake worried Diana and Bill Den Duyf, whose nephew Cody Gottschalk was stabbed to death at the campground in 2008.

Cultus Lake Park Board CAO Ron Campbell said the hiring of Kinetic Security to specifically patrol Sunnyside meant things will be safer than ever.

July 5

The Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for British Columbia proposed a new electoral map.

The proposed Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon riding would expand into the Cariboo. At the same time, the new boundary between Abbotsford-Sumas and Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon would be Highway 1 until Vedder Road, where it would run south and divide Sardis in half.

July 5

June's weather was the worst in more than three decades.

Chilliwack experienced 21 days of rain, nearly double the average June. Rainfalls were 184 per cent above normal, while average temperatures were 1.14 C below normal That made the month the wettest and coolest June since 1981.

July 10

One day Curtis Harry Vroegop hopes to sit down for coffee with Edmund Fechner.

But first, Vroegop will have to serve more than a year in jail for running a stop sign last January and severely injuring the then-80year-old Chilliwack senior.

July 10

Six-hundred-or-so Chilliwack residents stood in the hot sun July 6 evening to simultaneously shuck enough corn to break a Guinness World Record.

The event was put on by Star FM to celebrate the station's 85th birthday and was held before the first Party in the Park of the season.

July 12

An alert train engineer and a quick-thinking bicyclist combined to save the life of a 92-year-old Chilliwack man whose scooter got caught in the Young Road railroad tracks July 10.

Cole Jackson helped yank the senior off the scooter as the train bore down. Jackson credited the train's engineer for sounding his whistle early and slowing down the locomotive.

July 12

Two hockey moms filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal over additional fees charged to female hockey players by the Chilliwack Minor Hockey Association (CMHA).

By forcing girls on smaller-than-average teams to pay more money, Julia Lakey and Keren Esau said CMHA is practising discrimination.

July 17

A former Harrison Hot Springs councillor and mayoral candidate was sentenced to 14 days in jail after pleading guilty to a sexual offence involving a minor.

David Kenyon, who served on Harrison Hot Springs council between 2008 and 2011, entered a guilty plea in Provincial court to one count of sexual interference.

July 17

Five years after a controversial zoning of 14 lots in the the heart of Cultus Lake Park, the properties hit the market again.

The lots were zoned to allow for housing in 2007. At the time, the properties were estimated to be worth about $400,000 each. This June, the lots were listed for a total of $2.79 million, an average of $199,000 per lot.

July 19

Despite vocal opposition from a large contingent of Rosedale residents, council gave its approval to the massive expansion of Tycrop's McGrath Road manufacturing facility.

The local company was asking council to allow it to build a multi-storey office building and to expand its manufacturing facility.

July 19

The Fraser Valley's mosquito assassins were working overtime trying to kill as many of the pesky blood suckers as possible.

Flooding and high water earlier in the year created ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes, according to Morrow BioScience.

July 24

An English tourist fishing near Chilliwack reeled in one of the largest sturgeons caught on the Fraser River in recent memory.

Sixty-five-year-old Michael Snell, from Salisbury, England, hauled in a 12-foot-four-inch-long white sturgeon on July 16. The fish is estimated to weigh around 1,100 pounds.

July 26 For the first time in many decades, local First Nations bands conducted a sockeye fishery on the Vedder/ Chilliwack River.

Members of various bands were on the Vedder with beach seines and on the Chilliwack with dip nets. The most recent release from the Fraser Panel of Pacific Salmon Commission forecast a return of 200,000 sockeye to Chilliwack Lake.

July 26

Former City of Chilliwack director of development Grant Sanborn was scheduled to plead guilty next month, but not to any criminal charges.

Sanborn was expected to enter pleas of not guilty at an Aug. 21 disposition hearing to three counts of breach of trust in connection with development deals approved at City Hall between 1991 and 2002, according to his lawyer.

July 31

Despite ruling that Thomas Borecky was an "integral" part of a mid-level drug dealing operation, a Supreme Court justice spared the Chilliwack man the decade-long prison term sought by Crown counsel.