When Heritage Week 2008 began, supporters were still mourning a devastating loss. After months of haggling with the city to try and save the historic Wild Duck Inn, in early January an excavator rolled onto the property and demolished the 96-year-old building.

This year's Heritage Week begins in much the same way.

Last month, a year after the Wild Duck's demolition, another historic building, the Charles Lobb House at the foot of Mary Hill Road, was bulldozed.

With the destruction of these cherished landmarks, it is no surprise morale among members of the PoCo Heritage and Cultural Society has suffered.

So when Michael and Laura Thomas started attending heritage meetings last fall, longtime members such as Pippa Van Velzen and Lois Milne were happy to see some new faces. The pair are the latest additions to an organization in need of rejuvenation and have played a crucial role in the society's fundraising efforts.

The Thomases are currently planning An Evening to Remember gala dinner for Feb. 21, an effort that will raise money for the eventual construction of a PoCo museum.

"I think the society as a whole has been a little demoralized with the losses of the Lobb House and the Wild Duck Inn," Michael Thomas said. "But you can't just sit around complaining about what has been lost. We need to build toward the future."

If the society wants to accomplish its goal of creating the museum in time for the city's centennial in 2013, the future Thomas talks about will be a busy one.

Van Velzen, one of the society's directors, said it has been one of the organization's goals for sometime to create a place to display the city's artifacts.

"Lois Milne... it has always been her dream and it would certainly be nice to fulfill that for her," she said.

And while building a museum may seem like a monumental task, Thomas said the organization is trying to break down the process in to small, achievable goals.

The first step in the process was launching the annual gala dinner, which already is proving successful. With ticket sales to date, the event is already in the black and Thomas believes the organization can raise ,000.

He hopes to launch other fundraising efforts that work to not only collect money for the society but, also, to raise awareness of heritage issues in the city.

"The publicity helps to raise the profile of the society," Thomas said. "We are hoping to get 20 new members out of it."

The next step is finding a piece of property on which to locate a museum. While Thomas knows the society is not in the financial position to be choosy, he and Van Velzen agree a museum needs to be located downtown.

Both said they would like to see something in Leigh Square, which would fit with the arts and culture focus of the area. They say they've spoken with the city and hope to be included in any future development of the square.

But until a location can be found, Thomas and Van Velzen have difficulty outlining their vision for the museum.

"Ultimately, that is the linchpin of the exercise," Thomas said. "It is hard to design and plan a building if you don't know where it is going to sit."

Still, with more fundraising efforts on the way, society members believe the dream of building a home for the city's historical artifacts will one day be a reality.

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Port Coquitlam council voted last night not to proceed with a plan that myself and others from the Heritage Society had put forward to relocate the Lobb House downtown. Our proposed plan would have seen the first floor used as leased space for specialty retail, tea or confectionery shop. The second floor would form a much needed museum for Port Coquitlam and the third floor would have been leased office space. A museum will be a tremendous benefit to our city, as an education centre for our children and as a tourist draw to help the local economy.

With tough economic conditions on the horizon I was not surprised by council's decision. However, I truly wish Port Coquitlam City Council could have had the vision required for this legacy project. Their rejection of our plan has underscored the need for Port Coquitlam to have a Heritage Plan; so that we can safeguard those building's in our city that are worth preserving.

We are proceeding with our fundraising efforts to create a museum for Port Coquitlam and will be holding a gala in February to coincide with Heritage Week.

Poco has a bear problem; the causes are obvious, Burke Mountain development, readily available garbage and fruit trees in our neighbourhoods. Unfortunately the leadership from city hall has been laxadaisy. Their solution seems to be to keep the enormous smelly bins inside your house or garage. I have met very few who think this is practical; many residents do not even have garages.

We need real solutions.

I believe we should install the steel reinforcement that was developed by a PoCo company. They have been extensively tested and have been proven to work against bears. Had council had the forethought, they could have insisted that Burke Mountain developers pitch in for the cost of this project.

I have also proposed a volunteer based program, to gather the unwanted fruit from trees around town and redistribute the food to our homeless.

The bears will be hibernating soon; we need to address these issues over winter so that when the cubs are born in the spring they don't learn to see our streets as a smorgasbord. Education is also important; we need to stop putting our cans out the night before. A few simple steps will go a long way towards fixing this problem.

Interest in our cities proud heritage has been on the rise lately. This is largely due to the upcoming election and the impending fate of the Lobb House. For those who don't know its history, the Lobb house was build by Charles Lobb, one of Port Coquitlam's first city councillors. It is a beautiful building and a historic jewel in our town. Its destruction is planned within the next month, unless council decides to step up. As a member of the Heritage Society and a candidate for Port Coquitlam City Council I have working tirelessly to promote the effort to save the Lobb house. I am pleased to report that our efforts are paying off and that city hall is finally listening. The Heritage society is now fast tracking a business plan to establish a museum within the Lobb House, if it were to be moved by the city to Elgin and Maple. There have also been sizeable donations made by two pillars in our community within this last week, these will go a long way to proving the viability and fund raising ability of the society. I am also proud to say that my wife Laura Thomas is co-chairing the committee organizing an annual fund raising gala which will be held during Heritage Week in February.

Although we are close, work still needs to be done; council will have a vote on Thursday to decide if they will support the project. They need to hear from us to understand how important this issue is Port Coquitlam residents. Please call the councillors to voice your support. This vote will be the last possible chance to save this historic home.

The 14th annual Art Focus Artists Association's Fall Art Show was tonight, at the Outlet in Leigh Square. There were exhibitions from twenty four local artists. I was very happy to bring home a painting from Edith Heckel for my wife Laura. I spoke with a number of society members about local arts development.

What a wonderful harvest festival. A perfect setting, upbeat music, interesting exhibits and great people, I really enjoyed the day. The weather could have been a bit better, but hey, it wouldn't be BC without a little torrential rain. It was terrific to see so many local businesses out. There was a lot to do there for the kids, including a carnival ride, pumpkin painting and who could forget the Shriner Clowns. The performances on stage were marvellous; my daughter really enjoyed dancing with the Kurdish dancers. Congratulations to the BIA for putting on such a great event and thanks to all the volunteers.
I was happy to speak with so many Port Coquitlam residents today. They expressed their concerns; homelessness, development, bears and traffic calming.

I spoke with them about my ideas.

1. I propose a fruit pick program to gather unwanted fruit from trees around the city and distribute it through the homeless groups and foodbank. Otherwise it will go to waste and attract bears.
2. I propose we also proceed with one of the options to reinforce our garbage cans against bears. Bears are an environmental and public safety issue.
3. We need to immediately review the traffic claming around our city; particularly around schools and parks. We also need to upgrade a number of crosswalks around town.

I received very positive feedback and support from the people I spoke with; particularly when we discussed my objection of the high rise at Lions Park. If it came before me, I would not vote for it.

I was out today walking in the downtown area speaking with businesses and residents. The overwhelming concern I heard from them was how difficult it was to cross the street. There are a number of crosswalks around the city that are not safe. Worse yet, there are a number of intersections around town with no crosswalk whatsoever. How many people need to be struck before this is addressed? I strongly believe we need a full review of our traffic calming measures around the city. We also need stronger enforcement of our school and park zones to ensure our children can get home safely. I think better crosswalks would also encourage pedestrian traffic in our shopping districts.

The rivers and trails festival was at Peace Park today. There was a very good turnout and the weather couldn't have been better. There were great activities for the children; it was good to see so many young local families out. Boat building was being sponsored by the Maritime Museum, a most enjoyable experience for the kids. There were exhibits from the Port Coquitlam Heritage Society and the Hyde and Maple Creek Watershed Societies. A live performance from Copper Sky provided an upbeat blend of Maritime and Celtic music. I was very happy to speak with members of Epcom, Port Coquitlam's emergency communication group. The lions club was there to provide food and refreshments for everyone. The Burke Mountain Naturalist were also on hand with there information. My family rode the paddlewheeler and my daughter had a ton of fun aboard it. Thank you to all the volunteers who made the day a success.
It was also a good day for shaking hands. I meet a lot of new people today and received very positive feedback. I heard many concerns from residents; homelessness, traffic, development, heritage, dogs, bears and recycling. I will continue to bring these issues to the cities attention.

I think the council meeting tonight went quite well. There were presentations from Dave Teixeira and Holly Williams. Dave was reporting on yesterday's 2008 Terry Fox Hometown run, there were around 6000 precipitants, a great turnout!!! Congratulations to all the organizers and volunteers, it was very well run.
Holly was speaking about Bears in her neighbourhood. As in mine, they have been becoming an ever increasing presence and a disturbance to the safely of our streets and yards. In question period I asked if council would consider installing animal proofing onto our existing bins to keep the bears out. A potential bylaw to require residents wait until morning to putout their garbage was discussed by council and other speakers. I noted the Environmental Committee had discussed installing RFID chips onto the bins to encourage people only to put them out when full. I then pointed out that more garbage building up would only encourage more bears to come calling.
The Charles Lobb house was discussed by many people. This included Ray Rutherford, who had originally tried to move the home to Saltspring Island to save it. Fred Soofi now has a plan in the works to try and save the home. He had a meeting with the Mayor and two senior administrators last week he say's the meeting was positive. Being the home of one of Port Coquitlam's first city councillors, I think it very appropriate that today council do everything in their power to help preserve it.
The meeting was well attended and there were presentations made to the Poco Residential Garden Award winners and the PCRM Belle A Ringette Team who recently won Gold. Congratulations to all the winners and thank you to all those who came out in support for city Heritage.

I am very pleased to be announcing that I am running in the Nov 15th election for Port Coquitlam City Council. Those who know me well know that my wife Laura and I have always been very politically minded. Port Coquitlam is our home and my decision is largely based to my deep seeded desire to help the city grow, prosper and continue to be a wonderful place to raise our children. Our city is at a crossroads; we have been growing at an unprecedented rate these last few years. We need to ensure the facilities and infrastructures are in place to support the development. Our desire for development must be balanced with environmental measures to protect our future.
I'd like to ask everyone for their support, in whatever way you can. There is a lot to do and not much time to do it. Please visit my website www.michael-thomas.ca and/or join my facebook group . Name recognition is generally the most important factor in municipal elections; so please forward this email and tell your friends, neighbours and relatives.