Bathurst plans permanent 'Boys in Red' memorial

Bathurst, N.B.,is planning a permanent "Boys in Red" memorial for the victims ofthe van crash that killed seven members of the Bathurst High School basketball team and their coach's wife.

The accident rocked the small northern New Brunswick city on Jan. 12, 2008, and has since been marked by a basketball hoop surrounded by flowers and stuffed toysat the spot where the team's 15-passenger van collided with a transport truck.

Bathurst Mayor Stephen Brunet looked over an empty lot on King Avenue in the city's downtown as he talked about his vision for the memorial site.

"It would be a good place to sit and quietly meditate and think about what happened and pay respect to those that we lost," Brunet said.

Hesaid the memorial will be a green space, with a monument that is yet to be designed.

Two years after the tragedy, Brunet recalls how the tight-knit community of about 13,000 was upended by the accident.

"It was such a loss and it hit so many in our city and so many were hurt by [it], and hurt to see what happened to those parents who lost their loved ones and those families," he said.

"So it's something that we'll never forget and it'sone of those things that we talked about at the time of the tragedy that it's something we shall never forget."

There are no plans to remove the current roadside memorial, but Brunet said there are concerns it is unsafe.

"The speed on that area is 100 km/h and there is a sort of a blind hill. And if people are going up and parking on the side of the road to remember, it's a real concern about safety for me," he said.

'Marker should remain'

Ana Acevedo, who lost her son Javier in the accident, saidthe memorialat the accident site should stay where it is.

"It should remain there, that's where it happened," she said.

She said the roadside memorial is a significant marker for the community andshe's disappointed that the city's memorial is still not done.

"It's sad to see because something so tragic, you would think that things could be done faster," Acevedo said.

Brunet said it has been a long process to secure the land and design the site but he hopes the memorial will be complete by next year's anniversary.

Lawsuit dropped

The Bathurst tragedy reared up again last week when it was revealed that Loblaw Cos. and Atlantic Wholesalers Ltd. had filed a lawsuit on Dec. 22 against Wayne Lord, the team's coach and the van's driver, along withBathurst Vans Inc., the corporation run by the high school's administrators that owned the van, for roughly $40,000 in damages.

Within hours of CBC News reporting on the lawsuit, Loblaw dropped the lawsuit and apologized to Lord, who lost his wife in theaccident.

In January 2008, the Bathurst High School's Phantoms were returning from a game in Moncton, about 220 kilometres to the south, when their vanfishtailed on a snowy, slipperystretch of highway near Bathurst and collided with a truck.

A report released by the RCMP in 2008 saidthe van a 1997 Ford Econoline E350 Club Wagon was in poor condition. Another report by Transport Canada found the driver had been awake for 16 hours and was driving in poor weather conditions.

Those reports have resulted in some changes to transportation policies for extracurricular school activities, including the banning of 15-passenger vans and the mandatory use of winter tires.

A coroner's inquestdelivered 24 recommendations in May 2009 that included limiting travel for school events during winter.