City councillor in Merritt, B.C., struck and killed in apparent hit-and-run: mayor

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This article was published 05/07/2023 (836 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The community of Merritt, B.C., is mourning the death of a city councillor whom Mayor Michael Goetz described as a “light” and a driving force in her work.

Goetz had been working with Coun. Claire Newman for about six months before she was killed Tuesday in an apparent hit-and-run crash, the mayor said.

In that short time, Goetz said Newman made a great impression on him and the broader community of about 7,000 residents southwest of Kamloops.

“She was an amazing person, she was one of the lights of council,” Goetz said in an interview on Wednesday.

“I got to know her very well. I’m absolutely devastated,” he said.

Goetz said Newman had been on her way to meet her husband, whose car had broken down, when she was struck and killed outside Valemount, B.C., about 400 kilometres northeast of Merritt.

She’d also been planning to travel to Alaska to visit an ailing friend, he said.

The mayor said he’d spoken with Newman’s husband and daughter following her death late Tuesday, and the flags at Merritt city hall were flying at half-mast.

A statement from B.C. RCMP said the Mounties are investigating the hit-and-run death of a 46-year-old woman outside Valemount late Tuesday evening.

It said local RCMP had received an automated crash notification around midnight Wednesday and officers responded to the call near Lucerne Lake on Highway 16.

They arrived to find an unlocked Nissan with its engine running and a dog left inside before finding a woman’s body down a nearby embankment, RCMP said.

The Mounties said evidence at the scene suggests the woman may have been outside her car when she was struck.

Officers found part of a headlightfrom a grey Jeep Cherokee from between 2016 and 2018 at the scene, police said, encouraging the driver to contact police.

RCMP said they’re also looking to speak with anyone who may have been on the highway in the area between 11 p.m. Tuesday and midnight Wednesday.

Newman was the “cheerleader” of Merritt city council and “a driving force that you rarely come across,” Goetz said.

“To her family and friends, I offer my deepest sympathies.”

Newman was passionate about policy and an integral member of council, the mayor said, adding a memorial had grown at city hall.

She was previously a long-serving councillor in the community of Logan Lake.

“She was about strategic planning, so the inner workings of council was where her passions really (lay),” Goetz said.

“She was also, just like every other councillor (and) myself, very passionate about getting the funding to rebuild our dikes after the flood in 2021.”

Newman’s death “behooves (council) to move forward with her legacy and move in the direction that we think we would make her proud,” Goetz said.

“She always got us together and got things done,” he said. “We’re really, super going to miss her. There’s just no other way of putting it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 5, 2023.