Computer justice? So long, Frank After 22 years, Frank Hamilton retires as superintendent of schools\COMMUNITY B1 | Off to the games Who will you recognize at the B.C. Summer Games this weekend?\SPORTS B4 RD» Trustees balance budget $1.45m gone with more to go: By ALEX HAMILTON : AFTER MONTHS of haggling over money, school: trustees slashed music programs, supplies and administra-: tion to save $1.45 million and balance this year’s budget. ‘ Trustees in fact passed a surplus budget July 13 at a. meeting here before approximately 35 observers. : But it doesn’t mean their budget woes are over. : ‘Tt isn’t over yet,” said secretary-treasurer Barry: Piersdorff. ‘There are still more (cuts) to come.”' ‘ An extra $116,721 was'cut this year to help offset redue-: tions in money coming from the province next school year.. Special grants from Victoria will be down by $398,000. That means the district will have to find another: $131,000 in budget savings next year to get out of the red. Leading the list of cuts are reductions to supplics and: equipment totalling $280,000. Music programs here in kindergarten and grade 6 and 7: were chopped to save $228,000. : And a range of administrative positions will be: climinated including the job of assistant secretary-: treasurer, the Terrace-based district vice principal for: music, the district technology coordinator and a clerical’ position. ‘District offices in Kitimat will be closed and shutting the resource centre there will save $40,000. Superintendent Frank Hamilton has also agreed to early retirement, saving another $102,534. He'll be gone:before school returns and his position will be filled within a year, | The board will also be hiring a director of human: resources, al a cost of $100,000. The board followed most of the recommendations of an: efficiency team named by education minister Paul Ramsey. to help the board deal with its $1.3 million budget deficit: for 1997-98, But they couldn’t follow through with some: suggestions duc to contractual arrangements. The board decided not to reduce the number of trustees: from nine to seven, and did not cut back special education. spending. They did cut the summer hours of custodians to save. The college frowns on one man's attempt to provide computers to. the poor\NEWS A110 | ~ST 93¢ PLUS 7¢ ast ‘VOL. AL NO. 15 WEDNESDAY JULY 22, 1998 By JEFF NAGEL THE NISGA’A Highway will be paved by the province as a final sweetener to seal the Nisga’a Treaty. The $40 million project will see the blacktop extended all the way into the Nass Valley and then west to Lakalzap (Greenville) as well as east to Nass Camp. It will cover some 90 kilo- metres of presently gravel [f road and will involve exten- sive road reconstruction, par- ticularly alongside Lava Lake. The entire highway will be _ brought up to a 70 kilometre per hour paved standard. The road work promise comes in addition to an earlier agreement to finance con- struction of a $30 million road to Kincolith, with most of the bill being paid by the provin- cial and federal governments. — The federal government also onempaveupproundin- the final weeks to get a treaty. Ottawa is providing $30 mil- lion for a variety of training “* programs to give future Nisga’a public servants the skills required for self- government, That's close to the amount of money the Nisga’a owe Ottawa for loans covering their negotiating costs for two decades — something the Nisga’ a had wanted forgiven in tecogtition ofthe lead tole NISGA’A LEADER Joe Gosnell receives a + hug after they’ve played in the B.C. negotiators emerged Wednesday with a final Nisga’a treaty process. treaty. Talks first began in January, 1976. An initiall- ce ed s ing ceremony will be held at 10:00 a.m., Tuesday Aug. 4 in New Aiyansh at the community’s new recreation centre. But chief federal negotiator Tom Molloy said the ioans will not be forgiven and the training money shouldn’t be viewed as a trade-off. While both federal and pro- vincial concessions aren’t part of the treaty, other significant changes have been made since the completion of the agree- tment-in-principle two and a half years ago. That document laid out the broad brush strokes, but now the fine detail is in place. The big items - the $190 million, 1,930 square kilome- tres of land, and package of self-government options — stay the same. But unresolved issues — like language required to ensure certainty — are now settled. The deal deviates from the federal povernment’s past policy of requiring natives to “cede, release and surrender” any aboriginal rights not set out in the treaty. Instead, the treaty says it “exhaustively” spelis out the aboriginal rights that will be Continued Pg A2 IT’S A DEAL Handshakes end 22 years at the treaty table AMID WHOOPS, cheers, hugs and tears, a roomful of negotiators opened the doors last Wednesday and announced that the people who have requested a treaty since 1887 finaily have one. The final Nisga’a treaty was hammered out in three straight weeks of negotiations in Terrace. It capped 22 years of Nisga’a talks since Ottawa first agreed to nego- tiate in 1976, “It’s been a great day, a beautiful day - and the end of a long road,” said Nisga’a Tribal Council president Joc Gosnell. “Our people have waited for a long, long time for this treaty,” he said. “J think the message that will go forth from this place today, not only to aboriginal people in British Columbia but to the business com- rounity as well, that yes differences that exist between people can be resolved across the negotiation table.” For more on the conclu-’ sion of the Nisga’a treaty, see pages AG, A8-A9 Provincial negotiator Jack Ebbels, the deputy minister of aboriginal affairs who was dispatched back to his old treaty table earlier this year to bring the deat home, noted the Nisga’a have always said they wanted to negotiate their way into B.C, and Canada, “IT would like to say to the Nisga’a Nation, welcome to British Columbia," Ebbels said to a thunder of drums and applause. The deal is to be initialled at a ceremony Tuesday, Aug. 4 in New-Aiyansit, bul it won't become law until it's ratified by the Nisga’a in a referendum and by votes in the B.C, legislature and the House of Commons in Ottawa, The treaty prumises the nearly 6,000 Nisga’a $190 million, self-government, resource control, guaranteed shares of fish and wildlfe, and some 1,930 square kilo- metres of land —just eight per cent of their originally claimed territory, “We-now have the tools we need to rebuild our nation,’ Gosnell said. Premier Glen Clark was on hand for the conclusion of B.C.’s first modem treaty. “This today is proof of what we can do,” Clark said, adding the deal should broadly serve as a template for other negotiations across the province and will send a strong signal that deals are possible, - “This agreement shows our hope to build a future of certainly and opportunity is not misplaced and that we can put a past of uncertainty and dependency behind us,” he said. Region is West Fraser’s money pit By JEFF NAGEL WEST FRASER — the forest in- dustry’s leanest meanest lowest- cost producer — lost money in the second quarter of this year. The $14.3 million loss reported last week was the first time the had ever gone into the red. But the really shocking news is that the loss for the northwest ope:- ations — including the Eurocan firm A SPECIAL REPORT | paper mill in Kitimat and Skeena , Sawmills in Terrace — exceeded that of the company as a whole in the quarter. Indeed, if West Fraser somehow cut off its northwest division floated it out into the Pacific, i profitable. “The northwest was the biggest woodlands vice-president Wayne Cloge told contributing factor,” and: the The Standard Friday. ON OUR ECONOMY “rest of the company would still be “We're now in a position where the-more we produce the more we lose,’ he said of the northwest. “Reducing our overall production reduces the magnitude of the Loss,” So far, however, Clogg isn’t backing away from West Fraser’s stated goal of restarting the Terrace sawmill on Sept. 7. “Our desire is to start it up,” Clogg said, “I don’t want to put a message out to employees that we're making plans not to start it up. ButI can’t make guarantecs,”” He said the company traditionally rides out bad times, noting its 1997 shutdown was the very first tlme a West Fraser operalion has ever taken significant down-time. ‘'What’s unusual this time is the depth of the recession, the mag- nitude of the losses and the length of time,’ he said. ‘We've been going through very difficult times since the middle of 1996. And it’s unclear how much longer it’s going to go on for.”’ The key to the company’s woes have. been the drop-off in demand for dimension lumber in recession- struck Japan — even though most of its Wood stays on this continent. The largest chunk of West Fraser’s northwest mix of hemlock Continued Pg. AS $130,000 and took another $80,000 out of the budget for: operations, maintenance and grounds, P.E. programs‘in Kitimat for kindergarten, grade 6 and 7 were also cut, saving $37,000. Three district staff vehicles were cut and $20,000 was carved out of the expenses budget for trustees. : Trustees admit they didn’t agree on all of the cuts, but they came to a conclusion that was the best for the board. “‘A lot of the decisions we made, we regretted them, ””' said Kitimat trstee Linda Campbell at the meeting. ‘We've come a long way.” Many locals, however, said they felt trustees still have a. long way to go. Concemed citizen Marilyn Kerr said she was willing to try to help unify the district. “The division that appears to be identified between Kitimat and Terrace disturbs me,’’ she said, ““We need to try to unify this district before we go forward together. There needs to be some way to heal this rift.”’ Juliana White, who has two children in the school system here, was concemed about the cuts to music programs. “Tf they’d have had a ycar to go through it and stil] make the cuts they made, I would have been screaming,” said White, ‘But, they didn’t, and I think they did try. At least they looked at everything.” She said she’s still hoping trustecs will find the money to reinstate music programs in the future. Pac Rim shelves plans for gas plant PAC-RIM LNG has officially announced what many have feared for months — its proposed $1.1 billion liquid natural gas plant in Kitimat won't be built anytime soon. The project is suspended as a result of a collapse of demand in Korea resulting from the Asian financial down- turn. Company officials say it could be reactivated when markets improve. “It's not dead, but it’s not real healthy,” Pac Rim vice- president Wayne Stanley. said Monday. “And to expect anything to happen in the next two to three years would be just sending the wrong message.” “Best estimates are it will be at least two to three years before the Koreans will be in a postion to re-open discus- sions for the next LNG supply contract,” Pac Rim presi- dent David Pirie said in a letter to Kitimat council. Pac Rim would have spent $627 million on the plant near Kitimat and another half billion in constructing a dedicated pipeline from north of Prince George. The plant would have eniployed 80 and the project as a. whole would have meant-about 3,000 petson years of employment during its three years of construction.