oe LL aurea t

he aad

HUNGRY SMILES: Tori Mackenzie and Clare Jennings are two of 60 Skeena and Caledonia school students who went
without eating for 30 hours last weekend to raise money for Third World project sponsored by World Vision and Unicef.
The “famine” was supported by students across Canada. Pledges are still being calculated.

J@q7iesbachive dol mirary

Mad lein ras

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1990
Vol. 6, Issue No. 8

Phone 635-7840
Fax 635-7269

Engineer

building |
collapse

The collapse of an unheated
plywood building sometime
Sunday night or early Monday
moming at the rear of the Public
Works complex on Graham Ave.
didn’t stop winter road main-
tenance crews.

According to Director of Opera-
tions John Colongard, one of the
city’s salt trucks was in the
building at the time of the col-
lapse while- two others where
trapped in adjacent shelters by the
|. debris. oo

- Faced with icy roads and a lack
of vehicles, says Colongard,
‘public works crews were still able
to keep the situation under con-
trol. As was common practice
years ago, public works crews
loaded the back of a one-ton
flatbed with salt, and as the truck
passed designated areas a worker
on standing on the back of the
truck spread the salt by hand.

Pulpwood proposal fires fierce debate

Not all board members of the
Kitimat-Stikine Regional District
board of directors agree on what
to do, but their feeling towards
the Ministry of Forests pulpwood
agreement proposal offering for
623,000 cubic meters of wood per
year for 25 years in the Prince
Rupert Forest Region is unani-
mous and quite apparent. They
don’t agree with it and they don’t
want it.

Various members of the board
spent about three hours of a six-
hour meeting Feb. 17 venting
their anger at the ministry’s
pulpwood proposal, but we'll have
to wait another month for their
decision.

‘The debate .began with -the
Forest Industry Charter of Rights
as pi d by the Village of
Hazelton. Hazelton’s Charter
outlines a number of specifics but
in general calls for more respon-
sible forest management methods
and more equitable financial
returns to communities located in
the area of the harvest. Village of
Hazelton mayor Alice Maitland
presented the Charter to the board

in January, and asked that they
examine it, revise it if necessary,
adopt it, and then ask the premier
and minister of forests to amend
the Forest Act accordingly. In
January, the board wanted. more
time to review the Hazelton paper
and the matter was tabled.

Last Saturday, though, Kitimat
director Bev Rodrigo filed a
second tabling motion. "I have
had adequate time to read it,"
Rodrigo said. "But I have not had
time to discuss it with industry."
Rodrigo maintained that there was
no need to "rush" a decision.
"You may not agree with the

companies say, but it gives us.

background information to make a
more responsible decision. We
need all the facts on the table."
Maitland pointed out that the
board had already had the Charter
for a month and that was plenty
of time to come up with some
sort of motion. "I think it’s about
time," she told the board, adding
that Hazelton had already circu-
lated the Charter to the Ministry
of Forests, everyone on the Union
of B.C. Municipalities mailing

list, a number of forest companies
and the Council of Forest In-
dustries.

But it was to no avail. Rodrigo
said the paper should be circu-
lated to "anyone who has an
interest in logging" and in the end
her motion was carried.

Maitland received support from
director Dan Pakula of Telegraph
Creek. The Forest Act is “ant-
iquated", he said, and needs to be
overhauled. She received support
from Nass Valley director Harry
Nyce whose comments included,
"It’s important these issues are
looked at. The resource is in dire
need of a second look," and, "To
table it is just to prolong the
agony that exists at this table.
The longer we wait the longer it
takes to amend the Charter." "

And she received support from
Hazelton director Gordon Sebas-
tian who said, "This. board is
getting a repuatation for always
being behind the times. Everyth-
ing’s over by the time we address
the issue." To this he added, "We
already know what industry is
going to say: "You’re going to

Colongard says there was no
damage to the trucks involved in
the building collapse and that
insurace will cover most of the
lose your jobs’." But Sebastian °Stimated $50,000 damage to the

called that blackmail, He said the Ouilding. He adds that a structural

engineer is investigating the cause
continued on page Al4 of the collapse.

University more than |
an idea, now a name

Anyone in northern B.C. who doesn’t really believe we're
going to get our own university might want to change their
mind when they find out that it has now been given a name.

The University of Northern B.C. should, according to
Minister of Advanced Education Bruce Strachan, open its
doors to the first of thousands of northern university gradua-
tes in the fall of 1991. Yes, it seems like years that we’ve been
talking about the northern or interior university idea, but last
Friday Strachan announced he had chosen one of more than
1,300 suggestions and we have It... the University of Northern
B.C.

Strachan selected the winner from three of the best can-
didates in the university society’s contest: Sir Alexander

' Mackenzie University, the University of the North and the
University of Northern B.C. But that was only a part of his
. job. There were 83 different entries that suggested the name
that won, and he had to make one more draw to determine
the winner of a trip to China donated by the Yellowhead Inn,
plus $500 in cash from the society. The lucky winner of that

draw was Bey Fellers of Prince George.

peas

looks into

Jee owen eae a Hn “ae -

ge Rg ea i wee