B16 Terrace Review — Wednesday, February 6, 1991

[Looking back...

mw ecreation seems to be the
R ‘theme during this week of
, the year. Perhaps spring
comes carly in Terrace; six weeks
. ahead of everyone else. Or perhaps
_ it’s just our imagination. Tired of
winter, we talk of springtime
things... and pretend.
In 1988 city council decided to
pay the "ransom" for Fisherman’s

Park. A few months earlier, CNR -

Real Estate casually announced a
rate increase in the lease for the
land, an increase of 833 percent. lf
residents wanted to continue using
the park, said CN, it would cost
them $1,250 a year. Residents did,

‘and the city paid. A couple of

_ other financial matters may or may
not be related to the CN rate hike
affair. At the same meeting council
agreed to pay CN the $1,250, they
approved a five percent sewer and
water rate hike and declined a 3.37
percent indemnity increase for
‘themselves. This week in 1989,
the pool expansion dominated an
in-camera Committee of the whole

- meeting. It was billed as the last
mecting ever to hash out the future
of this project. Their final recom-
mendation to council was to re-
tender (the original bids were far
too high) and drop a few of the
niceties like extra tiles and win-
dows. ,

The pool was only a part of the
city’s money problems, though.
Extra top soil for the arena hill
project and Riverside Park ball
diamond expansion ate up money
set aside for the first stage of a

ball diamond at Skeenaview Park..

The arena hill was close to
.$10,000 over budget and more
money, proponents hoped, could
be found in the city’s 1989 budget.

Even with their financial woes,
though, it’s not like the city was
broke. They did have some monty
lying around. A case in point was
their convention promotion fund.
Established the year before, only
four local groups had bothered to
-apply for money from this fund,
and $4,283 remained of the ori-
ginal $5,000. Enough, perhaps, to
begin the Skeenaview bail dia-
mond and reduce the traffic light-
inspired chaos at Kalum and
Greig. Then again, perhaps not..

And then 1990 rolled around.
Amber lights still flashed at the
intersection, there was no ball
diamond at Skeenaview Park, and.
trails were the rage. The super-
intendent of parks and recreation
asked the city to budget $10,000 to

_ “begin the Howe Creek trail. The.

Rotary Club had offered to do the
work, he said, they just needed
some materials and equipment.
Another trail project, one that
would cost the city nothing, was
more quickly approved. Council
voted to write a letter to B.C.
Lotteries supporting a Terrace
Snowmobile Association proposal
_ fo upgrade and maintain snow-
mobile trails in the greater Terrace
- area.
Still, we did record one budget-
ary casualty. A 4400 block North
Thomas resident wanted a street
light — the darkness there was "an
invite to middle-of-the-night
 depulsers’ and ‘*parkers’* — but
. according to council other areas

ie

were higher on the lighting priority J . 7

list.
: ome area residents,
S though, didn’t really care
’ about the pool, flashing

amber lights or teenagers who
enjoyed the unlit seclusion of
North Thomas. For many it was a
time to think about our heritage,
different cultures and the Heart
Foundation.

In 1988, some residents were |

involved in organizing the Terrace
Youth Centre, others a local chap-
terof Big Brothers and Big Sisters.
Others were interesied in the elec-
toral map hearings, building a new
highway from Kitimat to Houston
or the A-B Line dispute.

In 1989, the transportation needs
of the disabled were the main topic
at a public meeting in town... The
conclusion was that we needed a

HandyDART system in town.

Another topic of interest for some,
was the appointment of a 10-mem-
ber committee to deal with
regional issues by the Minister of
State.

And in 1990, public library stole
the show with a new computer,

printer and modem. With these.

gifts from the province, they were
in the process of establishing @
computer based inter-library loan
network.

Things weren’t so joyous around
the, regional district board table,
though. The board had called for a
moratorium on development in the
Meziadin area pending the imple-
mentation of a development
bylaw... but their moratorium had
been denied,

It’s not necessary, Minister of
Crown Lands Dave Parker wrote to
the board: "Your proposal to deve-
lop a comprehensive and environ-
mentally sensitive land use plan of
the area around Meziadin Junction
is one which I am very pleased to
support." But, "Any development
proposals which emerge during the
planning study .can be dealt with
effectively through normal referral
procedures.” It would take about a
year for the board to discover the
full implications of that latter
statement.

The Terrace Public Library installed a hig
allowing electronic access to new resources

reer

h-téch information-sharing link at this time last year,
in distant places. Sheelagh Meiklem was one of the

library staff members. who took time to get oriented to the new system.

4 n the business front, the

mining industry was

under fire in 1988.
According to NDP environmental
critic Joan Smallwood, abandoned
mines were "time bombs" leaking
acid leachates and other. un-
desirable things and something had
to be done. At the same time, the
Skeena Labour Market Develop-
ment Committee was working on

career program ideas, among them .

were forestry contractor and camp
utility programs at NWCC. And
the Terrace and District Chamber
of Commerce was working on a
plan of thelr own — they had

.asked city council for more money

in tum for extended operating
hours,

The following year, the North-
west Truck Loggers Association
successfully warded off IWA

" efforts to unionize their member-

On the police beat, it was 1988
that the RCMP nabbed a couple of
lower mainland brothers about 40
miles east of here. In their pos-
session was four ounces of cocaine
valued at $25,000. In 1989, the.
Newhawk mine explosion killed
two and injured three. There were:
suspicious circumstances surround-
ing the explosion and this event
captured the attention of everyone.

On the local scene in 1989, that
was the year a logging truck lost
it's load at the north end of Sande
Overpass. Some of the roads rolled
over an embankment striking the
rear of Skeena Mall but there were
no injuries. And in 1990, night-
time vandals raised havoc in
offices over Tillicum Twin
Theatres and a local video outlet
was charged with eight violations
under the Copyright Act. The
video store, according to the
charges, had made illegal copies of

-movie rentals. a

ship; McDonald's restaurant
announced expansion plans; the
local construction: industry was
going strong, according to the
city’s building inspector, Repap
announced that 1988 had been a
record revenue year; Alcan said
profits were up, again; MP Jim
Fulton described our forests as a
"green ghetto" and called for the

finalization of a FRDA II agree-
ment; and Lotio B.C. offered a

new prize... five free nights at
Mount Layton Hot Springs in
northwestern B.C,

In 1990, Alaska was talking
about a B.C. road link, and
Repap’s Skeena Cellulose was
talking about building a wood-
waste electrical generation plant at
their Port Edward pulp mill. If this
project went ahead, said a com-
pany spokesman, it would make
them one of the biggest electrical
generation utilities in the north-

ealth care stories in 1989
focused on abortion.
When asked what the
Tories might do to resolve this
issue, NDP MP Jim Fulton said,
"They will have to respond fairly
soon." Closer to home, though, the
news was about different things.
the first ever Health Fair in Ter-

‘race was billed as "dazzling" and

seniors were applauded for signing
up for fitness classes.

In 1990, Terrace Pro Lifers
marched to mark the anniversary
of the fall of Canadian abortion
law, and protest the lack of action
by the government to bring in a
new abortion law. Also, the
‘regional hospital district was ask-
ing the province for a new equip-

ment funding formula and Mills’

Memorial announced the name of
the new director of patient ser-
vices, Joyce Krause,

In education, NWCC and Schoo!
District 88 began a survey in 1988.
They wanted to know what high
school graduates did after gradua-
tion. Some of them went on to
study speech therapy, they hoped.
We were experiencing a serious
shortage here and perhaps there
was hope... NWCC announced that
January registration was up 10
percent.

The following year had it’s ups
and downs. On the positive side
was an afinouncement by NWCC
that they had hired College of New
Caledonia vice-principal Don
Anderson as interim president. And
on the down side was an apparent
lack of action on the part of city
council in supporting a northern
university. The previous fail, coun-
cil made a commitment to the
concept and asked a committee to
come up with a land offer for the
university, But there it sat, and sat,
and still sat..No recommendations
had been made.

In 1990, NWCC launched a

cooperative work segment to their
business and forestry programs and
local school trustees, administrators
and teachers were scrambling to

-understand a new funding formula

announced by the province. The
new formula was called “block
funding"; the local reaction was
confusion and disappointment.

s for the weather, the first
A week of February in 1988
. was cold, The recorded
‘Jow. was -18°C and the high
reached -2°C. That high tempera-
ture is a poor indicator of the
week’s weather, though. It was
more like the beginning of a
warming trend. The average high
for the week was -8°C, As far as
snow was concemed, the week's
accumulation totalled’ 31  centi-
metres.

February 1989 was no better. It
didn’t snow quite as much, but it
was much, much colder. The week
began innocently enough with
temperatures ranging between -9
and'-1°C. That changed the next
‘day, ‘though, when the mercury

‘dipped to -20 overnight and

warmed up to only -16°C the
following day. And snow? We got
25 centimetres of the stuff the first
day of the week, but that was
about it. This month in fact, we
would learn in time, would set.a
record low for precipitation. And
last year, we didn’t record the
temperatures but we did make a
note of the snow. We got 55.1
centimetres in the first five days of
_ the month.

Considering this three year
weather record, a single question
comes to mind. We were
obviously working very hard at
setting a wintry theme for the 1991
Northem B.C. Winter Games...
What went wrong? :

cemt he ee came

Nn a AE RET eR eat

sen