July _CITY-COUNCIL’S REFUSAL to declare ‘a gay pride day: is going to result in a complaint to the provincial human rights commission. Council: Originally voted 5.to 1 against such a day when requested to do so by a provincial group called Rainbow B.C. and affirmed its actions when asked i again to do so by a local group, Members of a local tolerance group said city come was being intolerant by not declaring sucha ay. They noted that the City of Kelowna, which also refused to grant a pay pride.day, was ultimately ‘found to. be discriminatory and was subsequently fined by a human ti ights tribunal, . City, councillor David Hull, the only councillor to vote in favour of the proclamation, said not doing so was short-sighted and intolerant. , ; kkk ‘The long awaited skate board park is going to _ get finished now that the city has agreed to chip in just over $10,000 on the project. ‘Tt'll make the total city investment in the park at more than $60,000 with the park itself costing more ‘than $200,000. _.. “We're going to end up with a much needed - facility’i in the community,” said city councillor Val George i in the debate leading up to the decision to grant: the $10,000. The. park “was the idea of city councillor Rich MeDaniel who then gathered together a group of young’ ‘people. It's meant as an alternative to having ~. young people use their skate boards on sidewalks or in parking lots. kk kkk "School District 82 welcomed its new superinten- : dem, Herb Fader, to the area, -.From Alberta, Fader takes over from interim superintendent Sharon Beetle. School District 82 is a merger of separate districts in Kitimat and in Terrace/Hazelton/Stewart. Fader comes to the area with a reputation of building a team-like atmosphere on school boards “and with school administrators. tik LOCAL COMPANY Hawkair Aviation Services says il expects delivery of a 37- “passenger Dash 8- 100 aircraft-in August to put into service between Terrace. and ‘Vancouver. ‘Hawkair got its start flying transport aircraft to Mining camps and other Places, up north, but,topk an the job of developing &. passenger service. when the, } transport business tailed off. ; “More than 20 people will be employed by the company ance itis up to full staffing levels. So tk -Shames Mountain Ski Corporation is now offi- cially. free of its. 14-year-old debt to the Kitimat- Stikine regional district of more than $600,000. ... The debt figure represents the original purchase price, plus interest, of equipment the ski corpora- tion: bought from the regional district's old ' .Kitsumkalum ski operation in 1986, That equip- ment was then valued at $308,000, “This action will help a financially struggling community facility survive,” regional district chair- man: Joanne Monaghan said, “It also offers job opportunities for our youth and brings economic - Opportunities to our area.” - The debt-free action was accomplished by pro- : vincial legislation. kkk IWA members went back to work July 10 after ending a strike which began June 27. Approximately 600 [WA members in this area joined 11,000 elsewhere on the coast and’ on Vancouver Island ina strike for more money and better pensions, The contract is for three years with wage increases of two per cent each year on a current base rate of $20.86 an hour, Employees will make _ more. Contributions to their pension plan but the benefit will increase from $40 a month for every year of service to $50. Those payments will eventu- ally rise to $60 a month. , IOI Terrace could one day enjoy a taste of the eco- nomic boom now underway in northeastern B.C. thanks to two potentially lucrative natural gas and ail deposits. One deposit to the north and one to the south and. east of Terrace could contain as much oil and natural gas as a higher profile location, underneath the seabed off the coast of Prince Rupert. In total, the Bowser Basin; stretching north and west of Terrace, and the Nechako Basin, south and farther east, could hold as much as 23 trillion cubic feet of natural. -gas and 7.5 billion barrels of ail. oe whe The Dare to Dream foundation has started rais- ing money to bring back band, at least during lunch + 1OSPI REGIONAL HOSPITAL. with REGIONAL IND AS PROTESTERS were at Mills Memorial Hospital the morning of Friday, September 15, as general practitioners joined the doctors strike here. and after school, to elementary school students. Organizer Donna Ziegler says the goal is to replace cuts to the school district’s music program brought in because of budget problems. “Teachers have been (teaching extra curricular band) voluntarily for years,” she said, “The differ- ence is now they will get paid.” thik Terrace RCMP say there aren’t enough officers to keep with with the number of marijuana grow operations sprouting throughout the area, “It's a matter of being able to get to it as you can,” said Spt. Anders Udsen of the RCMP serious crime unit here. “It depends on how much time and human resources we can put into it.” hk ks Under threat of closing down its Kitimat metha- nol plant for good, Methanex is looking for public and private help. The company says it shut down operations July | for at least a year because the costs of turning natural gas into the alternative fuel methanol are too expensive. | Although it concedes it can’t do much about the LANDSCAPERS Mike Cagnon and Joel Reece are bricking i in the smal! court yards that wil f flank They’ re worried that the road isn’t laid out prop- erly for pedestrians, that heavy machinery using the road might put pedestrians in danger and that peo- ple with shops in their yards might find themselves prevented from doing work in them. The current Osborne Home is old and not con- sidered worthy of improvements, kkk After election wins in 1993 and 1997, Skeena Alliance MP Mike Scott has announced he won't be running again. Scott, 46, says it’s time to move on to other commitments and that it would be wrong to think of politics as a career. “T didn’t want that to happen,” said Scott. Nobody should be involved just for the sake of being an MP.” th kokk Momma, a drag queen from Los Angeles, came to Terrace with a film crew in tow to do a documen- tary on the city now that council has decided not to declare a gay pride day. The crew and Momma want to use the local footage in a pilot to sell a TV series based on the 6- foot, 4-inch and 350 pound gay man doing inter- the entrances to Terrace's new linear park, the Grand Trunk Pathway. price of natural gas, Methanex does want Pacific Northern Gas to lower the fee it charges to pass the gas through its northern pipeline. It also wants tax concessions from the province and from the District of Kitimat, That's now caused PNG to say it must raise its transmission rates to make up for the shortfall of missing Methanex revenue. This would mean higher prices for residential, commercial and other industrial users in the northwest. August Plans to move the Osborne home for mentally il! people to Kofoed in Thornhill are being questioned by prospective neighbours. | Live bear trap Stay back views on interesting social issues. “I don’t bite,” said Momma while at the farmers market. “Why are people afraid of a man in a dress? Women are allowed to wear pants, but if a man tries to become a little glamourous, there’s something drastically wrong with that.” kkhkkk Nisga’a elders over 60 years of age have each received cash payments of $15,000 as part of the treaty settlement earlier this year. _ About 300 people were eligible, making the. total paid out at approximately $4,5 million, It's one of the first tangible benefits of the treaty, At the same time, Nisga’ a took part ina com- mercial fishery that is part of the treaty’ s conditions, Kt ‘ Cataract surgery has flared up as the latest j issue “over health care here. By December, the budget for cataract surgery will have been used up with three months left in the budget year at Mills Memorial Hospital. It has raised fears that the region's only ophthal- mologist may very well leave if there is no surgery. time provided at Mills, kk kkk . Residents of Kemaro, the town Alcan built io house workers and their families running the con- pany’s hydro-electric ‘generating facilities, begin to. move out. The company town is being closed down as a cost-saving measure but residents mourn a lifestyle which created a bond not seen in very many other THE FAMILIAR round bear traps became 8 a common sight once again n this year as 5 conservation places. officers struggled to keep up with a flood of complaints, More than 250 bear calls were tlalded between Terrace and Kitimat in September. Workers instead will be rotated in and out and live ina camp- -like setting, wkkkk Two forest companies operating in this area that have broken from environment group-led truce talks on contentious coastal logging are under intensifying pressure from U.S. boycotts. Interfor and West Fraser, both of whom employ Terrace-based loggers, are seeing U.S. markets shrink as a series of major retailers bend to environ- mental campaigns to stop buying wood from B.C.’s old growth forests. September Specialists and general practitioners returned to work here after refusing all but emergency services at Mills Memorial Hospital. They struck to back up demands that physicians be paid annual bonuses to stay in rural and remote areas and to be paid for being on-call. Their. demands mirror an agreement struck between the provincial government and first Prince George doctors and then Williams Lake doctors earlier in the summer, They say those deals make it more lucrative for doctors to practice there instead of in places such as Terrace. The strike ended when the province and the doc- tors agreed ta ge tomediation, je jag apart Ska a, 2 The Nigga'd of the'Nass’ Valley opened’ their‘iiew government building in New Aiyansh. The structure will house the legislative and administrative arm of the Nisga’a Lisims govern- ment which was created as part of the land claims agreement signed with the federal and provincial governments. “Welcome to Nisga’a territory, I call it the land of the free,” said Nisga'a interim president Joe Gosnell. “Anyone who's lived under the Indian Act will understand that.” kakkk The Terrace and Area Health Council received a budget boost of $1.7 million to run Mills Memorial Hospital and Terraceview Lodge, a healthy increase over last year, and $500,000 to spend on equipment. Of the $1.7 million, just over $600,000 is going to wage increases. And $500,000 is being spent on expanding services, including mere hours and employees for the emergency room, intensive care unit, a diabetic teaching program and a program encouraging healthy babies. Ail told, the health council's operating budget is $21.6 million, with $17.3 million of that coming from the provincial government, An extra $40,000 is being spent to boost the ophthalmology budget. October More than 1,300 people gathered inside and oul- side of the R.EM Lee Theatre Oct. 13 for a health rally demanding the provincial government spend more money at Mills Memorial Hospital. Speaker after speaker said the hospital and patient care is at risk unless more: money is found for more doctors, nurses and services. “We need to let those people in government know that we are going to vote them out if they don’t fund heatth care,”* said Tom Sager, a spokes- man for rally organizer, the Terrace Health Watch Group. Organizers also gathered signatures for a petition which then then sent.down to the provincial government. kekkk The highways ministry says il wants to spend $1.6 million to replace the wooden decking on the old Skeena Bridge with a metal grate- -like surface, The move: would save money in maintenance and in having to replace ihe bridge's wooden deck- -ing after it gets worn down. tI Northwestern governments and businesses want the province to build a road from the west to the Kemess gold and copper mine: ‘It would mean the mine could ship its product to Stewart instead of the current, longer route through Prince George. | And the road would open a region to logging and other businesses which would then spur eco- nomic activity in the northwest. kkk The regional 10-bed psychiatric unit at Mills Memorial Hospltal is to get a $427,000 renovation. Included will be the constriction of two “safe” rooms for patients so they don’t present a. danger to themselves of lo others.