Pottermania The wait is almost over for wizards and witches eager to read the new tale \COMMUNITY B3 Dig it \NEWS A3 A close up glimpse at the Kemess mine operations north of Smithers | Cup holders fy Local soccer team wins - fa Teves Cup in Kitimat after be losing in playoffs last year \SPORTS B5 _— $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) : www.terracestandard.com ‘VOL.18 NO. 14 ‘By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN A THORNHILL man-has raised the alarm about a _ belonging to two people living on Vancouver . less honest person could use to commit identity theft — _ ter Ralph Goodale, demanding a review of the feder- al government’s practices in preserving the privacy’ Canada Revenue Agency error which. saw him on the receiving end of sensitive private information Island. _. The package came in the mail Thursday, June 30 addressed to Bill Fulton, a Thornhill resident. But when he opened the large manila envelope, he — quickly discovered it contained all the information a and fraud. , Stacks of receipts, credit card numbers and ac- companying -signatures, social insurance numbers _ and addresses belonging to a. person living in Na- 0 naimo and another in Victoria were included in the envelope along with the two small documents in- tended for Fulton, Some of the papers included confidential infor- mation about property holdings in Nova Scotia. _ “T opened it up and started flipping through it and I didn’t have any property leasing in Nova’ Scotia,” ‘says Fulton. “I was like, okay what is’ this? This doesn’t seem right.” Fulton, cognizant of the dangers of potential iden- ‘tity theft, contacted the RCMP and later the office of Skeena-Bulkley Valley federal MP Nathan Cullen. Cullen fired off a letter to federal: Finance Minis- of Canadians, “This is an underlying matter of trust and confi- dence for Canadians,” Cullen says. “When we are filling out forms and telling the government about -our families, it’s done i in trust.” . “A mistake like this breaks our trust and erodes our faith as Canadians.” Both Cullen and Fulton believe the: enclosures were likely a mistake but they are at a loss‘to.find a logical reason for how. the other individuals’ infor- mation would have been included i in Fulton’ § notice of assessment. . “The randomness of it is incredible. ~ it’s not t like they had the same surname or come from the:same regions,” Cullen says. Cullen’s asking for a ‘review of all chequé dis- ,bursement practices and procedures at the Canada" ‘Revenue Agency with the goal of eliminating the’ possibility of any similar mistakes in the future. He’s asking the government to reveal statistics on ‘how many times this type of error has happened in Revised bids © bring ‘plex. costs lower By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN REVISED bids received by the City of Terrace just prior to the .. closing of a call for tenders for the sportsplex are much closer to the city’s projected costs than initial figures indicated, but still come in $2 million higher than anticipated. Wayne Watson Construction was the low bidder on the ~ _ project after submitting revised numbers, putting estimated... costs for the project at $8,590,638. That estimate also doesn’t include a $1-million' contin- _ gency fund thé city will need to have in place before con- .. Struction can begin, says Ross Milnthorp, Terrace’ s director of leisure services. Early bid figures indicated the Wayne Watson bid was | $15 million — nearly double the $6.8 million the city had based its cost projections on. But the company’s revised bid, submitted right before the submission deadline June 30, shows a much more accurate estimate of the project’s costs. “In order for a contractor to get his tender in on time, what he usually does on a bigger job is send in a tender with all — the bonding and insurance in place,” explains Robert Schulz, .Wayne Watson Construction area manager. “You give a very, very high number — usually twice as much as what you think the contract is going to be worth.” That number is also submitted prior to calculating costs of, the subtrades involved. Once the pricing estimates on the ". subtrades are sorted out, a revised bid can be faxed in just prior to the deadline, Schulz says.. -Yellowridge Construction Ltd. of Port Moody also sent in revisions just prior to the closing deadline and its bid was remarkably close, coming in at $8. 69 million — a roughly . $100,000 difference. “It is the closest that Pve ever seen two bids come in,” says Milnthorp. “They were within 1. 15 per cent of each . other.” Milnthorp says the project won’t be awarded to either “company until the city has a better idea of where some cost- saving measures might be made.” “We have not awarded the contract at this time to Wayne Watson, but as low bidder, we are working with them to ne- gotiate cost reductions to the project,” he says. ; Earlier this year, the city made cost-saving changes to’ the design including abandoning. its original plan to build the second sheet of ice-between the exisiting arena and the aquatic centre. The new design sees a second sheet of i ice being built in an addition on the north side of the existing arena. Cont’d Page A2 "Adventure Challenge 2005 Athletes do battle i in brutal outdoor series li They’ve got the beat | _ THE NISGA’A DANCERS entertained onlookers during the Gingolx second annual Crabfest July 13. The tiny village hosted hundreds | ” of people from the region and international tourists as well to its weekend music and cultural festival. 4 Feds taken to task on the past and i is ‘demanding to know the process the ‘federal government uses to ‘notify victims of these. - Mistakes. — * - He also wants a copy of: any. and. all policy relat- ing to incidents of this type. ~~... - : The original documents'remain at Cullen’ s office. a He’s waiting for Goodale’s office to inform the two a Vancouver Island residents about the error. | : “In addition, I-feel strongly that an apology to the . citizens whose privacy has been violated, .as. well » asa thank you to Mr. Fulton, would. be in order,” . Cullen’ wrote to Goodale, in the July.6 letter: - “They are lucky it came. to me and not somebody : untoward,” Fulton says. - . “T guess somebody. needs to rattle a cage or two and say ‘hey, whoa.’ If it was my stuff or your stuff . I would be Preity t ticked about it.” . . oy wv 1, ° . JENNIFER L LEWIS S PHOTO Blaze claims home, possibly « owner . By MARGARET SPEIRS A FIRE on Canada Day evening destroyed a Rosswood residence, leaving only ashes and ' possibly human remains behind. Terrace RCMP responded to the Brousseau Road blaze to discover remains,*which they have ~* not yet confirmed as human, in the house. The re- mains were sent to the Prince George coroner’s office for analysis, police say. The owner was not located and police suspect he perished in the blaze. His name has not been released pending notification of next of kin. Po- lice have not ruled out foul play. All sudden deaths are deemed suspicious until proven otherwise, said Cst. Kelly Martin of Ter- race RCMP, adding the oli learned about the blaze at 8:44 p.m. Andy Webber of the Kitimat-Stikine Region- al District said the tiny community located less. than an.hour’s drive north of Terrace has no fire” *protection services due to its location outside the Skeena fire protection zone. He added that Rosswood lacks the tax base to ‘Support fire protection. © Rosswood resident Stephanie Rolfe witnessed the blaze alongside about 35 people, who could: ‘do nothing but watch.- “Nobody knew whether he was in there and by the time everyone got there it was too far gone,” she said about the owner and his house. a By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN AFTER three days of jaw- dropping, mind numbing, body-aching competition, four people have walked away from the most gruelling Adventure Challenge ever with the title of champion. _ This year’s winners include Sherrie Hamer, who took top spot in the women’s division, Natou Kurtz who nabbed first place in the men’s category fol- lowed up by Matthias Muller who claimed the ju- nior champion title and youth champion Sheldon * Smaha. In past years athletes have taken on five outdoor - adventure sports including open water swimming, rock climbing, mountain biking and trail running over the course of four different weekends. The week between each events allowed athletes plenty of time to recover, but this year’s series upped the ante and challenged participants to complete the series in a single weekend July 1, 2 and 3. There’s good reason the event’s slogan is “three days, five events, pure agony. Are you tough enough?” Women’s champion Sherrie Hamer of Terrace was back for her second year competing in the chal- lenge. She. nabbed second place in the women’s di- vision last year and says battling five events in just: three days truly put her to the test. “] think doing it over the weekend was so much: , fun because you see each other every day,” Hamer says, adding watching the points place after the fourth event, the All Seasons Source for Sports Psycho Cycle July 2..She placed i in the top three in that event, earning enough points to put her into the lead going into the McBike 8 Hours of Onion Lake the next day. ‘The series finale is a tough one, challenging ath- letes to complete as many. laps of a six kilometre route as possible in just eight race progress after each event added some serious excitement to the event. At 49-years-old, Hamer was, the only woman over 35 to tackle all of the.events. Her challengers a. Turn to Page A5 for highlights of the race weekend in photos. hours. While most riders take time between laps to refuel, eat and excrete, Hamer was practically attached to her bike for the entire event; stopping for a total of just for top spot included last year’s champion Emily Janes, 23, new- comer Venessa Hydamacka, 27, and 17- ~year-old Robyn Cater. “I saw all those young girls and I though rm go- ing to get my butt kicked,” Hamers recalls. But incredible endurance and drive proved to pay off for Hamer who realized she had a shot at first seven minutes the entire race. “I stopped once because I had to get my gears adjusted and other than that, no,” Hamer recalls. “I just pretended it was a marathon.” Hamer had great support in her husband Murray Warner who attended each of the events to cheer her on. oe ut The men’s division proved to be the tightest race 4 7 “It’s down to © nothing. Jt’ s just a pile of ash- - es.” : Only a propane fridge remained outside after ; - the blaze. Rolfe said the owner’s ‘two dogs tried to enter «: the burning house, further fueling speculation that _the owner was in the building while it burned. A neighbour put the dogs in his car to keep - them. safe, she said: The fire’ took about. an hour until it burned itself out. ““We don’t even bother calling the fire depart- ment because by the time they’ get out here it’s done,” she said. . The police and the B.C. Coroner Service con-— __ tinue their investigation: 8 * of them all with just one single point separating first. place from second and just two points between third « and fourth place finishers. Points are distributed on a per capita basis with every participant receiving 100 base points per- event. Points increase by one from last place through third. The top three athletes earn bonus points for finishing at the front of the pack in each of the first four events. Often the points series comes ‘down to -the 8 Hours of Onion Lake event where participants -earn 100 base points plus five points per lap and ‘no bonus points for first; second or third. . Going in to the ‘final event Natou' Kurtz was in the lead with 469 points followed closely by Tavis - McDonald with 463 and Travis Carter with 455. But the endurance ride proved to be the. deciding factor. And though Tavis McDonald logged. the most laps, at the event - a whopping 21 (that’s 126 kilo- . metres for those of you keeping count) — it left him just one point short of clinching the win. Cont'd Page B12 a)