See ln A4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 13, 1994 TERRACE STANDARD ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988 ADDRESS: 4647 Lazeile Ave., Terrace, B.C. * V8G 158 TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 = FAX: (604) 638-8432 MODEM: 638-7247 Anice try LIBRARY BOARD chairman Dan Gilgan last week correctly pinned down the city on one tricky aspect of the planned library expansion. It has to do with the roof on the existing structure and here’s how it works. For years the library board and the city have known the existing roof is the pits. It’s flat and made of tar and gravel. It has been patched to no avail. It leaks. Its structural integrity is in ques- tion. It needs to be replaced. Years ago when the library expansion was first proposed the new roof on the existing building was considered part of the package. That’s be- cause those were the days when provincial lot- tery grants were available to cover one-third of the cost of community projects. Adding the new roof to the expansion project seemed to be a nifty way of getting somebody else to cover one- third of the expense. So padding out project costs in anticipation of getting that one-third grant be- came common practice. And in realistic terms it made little sense to expand without putting a new roof on the existing structure. But those days of one-third grants are long gone. There’s not a chance in you-know-where the provincial government is going to give any- thing near the $600,000 originally requested. So with only $1.4 million now available, not count- ing any provincial grant, and project cosis in the $1.7 million range, something has to give. That something, says Mr. Gilgan, is the new roof on the existing structure. He says the city must recognize that the roof on the existing structure must be replaced even if the expansion is cancelled. Take out that cost and the money available for the expansion is very close to the amount needed. Indeed, any kind of provincial grant in the $100,000 range could’ possibly be enough to go ahead with the project. All of this raises the issue of whether a new roof on the existing structure is now a legitimate part of the expansion or whether it is more cor- rectly part of the city’s regular capital spending plans tied to its regular budget. Mr. Gilgan argues for the latter. We agree. The city tried to fob the new roof off in hopes of get- ting back some of the cost in the form of that one-third grant. With that prospect now dead, the city should gracefully admit defeat. It tried something tricky and lost. There should be no way the expansion project should fail. To do so would deny the wishes of a preat majority of the area’s citizens. Parking blues JUST ONE of the many things awaiting a coun- cil decision is downtown parking. Quite simply, there isn’t any — neither public nor private. Part of the problem began in the mid-1980s when council relaxed off street parking require- ments in order to encourage development within a specified area of the downtown core. Second reading has no been given to a by-law which would rescind the parking relaxation by- law. That’s a strong message to people who now want to build downtown. Council is also pondering a parking lot of its own. The sooner we all know what it has in mind the sooner a solution can be reached. conaA A'S) GcnA PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L, Hamm PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher COMPOSING: Pam Odell ‘DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur - ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS: - Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros, Howie Oram CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charlene Matthews: Saving the Tertace alga. Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Presa (1960) Lid, al 4847 Lazelle Ave., Terrace, Srtish Columbia. Stories, photographs, i liustrations, designa and typestyles in (he Terrace Standard are the property of the copyright hokjets, including Cariboo Press (1969) Lid., i's illustration repro saris sand advertising agencies, Reproduction In whole of in part, wilhout written porrnission, Is specifically prohibited, Authorized a5 seoand-dass mail pending the Post Office Department, for payment of postage incash, * gman (J ai MOULATION COMA Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents for thelr time and talents LELELIT TN Linn | Lee yee hen Lp ll? i - Os Lig re ie pe. — ye oe i re, ap i Me wet age tH. ret S hear it for capitalism VICTORIA — Governments don’t know the first thing about business, right? Wrong. For the past five years, first the Socreds and then the NDP, have been among the shrew- dest investors and stock market players this side of Nelson Scalbania. Unfortunately, it was too good a thing to last. Giving in to the pressures of political correctness and a gen- uine opportunity to buy down British Columbia’s accumu- lated debt, the Harcourt government is divesting itself of an extraordinarily successful investment pool — the B.C. Endowment Fund. The investment pool was first created by the Socreds in 1988 with about $422 million. It was then called the Privatization Benefit Fund be- cause the seed money came from the sale of a number of government-owned and opera- ted enlesprises, When the NDP came to power, the fund was renamed the B.C. Endowment Fund. By September .1993, the fund was worth $659 miliion, and is estimated to be worth about $700 million today. That represents an annual rate of return of 25.5 per cent under NDP stewardship, or FROM THE CAPITAL HUBERT BEYER 19.7 per cent since its incep-- tion, a track record no private- sector fund would sneeze at. The fund was doing just fine, merily making money for British Columbia taxpayers, when the government. was ac- cused of being in a conflict of interest over the fund’s pur- chase of MacMillan Bloedel Shares prior to the Clayoquot - Sound decision. Environmental organizations claimed that ownership of the shares put the government in bed with MacMillan Bloedel which had the lion’s share of cutting rights in the Clayoquot Sound. And even though an inquiry by the late Supreme Court Jus- tice Peter Seaton found that ownership of the shares didn’t place the government inn a conflict of interest position, the publicity had stung the NDP enough to plant the seeds of doubt in the Endowment Fund. At the time, Seaton had recommended that the fund’s holdings be divulged periodi- cally after an appropriate delay. Last weck, the finance ministry did just that, and the diversity of provincial, nation- al and international invest- ments is astounding and, in some cases, a little embarrass- ing for the NDP government. They include: . $3.3 million worth of shares in Alcan Aluminum, the com- pany proposing the con- troversial diversion of the Nechako River for hydroelec- n tric purposes. » $1.8 million worth of stock in Rogers Communications, the cable TV company that’s curently involved in a better labour dispute with unionized Vicloria workers. .. Several million dollars worth of shares in B.C. and foreign-owned forest com- panies, other than MacMillan Bloedel. They include firms such as Fletcher Challenge, Canadian Pacific Forest Pro- ducts, Doman Indusirics, Crestbrook Forest, Internation- al Forest Products, Slocan Forest Products and Repap En- terprises, - Shares in a number of newspaper giants like Thom- son Newspapers, Southam and News Corporation, owned by Rupert Murdoch. . Millions of dollars worth of. shares in numerous Japanese and Far Hastern business con- cems. I wish the NDP had decided to ride out any criticism of the Endowment Fund. At the rate of retum the fund’s invest- ments have provided, the government could have bought dewn the provincial debt by a substantial amount every year, for years to come. Moreover,- the government... -.- could have proven, again and... again, that you don’! have to be a private sector capitalist - shark to run a profitable enter- prise. Unfortunately, political cor- rectness Has won the day again, Rather than tell the criti- cs, most of whom wouldn’t know a good investment. if they found it in their granola bars, to get lost, the NDP chose to get out of the stock market game, thereby killing a great litlle cash cow. Now, this is great music EASTER MONDAY CBC Radio from Vancouver treated listeners to a fiddling ex- travaganza of the first ever per- formance of made-in-B.C. fid- die tunes. The onc-hour broad- cast was recorded live at a Vancouver country dance, complete with square dance calls and hand clapping, Most tunes were played by BC. old time fiddling champion Daniel Lapp from Vancouver Island. Daniel has devoted himself to preserving music that may otherwise be lost as fiddier-composers age. So far he has recorded some 250 B.C. tunes. Back in the days when Don Messer had a weekly tadio or TV show, these B.C. com- posers submitted their com- positions to him in the hope he would. record ihem. Some tuncs Messer did record; but the unrecorded tunes existed only in the repertoires of the composers themselves. Until Daniel came along. UNT VEN ZEE ZALMON THROUGH BIFOCALS CLAUDETTE SANDECKI Easter Monday’s broadcast was wonderful holiday pro- gramming, timmed of chatter. So often holiday programming is a catchall of odd topics; re- corded months in advance with . no vitality or urgency; hosted by a stranger working out of St. John’s or Charlottetown. My cure for so-so holiday programming is a 90 minute blank tape, a radio with built- in taping capabilities, and a radio station that caters to my UNT ZEN I AVE KILL love of hoedown music. Edmonton's native broad- casting station, CFWE 92.1 FM, is a good source, It broad- casts hours of country music I gtew up with - Johnny Cash, Eddy Arnold, and fiddlers like Al Czerny. Luckily the kind of work Ido is relatively quiet; I can listen to background music, Fiddle music makes great background listening. And just as a. spoon- ful of sugar helps the medicine go down, an earful of banjo picking helps the work move along. If I were interviewing pros- pective staff, one of my ques- tions would be, ‘'Do you like old time music??’ Heaven help Staff relations if a co-worker chose opera. Fiddle music has one great advantage for (he listener - no lyrics to be drowned out by an inopportune noise or to roundelay in your head. One night recently I was kept awake till 3 a.m. by one line of a Rankin family song revalv- ALL GONE I SHOOT A 7w0 COW MOOSE FOR SUMMER EX PLORATI IONS! TLL LL ONE GRIZZLY FOR SAFETY ct UNT ZIX CARIGOU FOR CLOTHINGS UNT ZEN « Ly pce FREE LIFE: | FREE LAND! by WOLFGANG BULLMEISTER ing like a needle stuck in a vinyl record. ‘*We rise again in the faces of our children’ refused to fade away 15 hours after I'd heard it as Morning- side’s closing selection. During Riverboat Days two years ago, while I was buying a buffalo burger, my ears were assaulted by what passed for music coming from the band shell stage. Oh, the group I heard had more than enough amplification and plenty of Mick Jagger moves, but harmony ... [ couldn’t escape Lower Little park quickly enough. Pm baffled Terrace doesn’t doesn’t sponsor an old time fiddlers’ contest as part of Riverboat Days. Fiddlers al- ways draw a weekend crowd in Belleville, Ontario, southem Saskatchewan, even Smithers. For proof, count the cavaicade of vans, campers and tent . trailers heading east each sum- mer to attend blue grass festi- vals, Fiddling extravaganzas are great any time. UNT ZEN TO JAIL FOR BREAKING 21K Big GAME Laws ol { | | | — Pr-s owirr