Hands offil!

Local gun owners rallied in the
sunshine Saturday to protest
planned new laws\NEWS A8

Pride of the city

‘Roughest yet

| Judges have made their choice
and the Volunteer of the Year is
announced\COMMUNITY B41

This year's OPOV floor hockey |
tourney is full of bumps, bruises
and suspensions\SPORTS C1 —

" WEDNESDAY
APRIL 26, 1995

By MALCOLM BAXTER
THERE WILL undoubtedly be
many questions about taxation at
tonight's meeting on the future
way of governing Thornhill.

But while the questions are easy
to ask, it will be a lot harder to
give solid answers.

Consultant Eugene Lalonde has
come up with some outlines of
what might happen to taxation for
Thorahill residents if they decide
lo slay with the status quo, in-
corporate or amalgamate. ;

His figures show the owner of a
$94,000 home in that community
now pays $1,378 in tax per year.

Incorporation would push that
bill to $1,429 in the first year.

Amalgamation with Terrace

sister Rachel and their mother picked up 32 b

would send it even higher, to
$1,466,

So on the face of it, the calcula-
tion is simple: status quo is
cheaper,

Maybe. ;

For example, the provincial
government is re-examining pop-
ulation. guidelines used to
determine police costs..

Under the cxisting system, if
Thornhill incorporated it would

have to pay 70 per cent of the -

cost of its RCMP officers, # lot
more than now because the vast
majority of the cost is handled by
the provincial government.
Amalgamation of Terrace and
Thormbill will create a combined
population large enough to have

‘aA bird in the hand

REBEKAH MARCHAND gently takes hold of a baby chick, just two days old. She and her

aby chickens at the end of March fram the Co-
op. The mix of Arbour chickens and Rhode Island Reds are egg layers, and the Marchands

hope the chicks will be good producers on their small Thornhill farm.

all residents pay 90 per cent of
policing costs,

But there is a suggestion to peg
police costs on a per capita basis,
no matter the size of a com-
munity. It means everyone will
pay the sane figure per officer,

In other words, if Thornhill
remains the way it is now, resi-
dents still would face a tax hike
to cover policing costs. — ;

And what would be the effect if
the province decided to take a

more ‘‘realistic”’ attitude to the

way it assigns taxes to cover road
maintenance costs?
If you awn a business or light

industrial operation, Lalonde’s:

figuies are scary, Incorporation
sends your taxes up no more than

Postal lines getting longer

DON'T BE surprised if you're
finding postal service line ups
longer these days.

Where there used to be three
postal outlets covering Terrace
and Thornhill, there are now only
(wa, ;

“We're looking at the whole
network in. Terrace, We're trying

to make sure the customer gets
the best service,’’. Canada: Post.

official Lutz Budde soi” last
week, ,

There used to be postal service
at Sight and Sound in the Skeena
Mall. The service then transferred
over to Bob’s Quidoor Adven-
tures, also located in the Skeena
Mall,

But that store acted as a postal

outlet for only a week, said
’ Budde, :

“Tt just didn't work out. They

gave it a try and found it wasn’t
suitable for their business,’? he’
5a d,s Lee,

This leaves just the Canada Post
office on Lazelie and the sub post
office at Terrace Co-op. -

Budde admitted that the level of

service is not what Canada Post
wants for the area.
“Tf this was Chrisimas, we'd be
in trouble,’ he said. _
Options being explored include
finding another business to act as

- a sub: post office -in-Terrace or -
finding a business: willing to: do

the sanie in Thornhill,’ nen

et

$41 in the first year, If the choice
is amalgamation, they rocket
more than $1,000.

But that assumes the new coun-
cil for Greater Terrace adopts the
Same tax tate for those two cate-
gories as the city has used this
year,

And that a council for the newly
incorporated Thornhill doesn’t
decide to shift some of the burden
from residential laxpayers to
other sectors, .

Another factor, adds Lalonde, is
the possibility the letters patent
which create’ the new, expanded
municipality could specify a
phase in period for any tax in-
creases,

Terrace residential homeowners
can, on the face of it, take en-
couragement from Lalonde’s fig-
ures, They show taxes on a
$94,000 home would drop $70
per annum after amalgamation
and six years later would only be
a few dollars higher than today,

However, if there are tax phase
in provisions for Thornhill resi-
dents, it would hardly be surptis-
ing if a Greater Terrace council
increased its base residential tax
rate to ensure Terrace
homeowners paid at least the
Same as now while waiting for

‘Thornhill to catch up,

After all, the alternative would
be fewer dollars to pay the opera-

. 75¢:PLUS S¢ GST.

Thornhill. Ifs, buts and ma

tional costs of the city, Which of- +
fers the danger of amalgamation. _

meaning reduced services not just

for Thomhill, as some there fear,”
but Terrace as well.

Whatever decision Thormhil]
and Terrace make is an act of
faith. we
Terrace councillor Ruth Hal-
lock points to another reality: the
status quo may hold for now, but
change is inevitable and probably |
Within the next five years.

If that’s true, the real question
for residents of both communities
is will it be cheaper to do it
sooner than later?

(The meeting takes place at
REM, Lee Theatre at 7 p.m.)

WHAT BEGAN as an idea
. for a small gathering of ex-
Terrace residents on the lower
mainland has turned into a
function at which more than
200 people are scheduled ta
attend, /

Organizer Margo Bates says
letters keep arriving and the
phone keeps ringing from
people wanting to attend the

Gangbuster of a

May 6 function at the
Bumaby Winter Club,

“I had booked a room at a
Vancouver hotel thinking we
would perhaps get 50 people.
By the second week, I knew it’
was going to be simply too
small,’ said Bates last week.

Among those scheduled to
attend is Elizabeth Horsfield,
now teaching English in -

’ Toronto and..San Antonio,

- Ay surplus after expenses,

Dr REM, Lee Hospital |

reunion

Thailand. She’s the daughter
of the Anglican minister here
in the 1960s. Other people are
coming from as far away as

Texas. :

and revenues ftom door prize
tickets, will be donated to the

Foundation, said Bates.

Sig bank secret

unveiled at library

IT’S HARD to belicve that in
today’s tight economic times
people can forget about bank ac-
counts they once opened.

Or perhaps there isn’t a com-
plete record left behind of a
deceased person’s financial hold-
ings.

But each year the Bank of Can-
ada receives millions of dollars a
year from dormant accounts for-
warded by banks,

And each year the Bank of Can-
ada publishes lists of the ac-
counts, crealing what might be
the next best thing to a treasure
hunt,

To date, more than $134 million
sits in unclaimed accounts resting
with the Bank of Canada.

Here’s how the system works.

The federal Bank Act says that
if a bank account hasn’t been
touched for 10 years, the money
is sent to the Bank of Canada.

Once with the Bank of Canada,
ihe money sits for another 10
years.

If the money is still unclaimed
after that second 10-year period it
becomes the property of the fed-
cral government if the account’s
balance is less than $100.

But if the balance is more than
$100, the money stays with the
Bank of Canada in the expecta-
lon that one day iVll be claimed:
by its owner or by that person’s
ugitful heir.

All told, the. Bank of Canada
had nearly one million dormant
accounts on file by the end of
1994,

While more than 72 per cent of
the accounts are for less than

$100, there are nearly 28 with
-more than $50,000 in them, says

Bank of Canada unclaimed
balances section supervisor
Rache] Robinson,

“We did. pay out $155,000
from an account once and we
now have a clain — which we
haven't yet. paid ‘oul —~ for.

$158,000," she added.»
~ “People. forget about ‘an ‘se-

count they have, They ‘tiove. and *

NOW AVAILABLE at the puble tibrary is a list of forgotten bank

accounts being kept by the Bank of Canada. The total list num-
bers nearly one million and the total amount is $134 million.
That's library page Jim Reid examining a few pages of the list
which can be viewad on the library's microfiche reader,

forget to have it transferred. Or
they die.’* ;

"A. lot of people don’t realize
that if you put money in the bank,
it doesn’t stay there forever,”
said Robinson, : :

The list of unclaimed accounts
is published at the end of each
year. 7

But the problem is that the lists
aren’t.in a computerized format
allowing for searches by name or
community, It means people must
manually go through the list. .

This is where Skeena Reform
MP Mike Scott has stepped in,

His office has. purchased the
most up to date list available on
microfiche and has given it to the
Terrace Public Library which has
a microfiche reader,

“Rather than have that money
stay withthe government, it

makes sense to try and get it back
to the people,"’. Scott. sald ‘last

weeks

MTP Révénué: Canada ‘has the

ability to tack down people and -
impose severe penalties for not
filing returns, I don’t see why we
can’t work to return money either
to the people who have the ac-
counts or to their relatives, heirs —
and successors," he said.

Bank of Canada’s Robinson
says that if people do find an ac-
count belonging to themselves or
to a deceased relative, they'll.
have to provide. proper docu-
mentation. © °°

"If five people say they want
the account that belongs.to John
Smith, there are a lot of John
Smiths around,’ she said.

The accounts also" pay. interest
~~ at 15 per cent a year capped
after 10 years.

There’s also a bright side to the
federal government’s position.”
_Italso receives {nterest from the
Baik of Canada for the accounts
and that money goes toward gen-
eral: government. operating’: ex-