Newdeck The Old Skeena bridge open once again after Long run | . Runners and walkers from the northwest converge Rapt readers + Cassie Hall students getting a face lift\\NEWS Ai4 for annual half marathon\SPORTS B6 R enjoyed a visit from an me author and her dog 4 \SCOMMUNITY BL $1.00 pLus 7¢ GST ($1,10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) “Terrace is $3.0.’ 2.001 Forestry Capital” Band offers help for SCI victims Plan is to act as conduit for FRBC silviculture work By JEFF NAGEL THE KITSUMKALUM band is vo- lunteering to help put local contrac- tors back to work doing Forest Rene- wal B.C.-financed work for Skeena Cellulose. Chief councillor Diane Collins says the band is willing to act as the financial conduit to get money to contractors so FRBC-paid work can resume in SCI’s licence areas. Workers would normally be doing tree planting, brushing, inventory, wa- tershed restoration and road deactiva- tion work right now. But those contractors have been out of work since Skeena Cellulose fell into creditor protection Sept. 5. FRBC has nearly $2 million ear- marked for further work to be done by SCI contractors. Thal money remains in FRBC ac- counts and can’t be sent to Skeena Cellulose to administer — the normal procedure ~ because it will become ensnared in the legal proceedings sur- rounding the company. The province has |soked at setting up some -new trustee to administer the money and get work restarted. But Skeena MLA Roger Harris said that may take too long and there’s only about two months of time left this year to get the work done. So the Kitsumkalum band, which administers its own multi-year FRBC contracts to perform wa- tershed = re- Storation, is offering to take over the Skeena Ceilulose work tem- porarily. Contraclors who normal- the go back to work and they'd be managed by SCI managers who are familiar with the plans al- ready drawn up. All the same people would be doing Diane Collins the work, Collins said, the money would simply be flowing through the band, which would serve as a safe bank account. “If we can be a vehicle to provide that, we're more than willing,” Collins said. “Contractors are going down left, right and centre,” she added. “We have an opportunity to gel Christmas money into daddy’s pockets in down- town Terrace.” But so far Victoria hasn’t said yes to the Kitsumkalum proposal. Collins says she made the offer to the head of FRBC on Sept. 27, and she also informed relevant government ministers and officials. There’s been no response, she said, and time is running out on the current working season. If Victoria and FRBC agree and promise the money is on the way, she said, people could be back at work al- most overnight. . Harris says he’s urging Victoria to consider Collins’ offer because it may be the quickest method. “| have asked the (forests) minister to have FRBC negotiate with Kitsum- kalum,” Harris said. “This is work that should be done anyway to maintain our forests for the future,” he said. “We're looking at every avenue to get people work.” Collins said it’s also conceivable that the province or FRBC could also use the band to deliver money to the Cont'd Page A13 seeeeraaesaman DR. GREG LINTON calls it a hi tech version of a hallway consultation — where one doctor confers with another about a patient. The difference is that the doctors — or for that matter, the patient — can be hundreds or thousands of miles apart yet connected by high quality video and sound thanks to ca- ing over dedicated phone lines. At Mills Memorial Hospital right now are two new 32-inch television screens and one camera, all contained on a cart. They got their first test the end of Sep- tember here when doctors and nurses gath- ered for an annual emergency medicine con- ference organized by Linton. Two of the speakers communicated from Vancouver via the system. “As a side note, the weather was particu- larly horrendous that day. Had they been sla- ted to fly in, they would not have made it and that conference would have been CAMERAS, TV screens and monitors are shrinking the world of medicine at Mills Memorial Hospital. What's happening are real time connections with hospitals in other places for patient Hi tech aids health care meras and monitors transmitting and receiv | cancelled,” said Linton. It’s this ability to shrink geographic dis- tances and be unaffected by weather which makes such communication so attractive in places such as the northwest, adds Doug Lancaster, the hospital’s technical expert. “If you can operate a cell phone or a TV, you can learn this in five minutes,” said Lancaster. A remote control operates the small ca- mera mounted on top of the TV screens. ‘Having two screens means: the person speaking and the other listening are shown at the same time. It also means charts or photo- graphs can be displayed as they are being talked about. “This is top of the line for pretty much any sized hospital,” said Lancaster. The real value for focal physicians and for patients will take place over the next while when similar systems are installed in the newly-renovated regional psychiatric ward, care and educational purposes. That's Dr. Greg Linton behind the two screens. On the right hand screen is Doug Lancaster, the hospital's technical expert, demonstrating what is possible. in the resuscitation room of the emergency _ ward, in the pediatrics clinic and in the in- tensive care unit. This will allow a psychiatrist here, for i in- Stance, to interview and provide treatment instructions for a patient in Prince Rupert or Kitimat when systems are installed i in those cities, “This way you may only need one psy- chiatrist on call,” said Lancaster. “Or you can save a person from being transferred,” Linton adds. A camera and monitor in the emergency ward will be connected to trauma specialists at Vancouver General, giving physicians here the ability for around the clock advice when dealing with particularly complicated cases, Specialists there will also have remote controls, allowing them to control the ca- mera here. Cont'd Page A2 City cuts cop costs again By JEFF NAGEL THE CITY is moving to eliminate another municipal RCMP officer in what it admits is a continuing strategy -to cut policing costs. The reduction — if approved by the province — would save the city $70,000, That’s in addition to the $170,000 in savings the cily achieved in the spring by eliminating one officer then and two city-paid support staff positions. The new request would eliminate one unfilled, frozen position and freeze another position when the next va- cancy occurs — effectively reducing the number of city- paid police from 25 a year apo to 23. The city is reducing the RCMP budget to gradually determine how nfuch cutting the Terrace detachment can take, chief administrative officer Ron Poole said. Despite protests of lop officers here, Poole said coun- cil has seen little evidence the earlier cuts have caused problems. Poole admitted the timing is aimed at achieving fur- ther savings of its own before the province, which is planning its own cuts, makes a move. For at least a year city council has been battling with RCMP accountants over the share of detachment ex- penses the city should pick up. Council has been unhappy with large increases in po- licing costs and argued statistics show it pays too high a proportion of local costs. After failing to get agreement of top RCMP officials to change the cost sharing formu- la, council embarked on a unilateral effort to cut the amount of money the city contributes. Local RCMP Inspector Doug Wheler said he’s dis- mayed by the apparent race between the province and city to slash his budget. “Everybody’s trying to grab a piece of what's left,” he said. “Everybody’s looking for a piece of the police and in the end the community suffers. We’re totally opposed to it. We think it’s totally ridiculous.” Wheler said existing cuts already put police here “drastically behind” in dealing with the nitty-gritty of criminal investigations — work like transcribing tapes and preparing documents for prosecutors and the courts, The community policing officer, cut after the spring reductions, is to be restored later this month. But Wheler. said that will be re-examined if further cuts take place. And he said the safety of officers has to be consid- ered. “We can’t have officers going to domestics as a single person. They have to have backup,” Wheler added. “The city has no conception of what takes place in’ running a police detachment,” Wheler said. “It’s easy to sit back and say nothing’s happened,” he said. “They don’t see what’s happened with respect to the workload put on members here, the stress, the additional volunteer hours, plus overtime hours.” City council has indicated it wants to deliver a prop: erty lax cut next year and generally contain city costs because of the uncertainty surrounding Skeena Cellu- lose. Cont'd Page A2 Centre to appeal tax exemption loss By JEFF NAGEL THE KERMODE Friendship Centre is appealing city council’s decision to reduce its property tax exemption to 50 per cent. Council, on the recommendation of the city’s treasurer, decided the centre should pay half what it would if fully taxed — about $3,000. Friendship Centre execulive ditec- tor Ric Miller said the city mistakenly believes the society’s membership is restricted and that it offers some pro- grams just fot aboriginal people and nat for others, “There are no restrictions,” he said. “I’m appealing this and I’d hope the city would see fit to review it,” A new city policy prohibits tax ex- emptions for organizations that limit membership. Council on that basis also voted to eliminate the Masonic Lodge’s .ex- emption altogether, because not everyone is ‘allowed to become a Mason. Miller said the Kermode Friendship Centre has a few dozen non-native members, it has non-natives on its board of directors, and non-native people use various services it offers. Centré services include culture and language programs, alcohol and drug counselling, parenting programs, com- puter and tutoring programs for youth, and hall and office rentals. Computer programming lessons that ran this summer were well attended by non-native people, he added. “We have a number of blond kids, definitely non-native, as comfortable here as the natives are,” Milter said. “We have an older Scottish lady taking Tsimshian language,” he added. “She does really well because she can roll her Rs.” Virtually all pamphlets, advertising and centre iiterature makes it clear everyone is welcome, he added, The city decision came as a sur- prise, he said. “We were taken aback. Some of us were shocked.” But Miller said he doesn't believe the decision amounts to a race-based taxation policy on the part of city council. “I think it was just a mistake due to a lack of information,” he said. While the centre was founded pri- marily to assist native people living uff reserve adapt to an urban setting, Miller said the centre has been rede- fining itself in recent years to throw its doors and services open to all. “We've evolved and expanded to include everyone,” he said. “Our thrust in life is just to make life more com- fortable and safe for anyone who feels the need to drop in.”