rT ve ttightt ot Paty galls aT re B12 Terrace Review — Wednesday, January 31, 1990 In January 1989, the local record precipitation for the month was surpassed by a big margin... and most of it fell'in the form of snow. It didn’t take long, in 1989, to find a city grader and front end loader cleaning up the mess. _Ayear ago this week — IT’S OVER! That was the lead story a year ago this week. ‘A 19-day strike by teachers in School District 88 concluded over the weekend with a tenta- tive agreement between the board of trustees and the Ter- race District Teachers’ Associa- tion. The district’s 5,200 stu- dents returned to classes Mon- day morning after being out of school since Dec. 16.” Included in the agreement was a 14.7 percent. salary increase over two years and a pupil- ‘teacher ratio for 15 different categories of classroom situa- tions with provisions to exceed - the maximum ratios by up to 10 ‘percent under: cumstances. It was unknown what effect the settlement might have on local taxes at the time but on Jan. 27 Minister of Education Tony Brummett an- _ nounced a $129 million (9.9 per- . cent) increase in provincial grants to help school districts cope with the higher cost of wages. The end to the strike was the answer to everyone’s dreams, but many Caledonia Senior Sec- ondary students. were still trying to determine of their post- secondary futures may have been harmed. The Terrace Review asked five Grade 12 students what they thought. All said: they believed the time -missed had affected their per- ' formance in writing government exams. The - teachers’ strike made ; _ headlines for a month but other _ things were happening too. .. Parents for French were suffer- ing from growing pains, Come September, a full five percent of _ School’ ‘District: $8) cnrolment certain § cir- would be in French Immersion classes and many of their Elementary French Immersion students would be moving on to Skeena. After a prodigious lobbying effort, though, parents persuaded School District 88 to move along with them and the scene for Secondary French Im- mersion was set. And as a result of an internal evaluation Northwest Com- munity College was maturing too — but not without: a little pain. The resignation of ex- ecutive director of program- ming. Kenn Whyte. a year:ago this week followed on the heels of: several others. He was pre- ceeded by college president Dr. Val George, the entire nursing staff, two mobile computer management staff members, the head of the Business and In- dustry. Training Education De- partment and college planner Ian Thomas. In a more positive light, col- - lege director of distance educa- tion Norbert Hartig set up a demonstration of international satellite conference technology : at the Inn of the West. Billed as a vision of the future, Hartig demonstrated the system’s abili- ty to create interactive tele- conferencing on topics ranging from business developments to employment training tech- niques, education and real estate auctions. ‘The technology is out there, the material is out there,— - ; - covered a large enough section it’s just a matter. of pulling it down,’”’ said Harlig. One day, he added, you may even see live performances of the Royal Win- nipeg Ballet or ihe Boston Pops on stage al the R.E.M. Lee Theatre... in an electronic sort of way. - second avalanche Hartig’s ‘“‘vision’’ might have been attractive to the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. They appeared live on stage at the R.E.M. Lee Theatre a year ago this week, but only after props and equip- ment had to sneak in between two avalanches west of Terrace and the performers flew over the in three chartered -aircraft. They were ‘never asked, but they may have preferred to appear under the’ terms of Hartig’s vision, aS sprites on projection TV as they danced across a warm, home- town Winnipeg stage. Via, recycling... and-a _ traffic study? “The long-awaited traffic study,”’ reported the Terrace Review on Feb. 1, 1989, ‘*may be underway soon.” It began in October, 1988, to see how the Okanagan Skeena shopping center and the closure of Ottawa St.-would affect downtown traf- fic... and was thereafter referred . to as the ‘‘pending report” whenever council discussed pedestrian safety. A year ago this week, two consulting firms - were recommended to council: with administration putting a lit- tle weight on a proposal from N.C. Lea Consultants Ltd. of | Vancouver. Both firms had re-. sponded to a request from the city dated Jan. 13; 1989, One city alderman, though, didn’t think the scope .of the report of the city and-the matter was referred to committee. _ On the topic of trnsporiation, VIA Rail anriounced’4 year ago this week that they were making some changes to their tri-weekly “Skeena’’ route to coincide with ‘complaining of a ‘customers due loa lack of park- ing. space, the opening of their new Van- couver maintenance facility. In’ the process, eight jobs were eliminated in Edmonton while- another 31 .were transferred — from Edmonton to Jasper and Vancouver. But new jobs were created as well; eight in Van- couver and three in Jasper. Mur- ray Jackson, VIA’s vice presi- dent of marketing and sales, said that ‘combining the ‘‘Skeena’’. -with the daily ‘Super Continen- tal’? that operates between Win-:~ nipeg, Edmonton,. Jasper and - Vancouver, will provide much-: needed additional capacity’ on the heavily travelled: - Jasper- Vancouver segment of the route. VIA, it seemed, ‘had a future. + At the. sdme. time, about a dozen people attended’ an or-. ganizational. meeting - of (the Skeena Protection Coalition and - decided’ that a recycling alter- native to waste disposal was the best way to address local en- vironment concerns. Before set- . tling on the promotion of re-. cycling as their course of action, the group discussed ‘everything from the CNR to the ozone layer... but not VIA Rail.. Vandalism, break and - enter,and parking It was a year ago this week that bylaw enforcement was born. At least bylaw enforce- ment in the form we will see soon. In October 1988, council asked Public Works to post signs on portions of Emerson St. to indicate parking time limits as laid out in existing bylaws. The move was welcomed by Emerson- St. businesses who nad been lack .of - The signs had little: ‘effect, ‘however. Cars, probably belonging to employees of downtown businesses, were still parking on Emerson eight hours a day. This prompted the city to negotiate the wording of the Senior Building Inspector’s job description with CUPE in order to write a new job description for a Bylaw Enforcement Of- ficer. Soon, said administrator Bob Hallsor, car owners abusing their parking privileges will discover the bylaw ‘has teeth... fines ranging from $25 to $500..- Crimes. of another kind were : coming under fire a year ago this week as well. There was a Significant increase in drug’ of- fences, break ‘and: enters and . vandalism.in 1988 and city coun- ‘cil was expectged to ask RCMP ‘to concentrate their efforts on ‘reducing the number of these ac- tivities. _ For business... it was a very good year . Roy Saunders Hauling Ltd. proposed a new industrial development a year ago this _ week; an 8,000 square foot retail _ truck parts and accessories out- let and a ‘shop large enough for ‘maintaining 16 logging trucks. It was said that eventually a tire re- treading plant would be added and the whole complex would _ help establish Terrace as the hub -of the northwest, At the same time, Alcan Aluminum Ltd. released their 1988 report and said they had notched up a record year for _ sales and production; Alran’s chief executive officer predicted similar performance in £989, Mills Memorial Hospital also continued on page B13 1 heeomcenie deceit a; mie me em em ae