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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

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