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(PAN

H THE CITY OF i
_ TERRACE |

ANNIVERSARY

2003

Bus savings vanish amid mayhem

Four-day week has

scuttled cost cuts

By JENNIFER LANG
THE SCHOOL district's attempt to
save nearly $1 million in school bus
costs has failed.

The district has restored bus runs in
respanse to demands to improve serv-
ice, erasing any potential cost-savings
the district might have seen.

“We're actually back to square

one,” maintenance superintendent Ro-
bert Gilfillan said Friday,

Yet another revised school bus
schedule goes into effect in Terrace
this week. The number of bus runs has
nearly doubled since the start of the
year, jumping from just 12 to 21.

“We were looking at close to $1

million in savings,” Gilfillan said.
“We were trying to get our best bang
for the buck for each bus.”

Each run costs about $43,000 a year
— money that could instead be spent in
the classroom. The contractor is puar-
anteed -110 kms/day for each bus run,
but runs weren't operating at capacity,
prompting school trustees to press for
route efficiencies lo close the gap.

Instead, “You're going to. see buss-
es with seven, 10, 12 kids,” Gilfillan
said, “That's just the only way we can
do it, We were trying to keep the mon-
ey in the classroom because that’s
why we're here, right?”

Moving to a four-day week, a cast-
cutting measure expected to save $1.4
million, only compounded the difficult
task of streamlining routes and getting

“With the four-day instructional
week, it made it very hard,” Gilfillan
said, pointing out school dismissal
times are now a half hour later,

Parents in outlying areas were used
to having their children return home at
3:45 p.m., he said, “Now, 3:45 has be-
come 4:15 or 4:30 p.m. People are
saying that’s not acceptable.”

Last month, trustees apologized af-
ler cuts-to school bus routes coupled
with longer school’ ays created havoc
district wide. ,

Nowhere was that more evident
than at Skeena Junior Secondary, Last
week school administration there re-
fused t6 go along with. a request to
shorten the 40-minute lunch to just 33
minutes (including travel time from
class) so students who take the bus
wouldn’t have to leave early.

Instead, those students were given
late passes without penalty and were
dismissed early,

“All of our kids deserve a chance to
be here until the
end of the day,”
principal Dave
Bartley said.

“All of our
kids deserve a
break,” he said,
adding classes
are now 75
Minutes long.
“Thirty to 35
minutes isn’t a
lunch.”

Meanwhile,
school board
chair Peter King

Robert
Gilfillan

changes to the bus schedule.

“There's still some things we're
fine-tuning,” King said. “Each time we
fix one problem, we sometimes create
others.”

The district will next look at _mov-
ing bus stops — if it makes sense,

But no more new stops -will be ad-
ded, which may not please some
Thornhill bench parents residing to the
east of Old Lakelse Lake drive, in-
cluding Tammy Whatman.

She has grown increasingly frustrat-
ed by the number of changes her
children have coped with this year.

She wants a crossing guard as-
signed to the intersection and a cross-
walk installed at Thornhill. St..at the
Thornhill Pub, the new drop-off point.

“This is ridiculous,” she said, “Up
here, there’s nothing for these kids.”

SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED: Volunteers Lindsay Bjorgaard,
Kieran Campbell and Darryl Bjorgaard help install new play-

New playground

By JENNIFER LANG
ONE OF Terrace’s oldest elemen-
tary schocls finally has its very
own playground.

More than $18,000 worth of
new playground equipment - in-
cluding a climbing apparatus
called a Cosmic Warp and the
wildly popular double monorail -
was installed at Clarence Michiel
Elementary last week,

“The kids are all getting pretty
excited,” parent Theresa Jensen
said Friday as she and a mostly
volunteer work crew prepped the
play area and assembled brightly
coloured components.

The 40-year-old school, built in
1963, has seen several major ad-

ditions over the years, but i's
never had much of a playground.

Until this week there were just
a few basketball hoops, some
hopscotch squares and lots of con-
crele,

“There was a huge need,” Jen-
sen said, “I went to this school,
and | know how old itis.”

The turning: point came last
fall, when Parkside students were
moved over to Clarence Michiel.

“The Parkside siudents. got
here and said, ‘There's nothing to
do,’” Jensen said.

The parent advisory council
agreed to concentrate its fundrais-
ing efforts on playground equip-
ment,

Officers trap and
relocate area bears

By SARAH A, ZIMMERMAN
CONSERVATION officers have
been busy in outlying areas relo-
cating bears.

The most recent relocation
took place Sept, 26 when conser-
vation officers trapped a 600-
pound grizzly bear in a snare in
the Cable Car district of Kitimat.

“He appeared to be. very heal-

thy, was not into garbage al all,”

says Terrace-based conservation
officer Dale Ryan about the giant

bruin.

Bears that are habituated to
eating garbage or other food left
out-by humans are often not as
successfully relocated-and have to
be destroyed,

“(The snare) doesn’t injure
them in any way — it’s just a'pres-
sure hold -and we're able to dart
them: the next day,” explains
Ryan. :

The snare was set Sept. 2,
Continued Page A2

students home ata decent hour.

ground equipment that has been a long time coming at Clarence
Michiel Elementary School. JENNIFER LANG PHOTO

for old school

Students helped choose the
new equipment, designed to ap-
peal to the 9-12 age group.

.The equipment arrived Sept. 2
as part of a shipment shared with

the Kitimat Stikine Regional Dis-.

tricl, which has just completed a
new playground of its own — Pen-
ner Park on the Thornhill Bench.

The regional district has been
storing the Clarence Michiel
playground equipment since it ar-
rived;

The project was unexpectedly
delayed at the school district, a
situation that was resolved last
week. Some additional money
was heeded, too, prompting a last-
minute appeal.

Jensen said a financial dona-
tion from the Terrace Elks helped
put the project back on track.

A small crew of regional dis-
trict- employees, including Parish
Miller and Darryl Bjorgaard, who
brought along his daughter Lind-
say, volunteered to help install
the equipment Oct..3,

A school district maintenance
employee helped with the instal-
lation, too. Pat Campbell was

‘joined by his son, Kieran.

Twin River Power donated a
worker and.a backhoe. Ken's
Trucking hauled fill away all day.

The parent advisory hired
Rainbow Bobeat to help clear the
playground surface.

TERRACE conservation "officer Dale Ryan ‘Chris Broster and
Christopher Price relocate a grizzly bear. JANICE JOSEPH PHOTO

told parents to expect still more

[Holiday _
openings |
approved

Mayor breaks 2-2 split vote
By JEFF NAGEL

HOLIDAY SHOPPING during peak tourist season is on

the verge of becoming legal in Terrace after city council

narrowly voted 3-2 in favour of the plan last week.

Mayor Jack Talstra cast the deciding vote, breaking a
2-2 split Sept. 29 to give three readings to a holiday
shopping bylaw that will legalize larger store openings
on Canada Day, B.C. Day and Labour Day.

Councillors Marylin Davies and Carol Leclerc backed
the plan —championed by the chamber of commerce -
and Lynne Christiansen and David Hull opposed it.

Missing were Rich McDaniel and Stew Christensen,
who both previously said the three-day-only holiday
shopping idea was a compromise they could support.

In breaking the tie, Talstra said he was taking into
account the two absent councillors’ support of the plan.

“T, too, think that’s a reasonable compromise because
the communily is divided,” the mayor said,

“We're trying to promote tourism for the area and |

think we should try it on that basis," he said. “I think we ,

should give it a shot for a couple of summers and see
how it goes.”

The bylaw still must pass another
vote on final adoption Oct. 14.

Council heard from a large dele-
gation of store employees opposed
to the plan and chamber of com-
merce reps who say it will bring &
more business to Terrace during |
those ‘holidays.

“We want to get the word out §
that Ferrace is open for business,”
said chamber president Sheila Love.

But Safeway employee Monique
Belanger told council grocery stores
are very busy the day before a holi-
day and the day after,

“The sales are virtually the same [over the
weekend],” she said. “This town has only so much
money available to all the businesses.”

Gagne said the main effect will be that big grocery
stores will raid revenue from smaller corner stores like
Copperside Foods - and workers will lose out on time
with their families. The prospect of extra pay by working
holidays dims when workers realize it will mostly be
eaten up by taxes or child care, she added.

The split vote happened when Lynne Christiansen,
who had tentatively agreed to the compromise at a pre-
vious committee meeting, opposed the plan. “It's not the
end of the world to stay closed those days,” she said, si-
ding wilh workers. “I just don’t see the benefits.”

Christiansen says the chamber of commerce could do
more to enhance tourism business here by increasing the
amount of time the tourism infocentre .is open.

She also fears the compromise is a slippery slope.

“Once you start with some stat holidays it’s just going
to carry on and end up with all stat holidays,” she said.

Hull said the city should have elther banned all stat
shopping or made it wide open, rather than compromise,

The mayor has broken tied votes of council before.
But on those occasions he’s usually backed the status
quo, saying when council and the town is divided on an
issue, it's lime to be conservative and cautious,

That was his explanation when he cast the deciding
vole to reject casino gambling here 18 months ago.

This holiday shopping vote struck a balance between
the two sides, Talstra said, and doesn’t pose the threat to
society that gambling did. “It's not nearly as volatile as
that particular issue,” he said,

Jack Talstra

*