Gold road

A mining company receives bad.
news over access to the
Iskut Valley\NEWS AS

Overcrowded

Facelift wanted

Minor hockey registrations
are running close the
maximum capacity\SPORTS B6 |

Farmers market backers
want the city to spruce
things up\COMMUNITY B3

WEDNESDAY _
AUGUST 14, 1996

ANDARD :

93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST
VOL. 9 NO. 18

Buyouts muddy merger waters

By JEFF NAGEL
BIG BUYOUT provisions contained in
the contracts of senior administrators
shouldn’t dictate who will end up in
charge of the newly-merged Terrace and
Kitimat school districts.

That’s the position Kitimat trustees are
taking as they pressure their School Dis-
trict 88 counterparts to get together and
decide who’s in and who’s out.

It’s an issue because at least two of
Terrace's senior administrators — super-
intendent Frank Hamilton and assistant
superintendent Skip Bergsma — have

lucrative contracts requiring they be paid
full salary for the term of the contract if
terminated before they expire.

Hamilton and Bergsma both earn more
than $100,000 a year and each bas a
five-year deal with the school district.

But the contracts are automatically
tolled over each year so they never ex-
pire. This means a combined payout in
the $1 million range should their
employment ever be terminated by the
school district,

A three-year version of the contract

force for most Terrace principals, vice-
principals and other board-office admin-
istrators.

Terrace trustee and transition com-
mittee co-chair Stew Christensen told a
meeting in Terrace last week that one of
the key goals in deciding which staff
members to keep will be to ‘keep

to terminate the Kitimat administrators
and keep the more expensive Terrace of-
ficials,

Kitimat trustee Peter King opposes that
logic.

“You should pick the best person for
the job — not just die person with the
biggest buyout provision,’’ he said.

The Kitimat board, by contrast, invited
a wide cross-section of the community to

its budget deliberations.
Although that sometimes makes
government less efficient — Terrace

irustee John Pousette points out that
Kitimat’s effort to get consensus meant it
didn’t file its budget on time with Vic-

severance costs toa minimum.”

Kitimat administrators are on three-
year contracts, that are evaluated and

renewed in the final year.

That means it will be significantly
with automatic annual extension is in cheaper for the new amalgamated board

g Tricky!

ASKATEBOARD PARK need not be just for skaters. At least that’s the view of pe-yearold Rick Koelemy,
whose cycle-sport known as freestyle uses many. of the same ramps and curves as skateboarders.
Koelemy would like to see a park built to encourage young people to get involved In his fast-growing sport.

King says Kitimat administration have
developed a more  consultalive,
consensus-building style than their Ter-
Tace counterparts.

“Terrace has a system where they say
write us a letter and we'll take it under
advisement,’’ King said,

toria — King defends the practice,

He says the Kitimat style is less con-
frontational and more productive than
the Terrace’s,

“People are a little bit scared of losing
that,’' he explained,

Cont'd Page A10

Amalgamation
vote unlikely

IT’S LOOKING MORE and more like one
of the area’s most highly-debated issues
won't be put before the voters this year.

The issue is amalgamating Terrace and
Thornhill and local officials had hoped a
referendum sccking voter approval would
have been put to the voters by now. Then,

_ provided,..amalagamation was approved,
“council ‘elections ‘for the new government

structure would take place with other local
elections this November.

But the provincial government has yet to
give the Kitimat-Stikine regional district its
financial incentive package for the amal-
gamation so it can be prepared and present-
ed to voters ina referendum.

‘“We were looking at two windows of op-
portunity,”’ says regional district economic
development manager Andrew Webber.
“One was in the Spring of 96, and the
other was in September. We were really
hoping for September, but it’s too late
now."”

Webber says that even if the offer came
through today, there would not be enough
time to inform the public about what the
restructure package was all about so people

could make

an informed decision,
“September is definitely out,’’ he says.
Webber's even pessimistic that.an amal-

gamation referendum can even be readied

in time for the regular November local elec-
tions.

“It's possible,” says Webber. ‘‘But
doing both restructure and elections at the
same time could be confusing for people,”’

The exorbitant fength of time the govern-
ment has taken to present its financial in-
centive package has some people in the
regional district frustrated.

“They keep promising that it’s coming,’

says Thornhill director Peggy Julseth. ‘‘But
they don’t deliver. They told us well over
two weeks ago that it would be ready for
sure in two weeks and it’s not here. It was
just another empty promise.”’

Julseth says that the government has

given the regional district.a peek at little
pieces of the offer that look enticing, but
they haven’t seen anything substantial.

“Its a litte discouraging when they

pump you up with ideas that iv] be a good

Cont'd Page A2

MLA will wait for word
on forest bank bucks

NDP SKEENA MLA Helmut Giesbrecht is
going lo wait until next month before
inaking up his mind about the controversy
surrounding the size of Forest Renewal
B.C.’s (FRBC) bank account.

The provincial crown corporation collects
a special fee from forest companies that's
to be put back into the forests and related
activities.

But FREC has been tucking more away
than it is spending and a cash-poor — and
very hungry — provincial government is
toying with the idea of tapping the amount.

As it is, FRBC should have $900 million
in the bank by next year. And it’s already
moved $400 million to a safe place to buff-
er future shortfalis should they occur.

FRBC’s problems began when the
government began collecting the fees from
the forest companies without first having a
system in place to spend the money.

The opposition Liberals are telling the
provincial government not to touch the cash
unless itis for forest activities.

Giesbrecht said he’s content to wait for a
decision from the FRBC board which meets

next month.

‘There are unions, forest companies,
First Nations and environmental groups on
the board. It’s up to them,’ he said last
week,

The MLA said he’s been getting mixed
reviews from northerners on what to do,

“It depends on peoples’ priorities,’ Gies-
brecht added of the comments.

“If some could be used for hospital fund-
ing, perhaps that’s not so bad,’’ he said.

Giesbrecht was one of 10 NDP MLAs
targeted last week by the opposition Liber-
als who challenged them to vote against
any plan to raid the FRBC account,

“'The government has a slim majority in
the legislature. It takes only three NDP
backbenchers to stop the plunder of Forest
Renewal funds,’’ said Liberal forest critic
Ted Nebbeling.

Giesbrecht said the Liberal tactic is one
way being used by the opposition to keep
the issue alive.

“These are the same guys who didn't
want a freeze on capital projects and then
say we should spend less,” he said,

Fed fish group needs gutting says MP

WITH FISHERIES on both coasts in
decline, it’s time to iake a knife and start
gutting the Department of Fisheries and
Oceans,

That’s the conclusion Skeena MP Mike
Scott has reached.

The Reform fisheries crilic is preparing
a report on the state of the commercial
fishery in Canada, and says he is con-
vinced the industry is over-managed and
over-subsidized,

‘The commercial fishery is a net loss
fo the Canadian economy,’ Scott said
last week. ‘“When you take into account

the amount of monney we spend as a na-
tion of fishery management through
DFO, when you take into account the
amount of money spent by fishermen,
and the subsidies provided to people in
the commercial fishing industry, add it
all up and then subtract the commercial
value of the catch, it’s a net loss to the
economy,”’

Canada spends $750 million a year
managing the resource and stations 1,000
of its 6,000 full-time DFO employees in
Oltawa, he added.

Stacked up against other fishing na-

tions, Canada’s system doesn’t look elfi-

clent.

Scott says. “Something's wrong,”?

mon that we’ve been experiencing,’’

tawa and Victoria is designed to give the
province more say in fisheries manage-

Scott says that for every metric tonne
of fish landed by Norwegian fishermen,
that country spends $85 on fisheries
itanagement, Canada, on the other hand,
spends $455 on fisheries management
for every tonne landed.

“In the face of this massive expendi-
ture and this huge bureaucracy we have
neither been able to predict nor prevent
the collapse of the Atlantic ground fish
or the severe decline of the Pacific sal-

“We've got to gct away from the no-
tion that we should pay peaple to fish,”’
he said.

Scott expects to finish his report by

inid-September,

He says he believes the Pacific fishery
would be better managed if the legions
of Department of Fisheries and Oceans
bureaucrats in Ottawa were replaced by
people closer to the resource,

An agreement signed last month by Ot-

ment.

But Scott says it docsn’t address the

bloated Ottawa bureaucracy or the vast
distance between it and where the fish
actually are,
’ Scott said fish farms are now account-
ing for about 30 per cent of the fish
caught in Canada, and says their success
could mean jobs on the north coast if the
feds loosen up the red tape on such oper-
ations,