Road rubber Think emergency vehiclesil that zip on our highways § use winter tires? Think again\NEWS A3 Terrace teams up Dozens of local athletes head off to the Northern B.C, Winter Games\SPORTS B7 Dinner is served | Three men compete for one woman's affections in the TLT’s he : latest\COMMUNITY Ba $1.00 PLus 7¢ GST ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Tertace area) _www.terracestandard.com “Wednesday, February. No budget miracles for trustees | By JENNIFER LANG IT’S DECISION TIME for school trustees. They must chop as much as $5.3 million from next year’s operating budget to balance the books, an exer- cise that promises to usher in a new era in public education — one with fewer schools, less teachers and sup- port staff, larger high school school classes and even a four-day school week. Even though the Coast Mountains School District has been investigating more than 50 different cost-cutting and -money-making ideas, those four op- tions remain at the top of list when it comes to solving the budget shortfall, assistant superintendent Rob Green- wood confirmed Friday. Staffing costs represent 85-95 per cent of the district’s roughly $50 mil- lion in operating expenses. Since the district expects enrolment to drop by 350 students next year, it’s clear fewer teachers will be needed. Greenwood said increasing every sec- ondary class by just one student each would create about $300,000 in addi- tional savings. The cther ideas — such as recruiting foreign students er corporate sponsor- ship — only create a significant budget impact when they’re added up. Last month the district hosted a ser- ies of working committee meetings in Terrace and the four other communi- ties. Greenwood had initially hoped the public would become more in- volved in the exercise. But as of last week most of the work had fallen to senior staff, who were scrambling to assemble fact sheets on the community and district impacts of dozens of ideas as tonight’s Feb. 5 deadline loomed. “I am concerned that the details, the money, all of these things, need to ’ be double-checked,” Greenwood said, promising the fact sheets will be upda- ted over the next couple of weeks. Moving to a four-day-week, for ex- ample, might save the district as much as $1.2 million a year, mostly in bus- ing and custodial costs, Greenwood said, Students would attend classes take Fridays off, but there are stili so many other de- tails to consider. Meanwhile, Thornhill school trustee Lorrie Gowen says parents need fo start lobbying the pro- vincial government for more money. Gowen was the Coast Mountains school board’s delegate to a conference § - on school district funding presented by the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, CUPE and the B.C. Fe- deration of Labour two weekends ago. “We need parents to write, fax and Lorrie Gowen and the minister of finance to say that we need to step up to the plate and we need to fund these things | adequately,” Gowen: said at a press conference Hast week. School trustees hold a spe- cial board meeting later on # this month to discuss the budget cuts. But it’s possible any final decisions would be made behind closed doors. That’s exactly what hap- pened with last year’ s de-. cision to close five schools in the dis- trict and to delay opening Mountain- email both the minister of education view Elementary in Terrace. DEPUTY THORNHILL Fire Chief Wes Patterson surveys the burnt-out wrackage ofa trailer in the Boulderwood Trailer Court i in Thorn- hill after a fire Jan. 31. Terrace RCMP say Patrick Douglas Harrison, the owner of the mobile home, has been charged with arson. Man charged in trailer a arson damage to neighbouring mobile homes may top $3,000. Twenty-two firefighters respon- ded to the blaze and many were on the scene past 5 a.m. By day- light, all that remained of the trai- ler was a smouldering heap of burnt debris. Nobody else was in the home | at the time of the blaze and no in- juries were reported. y SARAH A, ZIMMERMAN a THORNHILL man faces arson charges after his trailer burned to the ground Jan. 31. Patrick Douglas Harrison, 61, turned himself in to RCMP offi- cers at approximately 2:30 a.m., just 20 minutes after Thornhill fire fighters were called to his home. “He was arrested and lodged in cells to appear in front of a pro- Crash investigation took way too long, vincial court judge,” said Sgt. Jas Basi. Harrison was formaily charged Jan. 31 with one count of arson causing property damage. if found guilty, the charge carries a max- imum sentence of 14 years in jail. Local RCMP and the fire com- missioner are investigating the suspicious fire which levelled Harrisan’s trailer and damaged about 45 additional minutes a day and . ; ts ma | : ie . two neighbouring units. The Thornhill fire- department responded to the blaze at #89 Boulderwood Trailer Court, just after 2 a.m. “I was actually one of the first ones on the scene and it was fully involved at that point,” said Thornhill fire chief Art Hill. The fire was so hot it damaged — cable and telephone lines in the area and fire fighters. estimate mother says “Now that the charge has finally been laid a Fish may By JEFF NAGEL fishing fees unveiled by for out-of-province tourists. Their fees to fish classi- ble to as much as $40 per day. That alone adds up to an extra $400 for a family of four from Alberta that wants to fish a class 2 would be $800 more if they want to fish the area’s prized class 1 rivers. pay 40 to 50 per cent more for Hcences and other fees that are all slated to jump on April 1. B.C. anglers won’t be hit as hard. They'll pay $36 for an annual angling licence -a 20 per cent increase, But stamps for steelhead and salmon are jacked 50 per cent to $25 and $15. Non-residents will have to pay $60 and $30 for steelhead and salmon stamps. Tackle shops and other tourist-dependent busines- ses here worry price in- A..MAJOR increase in Victoria. will dramatically __, drive up the cost of a northwest fishing vacation | fied waters here ‘will dou-— river here for 10 days. It - And they'll also have to - fees bite | tourism creases will lead visiting anglers to-spend less: time — and less money ~ in Ter- race, “That's a “lot of money,” Northcoast. An- glers owner Leona Murray said. of the classified’ wa- ters daily prices. “That's going ‘to really harm’ this area fot tourism.” “The one thing we ‘had left was” fishing: ‘tourism and now’ we're: ‘going: ‘to chase ‘it away,” added “The one thing we had left was fishing tourism and now we're going to chase it: away.” Misty River Tackle. owner Brian Patrick. He said many visiting anglers will choose not to fish classified rivers to avoid the fees. Patrick said that will mean more overcrowding at unclassified stretches of the Skeena like Ferry Is- land and at the Kitimat River. « He noted the Kitimat Continued Pg. A12 Teen driver now charged By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN MORE than one year after high school student Hannah Kantola died in a car crash, her teenage friend who was behind the wheel faces a charge . of driving without due care and attention. The driver cannot be named because she was 17 at the time. A conviction doesn’t carry a cri- minal record because the charge is under the * provincial Motor Vehicle Act. The charge does little to ease the grief for Hannah’s mother, Terri Ryan, who says the in- vestigation leading up to the charge was fraught with unnecessary delays. “This is a lot of time and money being spent for undue care and attention,” Ryan says, adding the year since Hannah's death has been difficult and emotional for her whole family. She doesn’t dispute the Crown’s decision.on - _the type of charge. But she says it doesn’t. reflect that a life was lost in the accident or the pain and worry such a long wait causes friends and fa- mily of the deceased. The accident happened shortly after 8 a.m. Jan. 24, 2002 near Thornhill as Kantola, also 17, and her classmate were driving to school. Kantola, an aspiring actress, was the passen- ger in the 1990 Eagle Talon that police say lost No end to the pain lm See page AS for a special report on the delays some say re-victimize survivors. control while trying to pass another vehicle and struck an oncoming Ford F250 pickup truck. The . road conditions that day were extremely slippery. Ryan iearned Jan. 24 — the one year anniver-- sary of her daughter’ s death — that the teen driver. Bh - was charged it in. December. _ year later, everything has resurfaced,” Ryan says, adding the investigation’s length had her wondering when there would be some resolution. ‘The first delay came early when the collision analyst charged with the investigation, Terrace RCMP Cost. Eric Vachon, died unexpectedly in the first week of March — just five wecks after the crash. “Obviously you don't count on those sorts of things,” says Terrace RCMP Inspector Marlin “= Degrand, “It took some time for the notes, the measurements and the file he’d- generated on that to be turned over and basically restarted and re- analyzed by another traffic analyst.” All of Vachon’s files were. transferred to Smi- thers RCMP Corporal Pat McTieman, the officer in charge of supervising traffic analysts in the forthwest. of Unforttinately when I: reviewed . these files I __underitood it had been dealt. with,” MeTiernan, a HANNAH KANTOLA poses with fellow actor Adam Kerby after Caledonia Sr. Second- ary’s 2001, production of Crazy For You, says of the collision report, adding he learned later it had yet to be completed. “It was well into June before 1 was able to start reviewing his files.”. ;, Meanwhlle, Ryan says she heard nothing “Continued Page A2.