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Kick start

One of the northwest’s
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. _. Film fiesta

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a, film festival returns to
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“VOL. 15 NO. 24.

Wednesday, September 18, 200:

School district deficit heads for $5m

Officials say 408

students are missing

By JENNIFER LANG
OFFICIALS say more than 400
students have left the Coast Moun-
tains School District over the past
year.

That’s about 100 more students than
the district expected to lose over the
summer.

The drop in enrolment since last
September will represent a loss in
‘much as $2 million in operating
money, secretary treasurer Marcel
Georges warned trustees last week.

He fears the district’s anticipated
budget deficit is edging in the direc-

lion of $5 million.

Georges cautioned he will be able
to present a more accurate picture of
the district’s financial status at the
next board meeting in October.

Meanwhile, the district’s director of
instruction wants to finalize staffing
levels this week, something that de-
pends on an accurate student count.

Rob Greenwood said the district
had held off on filling several teaching
positions in case numbers were down
more than expected.

Now it may be necessary to shuffle
more teachers and adjust the size of
some classes.

A head count shows 6,607 students
enrolled as of Sept. 6. That’s down 113
students from June 30.

And it’s down by 408 students from
a head count taken at the start of the
last school year.

More students are expected to re-
turn to class in the senior grades be-
fore the end of the month, when a final
tally is taken on Sept. 30.

School district officials are also
baffled by the fact that as many as 50
former Parkside Elementary students
seem to have disappeared over the
summer,

The primary school was tumed into
a permanent home for the district’s al-
ternate secondary school programs.

Former Parkside students were ex-
pected to enrol at nearby E.T. Kenney.

But curiously, so far just 197 stu-
dents have registered at E.T. Kenney

Primary - nearly 50 fewer students
than thought.

It’s not clear if the missing Parksi-
ders have simply enrolled at other
schools or have left the district entire-
ly.

“If they haven’t gone lacaliy, I
want to know where they are,” Green-
wood said, adding it’s unusual for so
many students to disappear in one
catchment area.

Greenwood said he will be able to
track the former Parksiders using
numbers assigned to each student in
B.C.'s public school system.

The missing stadents don’t appear
to have enrolled at the two indepen-
dent scheols in the Horseshoe neigh-
bourhood in stead of E.T. Kenney.

No one from Centennial Christian
School was able ta confirm student
enrolment by press time, but Green-
wood doubted many of the missing
Parksiders have enrolled there.

Parksiders aren’t packing class-
rooms at Veritas School.

Principal Frances Nuyten said just
two Parkside families transferred their
children to Veritas over the summer.

Student enrolment is up at Veritas
over last year, but Nuyten said the
numbers aren’t explained by the clo-
sure of Parkside.

“T don’t think it’s had that much of
an impact,” she said adding most of
the school’s new students transferred
from other elementary schools in Ter-
race.

Timber
trust
gives up

By JEFF NAGEL
A COALITION of small
timber users is giving up in
disgust in its drive to get
more sympathetic treat-
ment from the forests
ministry. ,

The Skeena Community
Timber Trust .is- disband-
ing, says Richard Lind-
strom, one of its organi-
2ers,

“We felt we were not
making any. progress,”
Lindstrom said. “We found
defiance with every idea
we ever presented to
them.”

Small mil! operators
and others who need wood
in the group have long
been at adds with what
they say is the forests
ministry’s practice of sell-

Special report
@ Cash not jobs to
drive new timber
sales branch. A5
mw Value-added
mills fear timber
loss. A5

ing timber in blocks that
are too large and too ex-
pensive. They say that has
kept that timber away from
them and in the hands of
the big companies.

“Sales are still just too
big,” Lindstrom = said.
“They refuse to bring down
the size of the sales.”

Lindstrom is a typical
example of trust members
- a small scale forest en-
trepreneur who says he
could use his small mill to
produce value-added pro-
ducts if only he could get
reasonable access to wood.

“I’m now driving. a
truck for a living, instead
of doing what I want to be
doing,” he said.

Lindstrom says he’s not
alone.

“T see all kinds of fel-
lows who were self-em-
ployed in the forest indu-
stry who are now working
for someone else,” he
says.

“The rhetoric we got
from the Liberal govern-
ment was that policies
were going to change,”
Lindstrom said, “They've
fallen flat on their face on
that one. Nothing has
changed.”

The province did take

back five percent of..

Skeena Cellulose’s timber
Continued Pg. A13

mg Making a difference
DICK EUVERMAN'S marigolds brighten letter
carrier and Greater Terrace Beautification Society

member Laurie Lindstram's workday. The society
replaced its annual best garden contest with

something that’s lass competitive: a summer-
long appreciation of residential and commercial
gardening efforts. Details B1. JennireR LANG PHOTO

Bars here
want extra
two hours

By JEFF NAGEL
BOTH OF ‘Terrace’s
nightclubs plan to apply
to stay open until 4 a.m.

Closing time at both
Hanky Panky’s.
Gator’s would be
pushed back two hours
if city council approves
the requests.

The province has
made later bar hours
possible - if the local
town gives the okay ~ as
part of major liquor po-
licy changes introduced
this year.

Coast Inn of the West
manager Doug Barrett said
later hours makes sense for
Hanky’s.

“On the weekends, the
pattern today is people
generally do not come out

unti! midnight,” he said..:

“When the lights come on
at 2 in the morning some
people aren't ready to go.”

The current 2 a.m. clo-
sure pushes large numbers
of revelers out into the
streets at that hour, he
said,

“Having that two-hour
extension will make for
more of a slow release,”
Barrett predicted.

Best Western Terrace
Inn manager Dullss Klea-.

also apply.
“Tf one does it we ail
have to do it,” she said.
She also predicted’ less
trouble an downtown

and’

myck said Gator’s will

streets with a more gradual
dispersal of patrons.

Applications aren’t pos-
sible until December,
meaning the decision will
be among the: first facing
the new council after No-
vember’s election.

George’s Pub at the
Northern Motor Inn in
Thornhill will also apply
for 4 a.m, closings,. said
assistant manager Darryn
Eves.

He predicted the bar
would only stay open until

“Having that
two-hour exten-
sion will make for
more of a slow
release,”

4 am. a handful of acca-
sions a year — not every
weekend.

“We may use it once in
a year or 10 times a year,”
he said.

Eves said it likely
wouldn't be too much
hassle to do all the time,
because of staff scheduling
and dealing with difficult
patrons, -

“By 2:00 most people
have had their fill,” Eves
said. “I think there are
going to be problems be-
tween 2 and 4,”

The Kitimat-Stikine re-
gional district would de-
cide any application by
the Northern Motor Inn.

Smelter pays extra for its power

Critics say Alcan has used creative accounting to help manufacture a crisis in Kitimat

By JEFF NAGEL
ALCAN watchers are getting little
assurance the company won't try
to do what the region fears — sell
more and more power at the ex-
pense of northwest jabs.

Alcan’s B.C. corporate affairs
director Richard Prokopanko
spoke at a business luncheon here
Thursday, but didn’: calm the
storm of controversy surrounding
the company’ 8 plans, .

“I can’t stand before you here

and tell you we'll never sell

power again,” Prokopanko told
chamber- of -cortimerce: members

at the golf course, “We are cer:
tainly looking at opportunities that

allow us to be flexible.”

“It’s a business that’s looking
at all its options.”

He maintained Alcan was leg-
ally within its rights to sell power
over the past two years,

“We believe Alcan is opera-
ting within the legal constraints of
the [1950] agreement,” he said.
“We realize this does not make
the community happy.”

Prokopanko stid Alcan. will
consult ‘the community once it has

a better idea of its future direction .

in Kitimat.

“We dof’t: have: anything to:

say about wliat those options are.
We can speculate: =. shut .the

whole thing down and sell power,
or make the biggest smelter
you’ye ever seen. Those are all
options.”

The company is ramping alu-
minum production back up to 87
per cent capacily after having cut
it to 50 per cent in the past couple
of years because of low water and
its desire to sell. power to B.C.
Hydro.

That, plus documents revealing

Alcan wants to become a power -
seller, prompted Kitimat council »
- to. raiseé:an-alarm over the issue. -

~The town - fears. the company:
wiil sell as‘much power as Victor-

ia - which controls B.C, Hydro - -

will allow. .

Given free rein, Kitimat offi-
cials say, Alcan could build an
efficient new smelter that uses
much less electricity to produce
slightly more aluminum. The
company could then export a
large amount of power, but up to
1,000 fewer workers might be em-
ployed in the new ameitet.. —

The town has pushed the pro-
vince to block power sales, for-
cing Alcan to use its Kemano
power to make aluminum. They

- predict the smelter would then be
“febuilt to use ali-the energy, pro-
duce nittch more aluminum, and

Continued Pg. A8

Richard Prokopanko