Hs official Viore needed Years of speculation i is over. as” tire-kickers probe Repap’s many assets\NEWS A7 | . The demand for foster parents remains strong and here’s one Ski mag features the many attributes of Shames Mountain and loves it\SPORTS B5 local story\COMMUNITY B1 WEDNESDAY | OCTOBER 16, 1996 TANDARD | 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST VOL, cS) NO, 27° First shots fired in city election By JEFF NAGEL EIGHT CANDIDATES will vie for six city council seats and councillor Gordon Hull will challenge Jack Talstra for the mayor’s chair, And races are also underway for the Thormbill and Terrace seats on the new amalgamated Coast Mountain school board, as. well as for the Thornhill seat on the regional district board. New candidates who filed in the final two days before nominations closed Fri- day include: @ Linda Hawes, who is active on the Chamber of Commerce executive, man- ager of Vic Hawes Optometry, and was campaign manager for Liberal candidate Rick Wozncy during the provincial elec- tion, Mi Former logger and sportfish- ing/environmental activist Bruce Hill, who is president of the Steelhead Society of B.C. M@ Ron Vanderlee, the 41-year-old area manager of Pacific Northern Gas. @ And incumbent city councillor David Hull, who filed his papers Friday morming. They join new contenders Tim Down and Jim Fraser, and incumbent council- lors Rich McDaniel and Val George — all of whom had filed by early last week. Yows from left-wing organizers to field a slate of candidates failed to pro- duce results by the close of nominations, Mayor Talstra said he was prepared to face an opponent from the left, but is surprised to be facing a challenger from further to the right —- namely Gordon Hull. “IT was a bit surprised that he decided to run because his constitutency is the mw School board, RD candi- dates set, Page A2 m Ali candidates forums planned, Page A2 same as my constituency,” Talstra said. “But there’s a rule that says you’ve gol to watch your back and your front at the same time.”’ He said Hull would be ‘‘as capable as anyone else’’ to do the job of mayor. But Talstra said he believes his experi- ence would help guide the way for a new council, particularly since it will consist of at least three new faces and each transition takes time. Talstra said he views his strength as being his ability to keep council on track and working together rather than inter- vening often in the debate himself. "It’s often what you don’t do as much as what you do do, that’s important,?’ Talstra said in defence of his more hands-off approach. Talstra also alluded to the stormy council sessions of the early 80s, adding “he those ‘‘cantankerous’’ council ses- sions tend to be less productive than the more steady measured approach of the current council. “T am a little nervous about those times retuming to city council,’ Talstra said. Gordon Hull, who distinguished him- self as a councillor prepared to speak his mind when he opposed the second sheet of ice referendum last fall, said if he is’ elected mayor he would encourage coun- cil to take tough stands and not be cowed Farmer wary of wolves A LIVESTOCK guard dog is back on duty after being attacked by a pack of wolves two weekends ago. But since trapping the wolves isn’t really an option, it’s up to her and her owner, to protect their herd. Ted Hamer recently lost by vocal protests. He suggested his fellow councillors have occasionally been ‘‘intimidated’’ by large delegations and then have failed io act in the interests of the entire city. ‘"We’re there to represent everybody in the community,”’ he added. Hull, who lives in Thornhill, said he expects both his residency aad the pros- pects of Thorahill-Terrace amalgamation will be non-issues in the campaign. But he did suggest efforts to allow a private developer to build a second sheet of ice might be an issue again. ‘We're still spending taxpayers dol- lars,’’ he said. “If you get into an agreeement like thal, you want to make sure it’s a sound agreement and that it will work.” Volers go to the polls on Saturday, Nov. 16, Hard-boiled judge clears court lists By DAVID TAYLOR A SENIOR judge has blasted local lawyers for what he calls unacceptable delays in the court system here, Associate Chief Justice Patrick Dohm said the delays had gotten so bad that several criminal cases were dismissed because they had been waiting too long to be heard. Calling the backlog a ‘‘semi-crisis situation,’’ Dohm has two calves and a cow to walves in Dutch Valley, just north of town. So 4 when he heard howls coming from a field near his house, he grabbed his gun went out to check on the herd. That’s when his § dog Molly was attacked by the pack. Hamer shot high into the group, because he saw his dog was down. The wolves scattered, leaving Molly bleeding in [" the dirt. ‘They got her in the neck and in the leg,” Hamer says of his pet, a large Hungarian cattle dog called a Cuvass. “She lay down on the kitchen floor and bled all night, but she’s feeling better now,’”" Hamer asked conserva- tion officers for help with the animals, but they can offer little assistance. “Pye talked to some ‘| trappers and they said it was next to impossible to trap wolves,”’ says con- servation officer James Hilgemann. ‘‘And we don’t want to have to put out poison, so Ted is going to deal with this @ . | himself.” * ~} Hamer says he is sur- prised to see the wolves out so early in the fall. WOLF ATTACK victim Molly” gets some sympathy from Dutch Valley farmer Ted Hamer, wha's lost a number of cattle to the predators in recent weeks. ordered continous sittings of the Supreme Court until next June to speed things along. ‘Nowhere clse in ihe province is it as bad as this one,” he said to a meeting of lawyers here in July. A transcript of that meeting reveals Dobm’s frustration with what’s becn going on here, ‘For a place like Terrace, where you have a number of lawyers and where you have a fine court facility, I cannot understand why the system has been let down. Why these cases have not been dealt with ina timely way,’’ he said. Dohm told the lawyers that he had cancelled all of their court dates, and reset tem to speed the cases through. ‘You may think [’m being hard-boiled,’’ he said. “You can think that all you like,,.”’ The Associate Chief Justice said that he had not been aware unlil recently of just how huge a court backlog there was in Terrace. According te Dohm, the court system in the city had broken down, and he had to do something, “We have reached the end of wailing,’’ he said, Supreme Court usually only sees cases in Terrace inter- miltently — for a couple of weeks every two months. But Dohin bas called for a ‘'blitz”’, bringing up a new judge from Vancouver every (wo weeks to sit bere until all the cases have been dealt with, Dohm went on to explain that two other judges recently had to disiniss charges in Terrace because of case delays, Those dismissals stemmed from applications that seek to quash court proceedings on the basis that excessive delays violate an accused person’s right to a speedy trial, guaran- teed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Dolim was clearly not pleased with the situation and placed some of the blame on the lawyers. “Ttis a black mark on the system and you are part of the system as lawyers,’’ he said. Dohm was most amazed that the Terrace court had amassed nearly half a year of upcoming criminal trial days. “You have previously set 164 criminal working days for Terrace,’’ he sald. ‘‘What else do you do here? it sounds like this is a bechive of criminal activity.” Dohm even went as far as to apologize to the citizens of Terrace for the unacceptable delays. Continued on Page A2 Tenants unite against local landlord By CRIS LEYKAUF A GROUP OF Terrace renters has banded together to try and force their landlord into making repairs and up- grades to their rental units. They’re making an application for a joint arbitration hearing with the residen- tlal tenancy branch, The residential tenancy law was just recently changed to allow renters to act together, and this is the first time it's been used in Terrace. “Tv’s about time,’? says Roseanne Pearce, a residential tenancy advocate with the Terrace Anti-Poverty Group.: She says there are about six of seven sub-standard rental properties in town, an she’s hoping this new law will force landlords to fix them up. Tenants have been afraid to act indi- vidually in the past she says. “They're leery of being harassed or even evicted,’? she says, And with Ter- race’s chronically low vacancy rate, there aren’t many places for tenants to go if they’re forced out of an apartment, Even if a tenant does convince a jand- lord to. make repairs or upgrades, then that’s just one unit that's been improved, says Pearce. She won't name the eight tenant or the landlord. The apariments in question are the Woodlands Apartments on Kalum St, owned by Lloyd and Linda Wittkowski. They say they have been busy doing upgrades to the furnaces in the apartment building, and therefore might have fallen behind on repairs latcly. “We do what we can and sure, some of the repairs don’t get done right away,’’ says Linda Wittkowski. Sometimes tenants aren’t willing to let the building manager into their apart- ment when they’re not home, and if hey work all day, repairs can get delayed, She also complained of teaants who wrecked the inside of their apartments with all night parties, and rough-housing. She complained of doors which had been ripped off, broken or left hanging. ‘Why should the manager have to go in after supper to fix something they have probably done themscives?’’ she asks. ‘‘it’s very frustrating being a land- lord, I'll tell you that.’ However, the tenants tell a different story, Pearce says the tenants repeatedly asked to have repairs donc, and at the best have teceived makeshift repairs in response. She said tenants allege they are living wilh plastic vapour barrier instead of drywall on the ‘ceiling, backed up sewer sysiems and busted windows, And in the meantime, says Pearce, the landlord is raising the rent while the tenants are suffering. Wiltkowski says she and her husband haven't raised the rent for three years. Pearce is still-in the process of helping tenants gather evidence for their -case, and she’s hoping even more renters might be persuaded to join them. Pearce plans to ask for the arbitration hearing by the end of this month. The hearing would be held via confer- ence call with the residential tenancy branch in Prince George. Pearce hopes to have the repairs or- dered and the rent reduced until the repairs are done. The residential tenancy branch would assume the role of the Jondlord during this time, and collect the rent cheques. That way if the repairs are not done in a timely fashion, the tenancy branch would use the rent money to pay for them Itself. ‘‘There is strength in in. num- bers,”" she says.