Big hearts Local students achieve a big goal set to honour the life of a fallen classmate’ -\COMMUNITY B1 Search snag Why a judge was forced .to throw out drug and gun charges against alocal man\NEWS A8& Moving on up Skater overcomes. adversity en route to national competition \SPORTS B4 3) $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST. ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) VOL. 7 NO. 50 By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN - THE CITY has abandoned plans for a sportsplex consisting ofa second sheet of ice, retail space and Meeting rooms to go between the current - arena and the aquatic centre.in favour of a smaller ‘and cheaper project to go on the north side of the existing arena. _. City officials cited soaring construction costs, which were way be- yond the original $4 million mark, as the reason for the slimmed down, project. But they estimate the second sheet of i ice will still cost approxi- mately $6.8 million. Part of that new figure. includes $1.8 million fora geothermal heat- ‘ing system for the new sheet of ice as well as the existing arena and . aquatic centre. Although not included in original estimates, the geo- thermal portion is considered an integral part of the planned construc- tion. The city and the regional district are sharing the burden of that - project with the city responsible for two thirds. The revised proposal eliminates additional office space, multi-func- tion rooms and retail lease areas. It also abandons the concept of link- ing all three facilities. “One. of the challenges with that design w was inking it with the ex- surprise delivery. That’ 's dad Brad Lewis at back. isting a arena and the existing pool and that was very expensive, ” says city director of leisure services, Ross Milnthrop. “It's going to be alot easier to ‘link it to the north side of the arena.’ The new: facility will have an NHL-sized, 200 by 85-foot rink, ad- . ditional changing rooms, a viewing, area and as few as 200 seats for’ spectators. The scaled down project is expected to shave $1 million off the inflating costs of the previous plan. ‘With the cost of the building, not including the geothermal system, sitting at a new figure of $5. million, mayor Jack Talstra says new mon- ey coming from the city means there’s enough cash on-hand to begin putting contracts out for tender. The city is now to contribute in the neighbourhood of $500,000. It’s money. that has been returned from the Municipal Finance Authority (MFA), the agency that borrows money on behalf of municiapalities to finance capital projects. The MFA’s ability to pool borrowing results. in lower interest rates. As the municipalities pay back those loans, the ‘MFA ‘is able to reimburse some of it to the municipalities. — . ' “It’s money that’s come back that we haven’t necessarily planned 7 for,” says Talstra. “It’s money that we’ ve gained from capital projects. LITTLE MARSHALL Lewis made a super-fast entry into the world last week. That's 's Jen Hebert (left) who delivered the. healthy five: pound baby in her livingroom when mom Laurel Lewis (right) unexpectedly went into. labour. Both mom and baby were just fine after the SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO Mom, friend surprised by fast delivery 7 | il 7 | 7 Wednesday, March 23, 2005 sity ¢ cuts back on sportsplex plan sO we usually u use it again for capital projects.” -Some of those projects include the building of the: RCMP detach- ment on Eby St. as well as improvements made to the library and aquat- ic centre. In addition to that money, the city may use $83, 000 from the 2004 budget. a So far local “er pups, individuals and businesses have come Lup with a $1 .2 million in donations, commitments or offers of in-kind labour or’ © materials.’ The city also has $3 million available.i in federal-and provin-: cial grants. Combined-with the money from last year’s budget andthe MFA, the city remains approximately $215,000 short and is going to. " renew its appeal for local donations.’ © + “We're confident the fundraising committee will be able to raise an. additional $300,000,” says Milnthrop. - The city has already spent $218, 001.in its project, the majority of - which went to design work on the previous sportsplex plan. Officials expect tenders to-go out within eight to 10 weeks. Tenders will close - “within three weeks of the request for proposals. A groundbreaking ceremony is planned for the. Riverboat Days weekend i in August. " " 5 Board keeps > = four-day week — By DUSTIN QUEZADA : money from the provincial government. per student, bringing the overall grant to $47,208,040. : School trustee chair Lorrie Gowen said detailed informa- _ tion had little impact on the school board’s decision. said last week. Gowen said while the. new provincial money puts the board in the black, it- wasn’t enough to return to five days a week, said even with the additional money, a five-day week would ‘ result in a $1.3-million deficit. While Georges says more money is welcomed, the figure doesn’t tell the whole story. “It sounds rosy on paper, but it’s not the case,” he said. “We have to reduce potential holdbacks.” , ment in special education programs. Last year, the district ‘received $219,000 less'than the government had projected. _ known enrollment for the 2005-06 school year. If the district again sees a drop of at least one per cent, they would receive a government grant to help out. If how- ever, the opposite were to happen, Georges’said the district would lose the grant and have to hire more teachers, cutting. into revenues. trustees who spoke of their experiences during five weeks of meeting with parents. - Those meetings began in early February after the board. circulated four school calendars and their cost. few exceptions, attendance was poor. And that, says Gowen, leads to a grey area. “With (the _- parents) giving their opinions,, it’s probably balanced, but there’s a whole group of people that we haven’t heard from.” _ would have voiced their concerns.” SCHOOL TRUSTEES have voted to. ont ‘closing oe schools one day a week, saying they didn’t get enough new" _ The March 16 decision to keep to a four-day schedule . “came a day after trustees learned they will get an extra $450 - “We kind of knew what those Projections ‘would be,” she - Marcel Georges, the school district’ S secretary treasurer, . Holdbacks refer to provincial money dependent on enroll- . _ Also influencing the actual available dollars is the un- Money wasn’t the only factor, a sentiment echoed by the Parent participation was solicited at 11 meetings but, with she said. “I guess they’re OK with the way things are or they : While financial constraints steered the board to keep the : - By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN WHEN Jen Hebert’s pregnant friend Laurel Lewis came from Stewart to stay with her, she never thought her living room would turn n into a labour room. But that’s exactly what happened March 16 at two o’clock in the morning when Hebert de- livered Lewis’ healthy, five pound baby right in her own home after a very fast delivery. “It was the quickest birth I’ ve ever heard of,” says Hebert, who has three children of her own. “From the time her water broke to holding him ’ was five minutes.” | Lewis was sent to Terrace by ambulance _ March 3 after she experienced some bleeding. The hospital in Stewart is not equipped to deal with delivering babies or monitoring women _with pregnancy related complications. After being released Lewis returned to Stew- art only to experience more bleeding. She re- turned to Terrace again for another check up only this time; she remained in the city. “They wanted me to stay in Terrace, just to be.on the safe side,” says Lewis. For more than a week the two friends joked that Lewis might have the baby at Hebert’ S. -house. “IT said, ‘Laurie I'm not delivering this baby,’” laughs Hebert. Shortly before 2 a.m..March 16 Lewis woke up feeling some pressure. She didn’t think she was in labour and thought she might be able to walk off the pains. It only took a few minutes to realize she was having contractions and they weren’t subsiding. « “All of a sudden, kapow, she just started screaming my name from the bathroom,” recalls Hebert. “She’s like, ‘it’s coming, the head’s there,’ so I got underneath her and sure enough, it was there.” Hebert barely had enough time to gather some towels, phone for an ambulance and help her friend to a recliner in her living room. -“T tell you, you would never know what to do in a situation like that but when it happens you, just go,” Hebert says. ‘It just took one push for the baby to arrive. _ “It’s still even hard to believe,” Hebert says. : “The baby was delivered in my living room, my God!” There was a moment of concern when the women realized the baby’s umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. Since the ambulance had not yet arrived, Hebert inserted two fingers under the cord.and quickly untangled the baby. . “He was clean, he was perfect, good colour everywhere and he had good circulation,” re- calls Hebert. Cont'd Page A2 four-day week, members also heard that the community wanted stability. - If the four-day week meant programs would remain in- tact, schools would not be closed and small class sizes would be preserved, parents were in favour of keeping the modified schedule. “It was the lesser of two evils,” said Mary-Ann Freeman, the district parent advisory committee chair. ‘Most parents ’ would like the five-day week, with things back to normal.” But, Freeman said she understands the reality of budget ° ‘constraints, and when the board announced it wouldn’ tclose. any schools, parents then, assumed the four-day week would be kept.’ "No schools have.been closed since the shorter week was implemented for 2003-04. In the year before the new board _ was elected in 2002, said Gowen, five schools were closed and brand new Mountainview Elementary on n the bench was never opened. - The modified four-day week extends class time each day to match the instructional time students would get under the standard five-day-a-week opening schedule. _ Logging company to start developed to reflect the high pulp content — - of hemlock and balsam in the northwest, means timber in this area is no longer be-. ing appraised based on the interior pricing model where sawlog content is higher. Those areas were reassessed using the new interim pricing system and saw the price plummet back down to what - will begin. immediately. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN * THE KITSUMKALUM band is offi- cially in the logging business now that its ° wholly-owned Kalum Ventures has been issued its first forest cutting permits. The permits mean that work on two cutting blocks located in the Kalum area Ron Bartlett. Up until last week the company was _concemed that it would not be able to start logging because of inflated stump- age rates, says Kalum Ventures CEO. “When we developed these blocks we were told it would be a 25.cent stumpage rate,” Bartlett says. “When we got our fi- nal approval we were appraised on $13 - our break-even point was $5.” Bartlett said the cost - effectively stopped the company in its tracks. ' But the March 15 announcement by | the provincial government that sees the introduction of an interim pricing system { operations: ‘ amounts to 25 cents per cubic metre. “T think it was groundbreaking,” says ‘Bartlett of the long awaited move to a more accurate timber pricing system in this area. The cutting permits mean ini- tial work such as road building can begin right away. Cont’d Page A2