go at a roster spot with

Camp season
Standard reporter has a.

the second-year River
Kings\NEWS A5 a"

Eight on the fleor —
Local square dancing club
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for younger recruits |
\COMMUNITY B14

Smashed |
Speedway fans witness
metal carnage on final _
stock car racing day
\SPORTS B4 .

)

ys

$1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST
($1.10 plus 8¢ GST
outside of the Terrace area) |

VOL.T8 NO. 24

By DUSTIN QUEZADA

A DIFFICULT ‘three years for’ school district 82°
- have left many incumbent board trustees choosing

not to run again in November.
Of the nine current trustees, two have decided to

run again, two are undecided, four are not seeking ©

re-election and one didn’t return phone calls.
The board will be losing a lot of experience at a

critical time and no one has more experience than

Peter King of Kitimat.
King says the stress of the last three: years lead

_ him to seek a spot on Kitimat city council rather than
- a sixth.straight term with the school district.

“With the four-day week, school closures, teach-
er layoffs and support staff issues, J was at a point
where I felt I didn’t want to continue (on the board),”
King said.-“And there willbe more cutbacks with a
drop in enrolment.”

King, who said he stayed on the board in 1996 “to

‘fight for Kitimat” when the city was amalgamated

into the district, feels it’s time for new blood. And
it’s too much new blood, or potential inexperience,

Crime rate
here inches.

its way higher

By MARGARET SPEIRS

RECENTLY released crime rate statistics show Terrace’ 's
crime rate is on the rise but still lower than provincial leader

for crime rate — Smithers.

Terrace’s municipal crime rate puts it in 13th spot on the
Municipal Crime Rate Report for 2004, released by the Min-

istry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

_ The crime rate for Terrace was 197 crimes per 1,000
people in 2004, up from 1888 in 2003 and 170 per 1,000
in 2002. It’s also the highest crime rate logged for this city

since 2000.

- Nonethelesss, Terrace’s crime rate falls well behind pro-

that frightens two-term Terrace trustee Hal Stead-

‘ham, who’s undecided but leaning tc toward seeking
‘re-election.

Steadham said he wouldn’t want to walk away
with the problems that face the board.

“If I knew the majority were coming back, impor-

tant decisions would be made,” Steadham said.

The 40-year teacher and administrator said with-
out a background in education iv s hard to under-
stand the issues.

“Tve been forever in education, in the trench-

” added Steadham, 63. “That’s why Dye stuck
around. ”

Barry Pankhurst will seek another term and would
be the board’s longest serving trustee.

He said he also feels experience is essential.

. “We need experience, we need a strong voice in. -
_ Kitimat,” Pankhurst said, who added he’d like to

have a term as chair.
Current chair Lorrie Gowen, from Thornhill, ‘said

“she'll be throwing. her hat in one more time and may
: seek a spot on the provincial council this time, if re=

7

‘School trustees won’t run again .

elected.

Other incumbent Terrace trustees include Diana ©

Penner and.Nicole Bingham- -Georgelin.

Penner, who has served two terms, is undecided.
Penner cited a combination’ ‘of work constrainsts

and a frustration with the government.

. She said her time may be better served in another
avenue. 4

“Before I was a board member, I was active with

~ a PAC (Parent Advisory Council) and I helped with
* the district PAC,” said Penner. . °
‘We’ re coming back to a time when parents need

to be empowered — and it can’t be the same parents
all the time,” added Penner.

As for Bingham-Georgelin, who. couldn’t be
reached for comment, Gowen said her fellow trustee
-wouldn’t be running for a second term.

‘While the last three-years have been a challenge,
new trustees could be starting a term while teachers
are on strike.

“Some (potential trustees) may shy away,” Stead-

.. ham said. “These people have never experienced a-

Wednesday, September 2, 2005

7

teacher’ s strike.”

‘Kitimat’s King said a strike should deter candi- :

dates from stepping forward: &

“ve ‘been through two previous strikes and |
it’s part of what’s necessary to negotiate an agree- —

ment,” King said. _ The. decisions are out of our
hands in any case.” °

“I don’t know how a strike would affect (pro- 7

Spective trustees),” said Gowen. “It’s always dif-

ficult getting people for public service but it’s also

very rewarding.” ;

Despite the stress of the last three years, King
said the present board is like others he has sat on.

“School boards are single minded in their de-
sire to improve education,” King.said. “They may
disagree on the paths, but they all want improve-
ment.”

Dorothy Leuze, of Kitimat, and Hazelton’ s Jes-

“ sica Mikolayczyk will not seek re- -election accord-
ing to Gowen and veteran Stewart trustee Donna -

Caruso could not be contacted.
_ The school board elections are November 19.

Police

a.

SARAH A.
ZIMMERMAN ___..
TERRACE RCMP and the
B.C. Coroners Service are
investigating a .crash on
the Kitselas ‘Road in. north

at dead.
— John “Jack”. Smaha died
after the front.end loader he

Terrace that left a local man

_“vincial crime rate capital Smithers, second place Williams
Lake and 11th place Prince Rupert..Smithers topped the list —

with a crime rate of 279 per 1,000 people, followed by Wil-

cases better off

liams. Lake, whose: population is close to Terrace, at 274.
Prince Rupert reported 202 crimes per 1,000 people last

year.
“We're cer-

tainly no worse -
off and in many

than other hub
or core cities,”
said. Terrace

“We're certainly no worse
off and in many cases, better
‘off, than other hub or core
cities,” - Inspector Degrand

RCMP inspec-
tor Marlin’ De-
grand last week.

. While the crime rates should not be used as an indication
of the relative safety of-one municipality over another, they
are an indicator of the trend in crime in each municipality.

While he can’t speak directly to Williams Lake’s num-
bers, Degrand said in general the higher crime rate could be.
a result of that city having a different dynamic than Terrace

‘with regards to its core population.
_ +The crime rate only considers the permanent resident
population, and not the transient population that visits town
for shopping or to use other services, even though the visi-

tors can affect the amount of crime in a city.

“If a disproportionately high number of people are using
that as a service centre, you see a different dynamic than one
- with only half the people using it,” Degrand said.
Cities such as Sidney and Kitimat are similar in size to
Terrace but aren’t hub cities, which may result in a differ-

ence in their crime rates, Degrand said.

Sidney’s crime rate was 58 crimes per 1,000 people and —

Kitimat numbered 91 for 2004. -
- . The B.C. municipal average is 132 crimes per 1,000 peo-
ple and the province overall numbers 125 crimes per 1,000
people. The crime rate is the number of Criminal Code of-
fences or crimes teported for every 1,000 persons.

month.

Zz Pumpkin patch kids °

NICOLE LOFROTH, 5, and brother Jack, 8, cozy up next to the pumpkins growing in their grandparents
-garden. Not only are the pumpkins abundant this year, some of them, not shown, look to be' tipping the
scales at 200 pounds. The children are looking forward to carving the pumpkins for Hallowe’en next

SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO

Shipping container security firm eyes Terrace

. By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN
A SHIPPING CONTAINER J security
systems manufacturer is taking a serious

look at moving some of its operations to the .

Terrace area.

WayFare Identifiers Ltd., a Calgary, Al-
berta based company, develops security
mechanisms designed to allow shipping

containers flow more directly through secu- .

rity checks.
Last week the company signed an agree-

ment with Alcan that will see it supply

enough aluminum, free of charge, to allow
WayFare to do a 20,000 unit run of the con-

me si ae

tainer security system it’s developed.
The security system, made of aluminum,
is installed on a container and operates using

a radio frequency. If the container has been .
breached anywhere along the line a signal
would be sent out indicating a problem, says .

company CEO David Elderfield, who was in
Kitimat last week to sign the agreement.

' The system is devised to reduce the
amount of times a container needs to physi-
cally be checked as it makes its way to its
destination — as long as no breach is record-
ed, the container can be fast tracked.

“What homeland security in the US and

in the UK wants is to create a Greenlane for
fast tracking,” says Elderfield

“It meets the requirement that homeland.

security in the U.S. requires.”

If the two-year pilot project with Alcan
works out, Eiderfield says the potential to lo-
cate a manufacturing plant in the Northwest

is very good. It would also look at establish- .

ing infrastructure to retrofit older containers
and put the devices on new containers, he

. Says.

And the property at the airport lands i is
one location the company is considering.
“Tt’s not the only location that makes

sense,” Elderfield says. “At this point we’ve
got a couple of different suggestions.

The announcement comes as good news
to a number of people working hard to at-
tract new industry to the region.

Terrace’s Campbell Stewart of the
Kitimat-Terrace Industrial Development
Society first spoke to WayFare about. the
possibility of it locating its operations here
— particularly in light of the announcement
that the Prince Rupert container port is a go.

“We love working with him,” Elderfield
said, adding Stewart was a perfect liaison to

CONT’D PAGE A2
Np

was driving down the steep _
road went off the road and |

down,’a steep embankment .

shortly before 5 p.m. Friday,
Sept. 16.

The 65- year-old Terrace
man was the only person in

. the vehicle at the time of the

accident.

’ Police say a man on a -

walk in the area discovered
the crash scene. and called
the authorities. —

Terrace RCMP, ‘the fire

lance responded wuickly to
the scene,.extracted Smaha
and transported him to Mills.
Memorial Hospital, says

_ Terrace RCMP Const. Bruce

Lofroth.
Smaha died shortly after
arriving to the hospital, he

* said.

Police investigators were
trying to piece together the

events leading up to the.

crash over the weekend.
Crash scene -investigators
examined tire tracks at the
scene.

. department and B.C. Ambu- . ©

“We’re looking for direc- ©

tion of travel and scuffs,”

said Sgt. Don: Murray, as
he examines the loader’ s

“tracks. :

“You can see it weaves.’

The appeared to come —

down the middle of the grav- .

el road, which is fairly steep,

and begin to lead off the
road to the left before veer-
ing sharply across the road
where the loader crashed
down a short, but steep em-
bankment into the bush.

The loader was lifted out
of the gully and removed
from the site Sept. 17.

Police say an autopsy will
be done and a mechanical in-
spection of the machine will
be undertaken in an effort to
shine some light on how the
accident happened.

“Until that happens it’s
all just speculation,” said
Cnst. Lofroth.

Pe
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a .
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