- Local police statisti 1,000 long-term residents in the ‘Terrace-Thornhill area will at some point become a victim of crime. The © nature of the crimes vary from:stolen bicycles and parking lot hit-and-run fender benders to assault and i“ fraud, but most of these victims have little prior con- - tact with the justice system and are unprepared for the — process they have to go through. 8 _”- When former B.C. Attorney General Brian Smith announced start-up funding for the Terrace Victim Assistance Program, he said the experiencé’of going _ through police investigations andthe courts is often . more traumatic for the victim. than.the original crime was. With the local Victim Assistance Program on the verge of being launched, it looks like things will be much different in the future for local peoplé who wind — up on the receiving end of criminal acts. —_ Constable Ewen Harvie, who built the program ‘ from the ground up, and Karen Walker, the program coordinator, have put together more than a dozen. dedicated volunteers to act as hands-on counsellors. These people have just finished a rigorous training _ course that spanned 12 weeks and involved nine inten- sive seminars covering everything from-police and court systems to the proper method of: notifying next- of-kin in accidental death situations. To'their credit, and the community’s benefit, only one dropped out. - The point we're leading up to is that this program is. _ - only one example of the permanent stamp that Ewen - Harvie has left on this area in his capacity as RCMP. community relations and crime. prevention officer. His. accomplishments: are too numerous to relate in this space, but we're left with a vivid image of the 1988 © ’ graduation ceremonies at Caledonia Senior Secondary ‘School, when after his address to the grads the entire student body gave him a standing ovation. That mo-. | - ment speaks volumes about the effectiveness of his ap- _ proach. Oo , ° Fwen announced this week that he’s leaving Terrace for Kelowna in August. It’s an announcement we've . been expecting in view of the RCMP’s. rotation policy. - "This is a time of year when people do a lot of mov- ing around,.and hardly an issue of this newspaper. has gone by-in recent weeks in which we haven’t been bid- ding farewell to someone who has made a substantial * contribution to the quality of life here. Maybe that’s - inevitable, but let’s hope that Terrace continues to im- prove in the areas that make it an attractive place to” live so that we can keep these sorts of people around a bit longer. - ; Established May 1, 1985 Second-class mall The Terrace Review is published registration No. 6896. each Wednesday by- All material appearing In the Terrace Review is protected under Canadian copyright Registra- tlon No. 342775 and cannat legaily be repro- duced for any reason without permission of the Close-Up Business Services Ltd. . publisher. ; Publisher: Errors and omisalons. Advertising is accepted Mark Twyford on the condition that in the event of + Editor: . typographical error, that portion of the advertis- . ’ ; ing space cocupies by the eronecus item will _ Michael Kelly not be charged oF, but the balance of ine adver: wi te. Staff Reporter: Advertisers muse ‘ssaume vonporsibitity or or Sone Tod Strachan rorein any tlaasitied a which Is supplied to the “>” Advertising Manager: aes tiene with the B.C oT Aon Rights Act - Mar} Twyford No advertivement will be eiplienad which : ; discriminates egainat a person due to age, race, ' Typesetting: rallgion, color, sex, nationality, ancestry or place” < Qarrle Olson of origin. “Production Manager: 4535 Greig Avenue, Jim Hail Terrace, B.C. 3 Production: V8G 1M7 po. Alvin Stewart, Phone: 635-7840 . Gurbax Gill, Linda Mercer _ Fax: 635-7269 eRe Office: Ur - Carrie Olson year subscriptions: a Accounting: 6 In Conade $24.00 _ a . m ia 350. ‘id. Mar) Twy ord ‘ Seniors In Terrace and District $12.00 Harminder Dosanjh Seniors out of Terrace and District $15.00 és indicate’ that 244 out of every. Cs |- agendas.. res | ABE REACTING TO A CRISIS ns NTT THEIR USUAL LOW — | Yey RESTRAINT... by Bob Jackman v Wednesday = —. Perspectives Din-Din the chicken, who turned out to be a rooster, is . doing well! You may remember Din-Din, dragged home from ‘ who-knows-where by Oscar. the Cat. Well; I didn’t have the heart to make good on the threat that gave him his name, and he finally moved on to the neighbor’s, who evidently buys a better brand of cat food than I do. . oe He still wanders over from time to time, but the back porch pickings are kind of slim ‘these days. Din-Din has been crowing his brains out every morning at about 6:00, but sleeps in till 7:05 most Satur- days. You can catch his per- - formance daily around the Braun’s Island end of Medeek. @ When I started writing this column in late November, | had hoped to provide some in- telligent commentary on our municipal government. I think the editor and publisher ex- pected the same. The first two paragraphs above may be an indication that I occasionally slip from that lofty objective. It’s funny, but the passage of time has helped to broaden my. perspective, When you sit around a Council Table for four years with the same peo- ple, give or take a couple, you begin to live and breathe municipal politics. Nothing else _ seems important, unless it has - some kind of impact on the City. Away from the table, in the real world, all kinds of things are important — things you neglect or take for granted or. ignore to avoid information overload when you’re carrying around five poutids of Council and Committee minutes and Bob says goodbye to deadlines. Things like Doug Small, the reporter who released the budget information that Michael Wilson’s staff screwed up on, being taken to. court. Talk about overkill! Things like the recent I[WA-environmental- ist standoff on logging the Car- manah Valley, which must have the NDP pretty badly flustered. It had to happen eventually — you can’t base a party platform on catering to special interest groups and expect that they'll never conflict. Things like the steroid in- quiry, where so far everyone has been dumped on but the people who really deserve it — the executive of the Sports Federation who locked the other way instead of acting, until it was too late. Mean- while, the City of Terrace violates WCB shoring regula- tions, which must send a thessage of some kind to local contractors. One of the things that’s been bothering me lately is the transfer of power from. our elected representatives to the courts. Every recent decision . that took any guts — Sunday shopping, abortion, even the. ‘budget leak case — has been turned over to the courts © because our politicians don’t. _ have the intestinal fortitude to take a stand on any issue that might -be the least bit con- tentious. It’s bad enough onthe municipal level, where there __, doesn't seem to be the political _ will to make a couple of funda- mental changes that could save the City thousands of dollars. But when you see the stuff that’s happening out of Ottawa (I guess you could divide 28 million or so people by 10,000 _ to get an idea of the scope of it), it has to make you wonder why we even bother to vote. Which, by the way, hardly any- body did in the recent school board election — and this con- cerns our own kids, Even where we should be able to make a difference, at the local level, the vast majority seem to — have given up hope. That’s kind of saddening, isn’t it? When I started writing the - column, I thought it might make a difference. I thought it might at least provoke our City Council into doing something to bring some management to the $8,000,000 business they’re " running at City Hall. I thought it would provide a better in- sight into what’s really happen- - ing than what I'd perceived as bias in another media outlet. Instead, it’s provided a little entertainment value, and unfor- tunately at times taken on aspects of a borderline slugfest. There’s a vast world of op- portunity out there, with a host - of positive, caring, interesting . people to talk to, to associate with, and to learn from. I think I’Il-join it. I’m taking an indefinite leave of absence -— from deadlines. This is-my last column for'a-while.) -: 250".