mbers, numbers Hard wired hospital beds will stay - open\NEWS A10 Debate renewed over how many . in shape the information The library is the latest. on- ramp to | highway\COMMUNITY B21 Female athletes hope many hours of training will soon pay off\SPORTS BS WEDNESDAY JULY 24, 1996 THERE WON’T be any new jobs created should Repap take over the Orenda Forest Products wood licence, says a senior company official, Repap B.C. president Harry Papushka says assuming control over Orenda’s 342,000 cubic metre licence will in- stead provide security of supply for Repap’s Prince Rupert pulp mill, And that means continued employment for the 240. people who work at one of the pulp mill’s two processing facilities, he said. Papushka made the comments in advance of this weekend’s public hearings into Repap’s proposed take over of Orenda and its licence, The comments are based on Repap being the main histor- ical buyer of Orenda pulpwood for its Prince Rupert opera- tion. The relationship and continued employment at Prince Rupert are the foundations for Repap’s pitch to seeking ap- -§ TAND Wood deal cal Skeena MLA Helmut Giesbrecht wants more jobs if Repap gets approval to take : over Orenda. Meanwhile, Repap officials say there’s nothing to the rumours that their financially troubled company is up « for sale, For those stories, see Page A5. proval from the provincial government to take over Orenda’s licence. ‘*We are proposing to maintain the levels of employment that are there now, subject to technological change,’’ said Papushka. '“This is a status quo type of thing.” Losing the Orenda wood would not only cause the loss of 240 jobs at Repap’s Prince Rupert pulp mill but have economic impacts stretching into the interior of the nortk- Hiking familiar heights A HINT OF SUNNY SKIES was all it took to send these hikers scrambling to enjoy the great outdoors. This snowfield is high atop Thornhill Mountain, along the popular Vicky's Trail. If you'd listed jn the Parks and Recreation guide. fike to find out more about local trails, cantact the hiking club, 936 PLUS 76 GST VOL.9NO.15 led ‘status quo’ west, he added. Orenda’s licence is in the Meziadin area and provides employment for loggers and suppliers from Terrace Up to. Stewart, . A takeover by Repap of Orenda would end an uncasy business relationship between the two companies, Because Repap depends upon Orenda wood for its Prince Rupert pulp mill it wasn’t a big fan of Orenda’s plans to build its own pulp and paper mill. Those plans, put forward in the late 1980s and early 1990s, ultimately failed when Orenda couldn’t raise the money it needed. Repap vigorously opposed a proposed sale of Orenda last year to.a New York group, That group wanted to use Orenda’s wood to re-open a clased pulp mill on Vancouver Island. : Cont'd Page A2 summertime still possible WE'RE GOING to have to warm up to a sheaf of statistics in the hopes of having some kind of summer. _ That's the word from the Terrace airport weather office following the setting July 18 of a record for the coldest maximum temperature for that day, The mercury reached just 11.6 degrees that day, the coldest high record since the weather office began keeping track in 1956. And 26.8mm of rain fell that day, breaking a- record going back to 1970 when 14.2mm poured out of the sky, _ ‘Just awful — the coldest and the wetiest in comparison to the week before,” said the weather office's Dan. Mor- rison. The news is even worse because we’re now through the three weeks after the summer solstice, the time period for the hottest days of the year. But there is hope, says Morrison, if you want to bank on the statistical record. “For all of July, the hottest days on record were at least 30 degrees,’? he said. ‘‘And in August, the maximums for all but four days were at least 30 degrees or more,’ “Based on that there’s a month to get some heat in for us to have a chance at a summer,’’ Morrison added, Petition sent off THE PUNJABI community has asked education minister Moc Sihota to tell School District 88 to offer Punjabit lan- guage classes. Representatives of the Punjabi community met with school district officials a number of times this spring, as- king that Punjabi language classes be taught this fall. They didn’t receive a definitive answer. So now the Punjabi community is appealing to Sihota, The community says it has met the criteria sct out by edu- cation ministry in order to offer these classes — a suffi- cient number of Punjabi-speaking students, strong. com- munity support and sufficient resources. ‘It is time for the school board to recognize the contri- butions and achievements of our distinct community... and treat us fairly on an cqual basis by giving us what is right- fully ours,” reads the petition. It was signed by over 50 people. Harry Papushka A single little driveway THE CITY and the highways ministry have reached a com- promise over access from Keith Ave. to a planned bulk food stare. It’s now up to the Real Canadian Warehouse Club to decide if the compromise is acceptable far its development on property behind the Kemmodei Trading Company building. At issue is the ability of drivers coming from the east and west to be allowed unrestricted access to the property. Cily officials wanted one access In the middle of the property, allowing a full range of left and right hand tums for entering and leaving. Highways officials disagreed, saying it wasn't desirable or safe to have unrestricted entry or departure, They instead said only traffic heading east could enter from the access point by turning right and exit only by turning right. Left hand traffic - traffic coming in westbound - could turn left at existing access streets along Keith. But city officials countered, saying they wauld block off potential access to Keith from Cramer and Keefer - on the bounda- ries of the property. They also said a traffic light at Kalum would stop tratfic com- ing from the west, making it safe for traffic coming from the east to turn left, The impasse - fueled by city council.speculation that Real Canadian Warehouse Club might walk away from the project - lead to two meetings between the city and the highways ministry last week. The result is a deal that might be called a three-quarters compromise. There will be one direct access to the property allowing right hand tums in from the west, right hand tums out to the east and Tete hand tums out to the west. But traffic coming in from the east will have to tur left at Kerr, just to the east of the property, and right again behind the ~ chamber of commerce building for access to the food store. Regional highways director Jon Buckle called his ministry's position on access a “watershed” for other potential developments on Keith, Unrestrictea access would compound existing traffic problems on Keith and create a precedent for future problems, he said, But Tetrace mayor Jack Talstra used the second of the two meetings, held July 19, to give Buckle and other highways ministry _ Officials a-tongue lashing in laying out a series of grievances bel- ween the city and the ministry over Keith Ave. “This is all bull shit, There’s nothing wrong with access in and out,” said Talstra, “We don’t have a Vancouver humungous traffic situation in this community. ] don't know. why we're here quite frankly. We don'L need the whole bloody council here,” Talstra told the highways officials their ministry had the opportunity several years ago to divert Hwy 16 traffic around Keith through various routes, including another overpass west of town near Skeena Sawmills, but failed to act, “People have been killed on our (Sande) overpass and nobody remembers that," he said. “You can spend $1 million for a huge bridge across the Nass for 200 people and build a bridge in Hazelton for 500 people but you can’t put an overpass in Terrace to serve 10,000 people,” Talstra continued, ; That Nass bridge reference was the construclon last fall of a ~ bridge to Gitwinksihlkw.-. And now, said. Taistra, there’s nothing wrong with the city's access 9 suggestion for what he called a “sin ble hitle dilveway.” WORKERS SCRAMBLED to repair a broken water line on Kelth Avenue In front of A & W last week. Too bad they had to tear up the nice, new pavement.