A16 - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, April 17, 1996

Something Special! | |

Kitimat an unhappy camper = |__Semetting unique

Something Greek!

over education merger deal _| ,,ceckin at Sonsadast

Vegetarian Lasagna

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y

By CRIS LEYKAUF ie

DESPITE A a lot of kicking and screaming from with your choice af i
Kitimat, the merger of the Terrace and Kitimat school “| was a bit angry and felt powerless, a salad. 4
districts is now a done deal. fot like ! felt when Harcourt cancelled Chicken Souvlaki i
The merger was announced last week amidstnews Kemano Il,” said George Nuemann, ~, with Greek salad
of amalgamations of 32 other districts, Kitimat’s school district chair. “and rice. f
By December this year the number of school dis- Caesar Salad Ki
tricts across the province will be 57, down from 75. jtwith our choice
The government’s original target was to.reduce the. . | of vhecbon or é
number of school districts to 37. ' They Il have to figure out ways to merge scniorily " shrimp.
The Terrace school district was supposed to com- ‘sts. There's some tough decisions to make,’’ said ¢
bine with both Stikine and Kitimat under that ar-  Geisbrecht. ¢
rangement. Kitimat school board members seem to be more up- Open 7 days a week ”
But the geographic size of that combined district Set than their Terrace counterparts by the announce- SE Ee ee caren cane taapm i
would have made it unmanageable. ment of the pending merger. 638-1503 4

“I was a bit angry and felt powerless, a lot like | Helmut Giesbrecht 4402 LAKELSE AVENUE, TEARACE, B.C.

sense to a provincial government committee setup to —_‘Felt when Harcourt cancelled Kemano II,’’ said
look at merger issues around the province. George Nuemann, Kilimat’s school district chair.

‘It's not appreciated by me, but it’s certainly not Skeena Liberal candidate Rick Wozney, also the I Y N 1 i
unexpected,’? said MLA Helmut Giesbrecht last jeer” or hana was much more critical. He S our ar oisy? i
week. oesn'l feel there was adequate consullalion with the . .

public, and says the amalgamation is being rushed Bring it to Leron Mufflers and we'll have

“It appears according to the reporl, we were cor- ys
through for political reasons,

ralled in the first screen,’’ he said, meaning that the ) ‘
districts were likely candidates for amalgamation Giesbrecht admitted that not a lot of people arc

from the start. : happy with the news of amalgamation.

Giesbrecht doesn’t think parents will notice any dif- “Nobody likes change,’’ he said. ‘‘The pressure is
ference in the education their children receive. And _ there to do more with less. Less bureaucracy, less ad-
unlike the first amalgamation plan, there will be no — ministration.”
cuts in the budget to spending on special needs or Geisbrecht did add that he wasn’t happy with the
aboriginal students. way amalgamation was presented to the public.

‘‘An upper layer of administration was removed. It _““What troubled most of us was that when the (ini-
shouldn’t make any difference,’’ said Giesbrecht, tial) announcement was made, not a lot of thought

However there will be considerably fewer trustees aS given to the default numbers of position... An
in the new merged district. awful lot of anxicty was caused,’’ said Geisbrecht.

Terrace now has nine trustees while Kitimat has Much of that anxiety was in Kitimat, where the

seven. The new district will likely have seven to nine community is very proud of its school board, he said. i) :
trustees, says Terrace trustee Stew Christensen. “They’re not too happy about changing it. And I 10% off all exhaust work for the month of April.

He admits there is some concem about trustees don’t really blame them,’’ Giesbrecht added. ‘‘But it : : er
being stretched too thin in the new district which will might be nice to have some fresh [aces here (in Ter-
stretch from Stewart to Kemano and from Terrace to race).”’

Bul merging Terrace and Kitimat appeared to make

Open Tuesday - Saturday
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. _

Hazelton. During the first year of amalgamation — 19967/97
The amalgamation also means there will be some the boards will get the same money they did prior to
job losses in administrative offices. Christensen has amalgamation. That will give the boards money to af- LERON MUFFLERS
no idea yet how many jobs will be lost, and how that ford severance pay and buy-out packages.
job loss will be divided betwezn Terrace and Kitimat. Over the following three years, boards will see their 638-16 98
Geisbrecht predicts that at the very least, 11 people budgets increasingly cut, through savings from amal- H
will no longer be required. —_ gamation and other cost-saving measures. De, __ 3342 Kofeod Dr. (Thornhill)

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