rr, Just radical Gim remembered Not everybody’s enthused about: progress being made ona skateboard park\NEWS A5 Off to Kamloops Restaurateur provided comfort and support to many people. COMMUNITY B1 Area seniors fine tune them- selves for their annual summer games\SPORTS B7 WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28, 1996 Local reps will ask Victoria for a better restructure package By JEFF NAGEL VICTORIA is going to have to loosen its purse strings if it wants to see Thornhill and Terrace amalgamate. Mayor Jack Talstra says he needs some- thing that he can take to the taxpayers of Terrace as a reason why they should vote for restructuring. So far, he and his fellow councillors see the offer tabled last week by Victoria as one that might jack Terrace property taxes and produce little or no benefit in return. “We don’t see a carrot in here for the Terrace taxpayer,’* Talstra said, ‘I really’ m Details of the offer tabled by the province, Page A13 m The road ahead: Local reps will press for more, Page A14 can’t see anything in this package that would act as an inducement” Thornhill incorporation by itself still remains an option, and one that politicians are careful nat to trash. But most privately agree that amalgama- tion is the most sensible route for the long term. The package offers grants of $50 per head in Terrace and $250 per head in Thornhill and rural areas. That amounts to a total of $1.9 willion to ease the transition if the area voies to amalgamate. It also offers: lg Grants to help cushion dic blow of a $1.3 million hike in annual police costs that ; Tesult when a community’s population hits 15,000. Wi About $2.25 million in subsidies for road works in Thornhill, plus a five-year holiday from road maintenance cosis in Thomhill. And a high priority for grants for sewer and water projects in Thornhill. But virtually every element of the deal is geared towards securing votes in Thomhill. Missing from the offer are a series of im- 93¢ PLUS 7¢ GST “VOL. 9 NO, 20 provements within Terrace that were part of the “‘wish list’’ tabled last year by the Ter- race area restructure committee. They in- clude sewer and water projects, help to rebuild Lanfear Hill and Crown land, such as the airport lands, Tuming over land, in particular, says Tal- stra, would give Terrace politicians some- thing to go back to their voters with. “If you don’t have money, give us land,’” Talstra says. He also wants to see the per capita grant hiked to the maximum levels of $100 and $300 per head for Terrace and Thomhill respectively, That would bring in an extra $800,000 in transition money, Continued Page A14 Jack Talstra One su anc ut sAcle BALANCE, STRENGTH AND SKILL — That's what's needed to com the Skeana Valley Fall Fair. That and some tuck In the case of the | competitors end up in tle drink, That's Gerry Lambert, ls his fifth year In the competition. There's Community Grounds, The exhibit hall features flower arran arts and crafts and a photography display. There's also of showing the best of their goats, cattle, sheap, poultry, ing place all weekend, with dressage, jumping and flat classes, plus a gymkhana on.Sunday. Plus a great crowd pleaser — the heavy horse pull on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, High flying reason for By BRIAN MCNAIR IF YOU SAW a bright light in the sky ear- lier this month, and wondered if your im- - agination was still on overdrive from the movie /rdependence Day, then you weren't alone. " That bright light was likcly one of the most common explanations for mysterious Oying objects — a wealher balloon. ‘On Saturday, Aug. 10 at 10:40 p.m. a bright ycllow light was seen south of Ter- race moving silently in a northeast direc- tion. The light was as bright as Venus and moved at the speed of a small aircraft, but there was mo engine noise, This same strange light has been reported in this area before, but this time I was able to nail down a probable explanation. High altitude weather balloons are released regularly from Port Hardy, An- nette Island, Whitehorse, and a few other locations around the province. These bal- loons are made of white rubber and are six balloon night light feet in diameter at ground level and expand as they go higher into the atmosphere, eventually bursting and falling back to earth. One of these balloons was launched from Port Hardy at 5 p.m. and could casily have reached £8,000 feet altitude where there was a 90km per hour northeast jet stream wind, This wind would allow the balloon to travel the 429km distance to Terrace in about five hours. If you allow for variations in wind speed, this would place the balloon over Terrace at about 10:30 p.m. At this altitude the sun would still be reflecting light off the balloon’s white sur- face and would appear as a bright yellow light, traveling northeast at 90km per hour. Which is exactly what was seen on that night, Brian MeNair is a field researcher for MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network. Its volunteer members track down reasons for unexplained things seen in the skies. Land rezonings worry the mayor THE MAYOR is worried that too much residential land is being rezoned for single- family housing. Jack Talstra raised the issue last Thursday and asked city planner David Trawin to keep an eye on the possible shortage of multifamily residential land. “We seem to be rezoning things just about every week,’ Talstra said during the planning committee meeting at which two more properties were rezoned from mural to RI (single family), “Are we getting out of whack?” Counciilor David Hull said it’s not sur- prising that the proportion of single-family housing here is much greater than other places. He said It’s the dream of virtuaily every young couple to have their own home on its own lot, and this relatively uncongested area is the place that dream can come true. But Talstra said he’s just retumed from vacation and housing prices seem to be ag high hexe as nearly any other place in the province except Vancouver. , ‘At some point people can’t afford this,”’ Talstra said, Trawin said he shares the mayor's con- cem about multi-family land, adding that’s why he opposed one requested rezoning earlier this year on the bench. *l’'m starting to get a bit concerned about the amount of multifamily land available,’’ he said, ‘‘We are keeping an eye on it,’”’ Trawin said it’s not the only category that’s a problem, though. “We are getting short of commercial and | we are getilng short of light industrial,”’ he said. ‘“We will have a problem with light industzial if we keep changing it to com- mercial,” Councillor Val George said it seems there’s no point in having an Official Com- munity Plan, as it’s rarely followed. Relocated ghost bear returns to old haunts HE’S BACK, . The ghostly white Kermodei that haunted a Terrace family several weeks ago is up to his old tricksagain, despite having been relocat- ed more than 100 kilometres from here. pete in the Loggers Sports event at og burling evant, where most of the practicing for the obstacle pole bucking event. This plenty of other events going on this waekend at the Thornhill gaments, home produce and baking, plus an plenty of action at the 4H barn, with youngsters pigs and rabbits. And don't miss the horse show, tak- The Middleton family lives across the street from the Terrace landfili. For weeks earlier thls summer, they were harassed by a big white bear until it was trapped by conser- vation officers, But four weeks later, the bear’s returned to his old haunts, “We were havitig a barbeqté.at my heigh- bour’s place the other night and he decided to: joln us,” says Doug Middleton, “He just isn’t: afraid of people.” . Bears are usually destroyed by conserva- tion officers if they return to. their human- haunting ways, Bo Bas But officer Ken Fujino says this is a special case, ca aa “With Kermodeis we take an extra meas- ure,”’ he says. “He'll get another chance,” : So CO's have set up a variety of traps at the Middleton Farm to catch the bear, Once they have him, the officers hope to fly the bear to a remote location. ' os “We only do this for-special bears," says Fujin, “And Kermodeis are special.”