What. it all means:

Find out how the Chretien govern-
ment’s spending plan affects you
and your money.\NEWS A5 -

Laugh yourself silly
Terrace Little Theatre's production

of “Suitehearts” will make you
howi!\COMMUNITY B1

The Midas touch

Everything they touch is golden —
Terrace’s junior curlers win at the
B.C. Winter Games\SPORTS B5

WEDNESDAY
March 8, 2000

S

$1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST
($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outulde of the a
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_ VOL, 12'NO, 48

Fears raised over school start

By ALEX HAMILTON
SCHOOL DISTRICT administrators
hope a replacement for aging Skeena
Junior Secondary won't be delayed be-
cause of some missing paperwork.

The school board iast April changed
ils mind on where it wanted to build
the 650-student replacement.

Although the education ministry
gave its approval for one of two loca-
tions, on the bench or on the current
Skeena Junior site, the board came up
with a new one — beside Caledonia
Senior Secondary.

However, the paperwork asking the
education ministry to approve the new
location can’t be found.

“It’s true. We’ve lost 10 months be-

Cat, dog

cause the ministry approval is still
based on the original motion that [the
new schoo} will be built on the Skee-
na site or on the bench,” said school

. district secretary treasurer Marcel

Georges last week.

“Reprettably there was no letter
from the [school board] chair sent to
ihe ministry to get approval for the
school to be built on the Caledonia
site.”

School district acting superinten-
dent Sharon Béedle says she under-
stood that the paperwork was, in fact,
completed last year and sent to the
ministry.

“We don’t know where that paper
was lost,” Beedle said. We've been

trying to track it but we can’t find it.”
A new school, which could cost as
much as $11,6-million, is needed ta
replace 45-year old Skeena Junior
Secondary School, which is rundown
and needs extensive work. |
Trustees voted to build the new re-

placement school beside Caledonia to

offer students more course options.

Having the school next to Caledo-
nia would allow all students to share
old and new facilities, eliminating the
need for two music rooms or two auto
shops.

The school board recently short lis-
ted five architects and was about to

_ Select one of them before getting side-

tracked by the ministry. The new

school was originally slated for com-
pletion as early as 2003,

Administrators completed the pa-
perwork explaining the change in
building site plans last week and had
it rushed off to education minister
Penny Priddy.

Skeena MLA Helmut Giesbrecht.

said there shouldn’t be a problem get-
ting the minister’s approval to build
the new school on the Caledonia site.

“They assured me there was no
hang-up,” Giesbrecht said. “If that’s
where the board wants to build it,
that’s where it will be.”

CELE TT

CONSTRUCTION OF a new elemen-
tary school built on the bench is also

on hold, pending on whether or not the
education minister approves the new
location for building the replacement
for Skeena Junior Secondary.

“We can't go ahead and build on
the bench until the Skeena
[replacement school] location is fina-
lized,” said school district acting
superintendent Sharon Becdie.

“[That’s} because, there’s still a
small chance education minister
Penny Priddy will say build it up on
the bench.”

Beedle said the ministry originally
gave the board its approval to build
the Skcena replacement school on the

Cont'd Page A2

school district

deaths
increase

MORE DOGS and cats
were euthanized at the
Terrace Animal Shelter
last year because the city
wanted to save money.

The number of cats de-
stroyed rose from 77 to 120
last year and the number
of dogs put down quad-
rupled from four to 16.

The increased number
of pet deaths came despite
a 20 per cent decrease in
the number of animals im-

pounded at the shelter,.- :

from 860 in 1998 to 690
last year.

City chief administra-
tive officer Ron Poole said
the city tightened up its
policy last year on how
long unclaimed animals
can stay at the shelter be-
fore they’re destroyed.

By law pets have to be
kept there at least three
days and the limit is six
days.

But the shelter has al-
ways had considerable
leeway on the six-day
maximum, enabling staff
to keep animals longer,
particularly when there’s a
possibility they might be
adopted.

“In the past we have
been keeping them for two
to three times that much,”
Poole said. “It was costing
the cily money.”

He added the city has
been trying to stick more
closely to the six-day
maximum.

“If we think we can find
a home for an animal,
we'll still keep it longer,”
added animal control offi-
cer Frank Bowsher.

The main cost of keep-
ing animals longer is food,
which adds up to around
$4,000 a year. ,

He added the number of
pets euthanized here is
still low compared to
many other shelters and
compared to the numbers
that used to be destroyed
just a few years ago.

“Our figures are way
down from what we used
to put to sleep,” Bowsher
said, adding it used to be
rauline to put down a cou-
ple hundred cats a year,

“There's still too many
wild cats running around
the area,” he added,

As for the 16 dogs put
down, he said, six or seven

had to be destroyed -be-

cause of disease and a
couple more had been
deemed vicious.

The animal control de-
partment also reported in
increase in vicious -dog
complaints, to 43, last
year, :

can

iz Making her mark

Three-year-old Kayla Miller gets her fingers dirty while Terrace RCMP Constable Kurt Grabinsky at-
tempts fo get a clean copy of Kayla’s finger prints during a child safety session at the Terrace Child
Development Centre at the United Church on Thursday, March 2. The session was part of the
centre's weekly Building Blacks program for new parents. Building Blocks runs every Thursday at the

Centre from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Major

CHRISTIANA WIENS
NINE OF Terrace’s 11
auxiliary RCMP officers
are quitting.

“We no longer feel we
complement the
RCMP,” said Jim Ippel a

. 29-year auxiliary veteran.
“We're just not helping
-the way we've

been
trained to help.”
Ippel says the issue is

more than having auxiliary

Buns taken away in 1998
or being required to wear

different uniforms than re- .

gular RCMP officers.

New policies now in
place put an emphasis on
crime prevention in
schools and other public
places, not patrolling with
regular officers.

’ As well, auxiliaries now
have to provide their own
liability insurance.

‘Many auxiliaries aren't
interested in community
policing and don’t feel
comfortable riding along in

a squad car without a wea-

pon, said Ippel.
“We'd -have to be al-

surplus see

SCHOOL DISTRICT se-
cretary treasurer Marcel
Georges is predicting a
slight budget surplus by
the end of this school year,
marking the first balanced
school district budget in
three years.

“I’m anticipating the
district will. be in the
black, not in the red,”

' Georges said at a school

board meeting March 1.

The education ministry
ordered last year the dis-
trict to balance its books
and repay its past accumu-
lated deficit of $321,000
by this June.

Through a number of

budget cuts and thrifty
spending strategies, the
board expects to have
saved anywhere from
$100,000 to $200,000 on a
budget of $50 million.
“That’s providing we

"| spend at the current rate

until the end of the schaol
year,” said acting superin-
tendent Sharon Beedle.
“The surplus is minor but
we're out of red.”

Georges added that if it
weren’t for the accumula-
ted debt, the district would
boast a $500,000 surplus
by the end of the fiscal
year, But that doesn’t ne-
cessarily mean the district
will have that extra
$500,000 in the years

————

¥e

Marcel Georges

ahead to bring back pro-
grams such as Grade 6 and
7 music which were cut to’
save money.

The district stil] has to’
hire a number of admin-
istrators, including a new

.Supetiniendent, director of

instruction, principal for
the correspondence school,
and a clerical assistant for
the director of human re-
sources,

And the district could
also face WCB payments
of hundreds of thousands of ©
dollars for new safety re-
gulation requirements.
School districts had first
been told the education
ministry was to caver
those costs, But the mini-
stry has since changed its
mind.

Districts are appealing
the ministry’s revised
stance,

ity of auxiliary police quit

most under the direct
supervision of a member at
all times,” he said.

The two auxiliaries who‘

are staying ~ Lisa Raposo
and Debbie Simons — are
also worried about working
the 160 hours a year that’s
tequired to remain an aux-
iliary, |

“’m hoping they’re not
going to be very diligent,”
said Simons, who is stay-

ing with the job because
she enjoys community po-
licing.

Simons, who has been
an auxiliary for  cight
years, says she would
never put herself in dan-
ger, or go on patrol with a
regular officer without a
weapon to protect herself.

B.C.’s auxiliary coordi-
nator, Cpl. Tom Clark,
said the large-scale re-

signation here isn’t being
repeated elsewhere.
“They’re most certainly
the exception. Bul we re-
spect the fact that they

-realize this program isn’t

for them anymore.”

Clark said auxiliaries
were never intended to
work as backup to regular
officers,

Cpl. Rad Holland, act-
ing staff sergeant at the

Terrace detachment, said
they’]l be missed.

“We're not happy about
il,” said Holland. “It’s a
loss to the community in a
number of ways.”

Unlike other places,
Terrace auxiliaries were
used ta complement regu-
lar officers on patrol.

Not only did auxiliaries
lend their years of exper-

ience in the community to
an ¢ver-changing police
force, their presence sped
up officer response time,
said Holland.

Holland said the de-
tachment here paired auxi-
liaries with regular mem-
bers in one squad car and
allowed them to act as
backup in disputes and

home robberies,

Police want to hire more officers

TERRACE HAS enough homicides, rabberies
with violence, domestic assaults and sexual
assaults to warrant adding two more serious
crime unit officers to the three-member com-
plement already here, says a1 RCMP Corpor-
al,

So the detachment is asking the city for
$124,000, or 70 per cent of the cost, said Cpl.
Rod Holland. Senior RCMP officets here anti-
cipale getting the federal government to come
with the remaining 30 per cent.

The existing members often have to call

_ Upon the local detachment’s two drug officers
for help, taking them away from. their own in-

vestigations.

Police say solving serious crimes can be

active.

extremely labour intensive and if more than
one such incident is going on at any time, the
local unit often needs help.
Besides cases such as murder, the serious
crime unit also handles robberies, sexual as-
saulis, firearms and weapons offences.

But it’s also supposed to have the time to
work on Terrace’s list of murdered or missing —
“people such as Monica Ignas, Lana Derrick
and Larry Vu — whose files remain open and

“We only have two people devoted to that
task,” said Holland, acting. staff sergeant at
the Terrace detachment, in noting that the
third member is a non-commissioned officer
who is also in charge of the drug unit. That of-

ficer was a corporal but is now a sergeant.
He said criminal investigations also take

longer today than they did 10 years ago be-

nical,

cause the work involved is now far more tech-

“The way we do business has

hours.”

Holland said. “Violence in relate Ships
[incidents] takes six hours of manpower, and
an impaired driver [processing] takes four

Even with four members and a senior offi-

land said,

cer, Terrace’s Serious crime unit would still be
short one officer when compared with the si-
tuation in Prince Rupert.

“And they’re no. busier than we are,” Hol-