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 Tartaca ara)... - _ 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-