Parkside 2.0. A school that closed down last year has new students and a new lease on life\NEWS A5

Triumph over adversity Two survivors share

their unique and inspiring life _ stories\COMMUNITY B1

Great gals . - Terrace ringette players selected to. northern all-star team\SPORTS B4 |

$1.00 pLus-7¢-GST-- {$1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area)

@ Lucky dog

SASSY is back home with her family after a harrowing two-month fight for survival. The dog went missing from her Kenney St. home on Halloween and was somehow stranded on an island in the middle of the Skeena. She eluded rescuers for weeks before she was finally retrieved. See page B1 for Sassy's story. JEFF NAGEL PHOTO

detail, ~ 22.0.0 eu.

By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN POLICE ARE looking for what they describe as a uneducated, mentally unstable individual who may have a sexual dysfunction who is sending do- zens of harassing letters to members of Terrace's Punjabi community.

The individual may even have help and is familiar enough with technology to be listening in on celi phone and cordless phone conversations, says Terrace RCMP Staff Sergeant Tom Forster.

More than 40 handwritten letters have been sent starting last fall to two

extended family members and neigh- bours. ;

The letters are each handwritten in- dividually in Punjabi script while the plain white envelopes are addressed in English in what appears to be different hand writing.

Forster says that leads him to be- lieve more than one person may be in- volved in sending the letters.

The first letters contain allegations of personal activities of the victims mentioned.

“The contents of the letters indicate being overly concerned about some- thing they have no business being con- cerned about,” Forster said.

The letters appear to be intended to .

drive a wedge between the people in two specific and not blood-related fa- ilies, he adds.

Letter writer

Harassment uses high, low-tech tactics

’ tening devices.

different families as well as friends, -

The letters contain no threats or de- mands of any sort and seem to be re- gularly appearing on the same day of the week.

“It doesn’t compel them to do something or not do something. It’s dispersal of information intended to make people feel uneasy,” said For- | ster. : if

The letters state the writer has en- tered the victims’ homes to plant lis-

While he would not say if any lis- tening devices were found in the homes, Forster did say subsequent let- ters contained details of private con- versations of some of the victims.

How that information may have been obtained is unknown but Forster did say eavesdropping on conversa- tions using analogue cell phones is re- latively easily done. In addition, it’s easy to listen in on conversations on

By JENNIFER LANG IT NOW appears the school district may have to chop as much as $5.3 million from its operating budget in order to balance its books next year.

Coast Mountains School District secretary- treasurer Marcel Georges delivered the bad news to school trustees last week.

The board had already been told to brace for a deficit of between $4 and 5 million for the com- ing school year.

Georges said he had hoped earlier estimates would shrink as more data became available.

But recent news that the school district now faces a 2.5 percent wage increase for Canadian

Union of Public Employees staff. while other -

sources of revenue are shrinking means the. dis-.

trict’s anticipated budget gap continues to grow,

Meanwhile, just 50 people — mostly parents — showed up to the first of a series of working meetings taking place in Terrace this month to explore possible budget cuts.

The public is being asked to provide meaning- ful input on a list of cuts, cost-saving ideas and money-generating suggestions being explored.

“People came to listen, to learn and to contri- bute,” assistant superintendent Rob. Greenwood said. “People want to be informed.”

As planned, participants broke -off into separ- ate classrooms to discuss various suggestions in

pat ta a a Ta lala ead etna,

The largest group Jooked at the pros and cons

of moving to a four-day school week and year- |

round schooling — two controversial suggestions that give some indication of the hard decisions that lie ahead for school trustees. “Our budget is about $50 million. Somewhere between 85 and 90 per cent of that is spent on personnel,” Greenwood said. “That gives you an

idea of the situation. It isn’t a question of where you can sell a bunch of trucks and deal with it.”

_ Other ideas include charging parents for noon- hour supervision and selling value-added pro- ducts made by students to help increase revenue.

Findings will be- compiled into a report that will be submitted to school trustees Feb. 5.

Community meetings are being held in Ste- wart, Kitwanga, and Hazelton this week.

Tomorrow night is the second of four working —

meetings taking place at Thornhill Junior Sec- ondary that are open to the public.

A list of room locations according to topic will be posted in the school’s foyer. - ,

Greenwood said anyone wha would like to write down comments are welcome to drop by even if they don’t want to participate in the work groups. ,

Declining enrolment is one of the main rea- sons for the budget crunch. He said the school district’s latest enrolment figures suggest the decline in students appears to have slowed somewhat.

Greenwood said the district has fost one half of a percentage point fewer students this year compared to. the same time last year.

“It’s pretty indicative that things are a little bit better, The trend is slowing.”

In all, 162 students have left the district since

-September..Of. that,-57-have.moved,, 17.have.en-

rolled in correspondence school, and 88 have withdrawn. an . = Greenwood said many ‘are students with atten- dance problems who simply stopped coming to schooi.: 7 The net loss since September to School Dis-

trict 82 is actually just 111 because some stu-

dents have moved into the district.

Northwest unemployment rate rises —

UNEMPLOYMENT in the northwest shot up by nearly a full point in December to 11.6 per cent.

That’s up more than two full points from 9.5 per cent in October. ;

The jobless rate for the region had dipped down below 10 per cent briefly at the end of the summer — believed due to a surge in seasonal summer jobs and market logging — but has now risen again.

Labour force survey stats have also shown a

‘ i

STAFF SERGEANT Tom Forster displays a stack of harassing letters targetting members of the local Indo-Ca- nadian community. He says the behaviour is persistent and brazen. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO

steady rise in part-time jobs in recent months while the number of full-time positions has fall- en.

That's generally a signal that employers are

‘reducing hours of their employees in response to ’ the poor economy.

Hopes for improvement rest on a restart of Skeena Cellulose, scheduled for late spring, and

a possible end to the softwood lumber dispute

with the U.S.

old-style cordless phones.

Up until just a few weeks ago, cell phone service in Terrace was analo- gue. The new digital service makes it more difficult to listen in on conversa- tions. .

The letter writer and any helpers also used a felt marker to deface a ve- hicle, a home and a commercial building frequented by one of the vic- tims with excerpts of the letters.

In some of thosé. cases, the perpe- trator had a very ‘narrow window of time ~ roughly 10 minutes, said For-

. ters that

ster. “In plain daylight we’ve had someone writing on windows and vehi- cles,” he said. “So, it’s very brazen.”

Forster is hesitant to give details of the investigation but admits it-has in- cluded video surveillance of some of the victimis’ homes and places of busi- ness targeted by the letter writer.

“I've never scen something like this before,” he says. "

He says it’s unusual for someone to

spend so much time hand writing let- are so widely distributed. |

or rn

Despite police efforts to deter the letter writer, the envelopes continue to arrive. “It appears ihe intent of the fet- ters is to create disharmony and dis- trust within the families,” Forster says.

The letters are being translated by several Punjabi-speaking individuals who have received the letters, Forster said, They have not yet been transla- ted by an independent source.

- The preliminary character analysis was done by Forster himself, but he is now forwarding the letters to a special

police profiling unit in Vancouver.

Forster says the delay in bringing the harassment to the public’s atlen- tion was out of respect for the victims’ privacy.

Initially, one of the victims was worried about the information spread- ing throughout the Indo-Canadian community, Forster says.

But given the persistency of the let-

’ ter writer, he says the public’s help is y

needed to help identify the perpetrator and stop the continued harassment.

look worsens |