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‘Read it | ‘Story collection marks 60 years of work and play for service group \COMMUNITY BGE

Pit crew | | ; Three. friends gear up for the stock car racing - 4 season with anew - vehicle\SPORTS B9

Out of work | ‘Northwest jobless rate 7 remains higher than other places in the province - \NEWS A11

: $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST . * . _.,($1.10 plus 8¢ GST « outside of the Terrace area) ;

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| VOL. rT) NO. 3 arenes

Council approves h

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-s $229 i in taxes this year, . ee The Terrace Lumber - ‘Company is experiencing “s the largest. hike in property. taxes. In, 2005 it was - '..classified a non-operating mill-and as‘such its prop-\.. eyo erty value was just $2, 672, 000, esulting i in a tax bill © “charged also is ospected | to go up from’ $25. 4536 per. ~ of $194,284. a $1,000 to $26.49355 per $1,000... * en Now. that it -is ‘classified aS_an ‘Operating mill The recommendation to boost the taxes was s fo Be its value rose to $6, 894,000 and will have to pay mally received by city council at special meeting last. a . $519, 434 in. taxes — a 158 per cent increase. _. week. The, bylaw still must go through two readings. a That’ retums the sawmill to the single largest gen- « -at upcoming city council meetings before i it. will. Ube

eral tax payer in the city, bumping Skéena, Sawmills - passed. - from that spot last year.

Last y year major industry was charged $72. 7110. . per $1,000 while this Year that rate will, tise, to: , $75.34576..

If the property value of a home did increase and that increase is’over the average, the homeowner can expect topay more. ©): “

And if an assessment has dropped, the homeown- ercan expect to pay less. ©

In technical terms, the rate used to determine how ; a aes much. money a homeowner pays has dropped slightly

Lo THE CITY will reduce. the general’ tax rate charged ” from $8.4010 per $1,060 to $8.26943 per $1,000. . ,_ to ‘homeowners and the non profit'sector and will — “For example city councillor Rich MacDaniel’s hike business and industry rates slightly i in order to home on Skeena St. was valued at $136, 300 in 2005 " . Faise taxes: overall by 3.6 per cent this year. . and rose by $1,000 this year. ‘But even with the 3.6 ' The increase is expected to generate an additional _' per cent increase he will in fact: ‘pay $10 less this voy _— __.. Last year Skeena Sawmills, owned by West Fras-

$320,000. year. a oo |. But. even though the residential rate is going “,. Councillor Carol LeClerc’, s property value went” er, paid a property tax bill of $272,230. This year that

~ down, homeowners could pay more re depending upon from $175,900 last year to $206,400 in 2006 — a $30, > rises to $288,951. Wal-Mart ranked third last year at

~ Overall i increase» equals: $320, 000

ms By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN

fos :

. | the value of their home. .

500 increase in value. That translates into an’extra

| _ WORKERS SEEM dwarfed by the size of f upended ¢ CN railcars after a derailment near the old Skeena bridge April2 21. There were no injuries : and nothing was spilled. The investigation continues. _

Derailment probe continues

NOBODY WAS injured and nothing was spilled ‘when 10 CN rail cars spilled off the track on the west side of the old Skeena bridge April 21.

. The cars were part of an empty freight train be- ing assembled with the front end on the rail bridge.

that runs parallel to the old Skeena vehicle bridge.

Somehow the cars buckled and flipped onto their °

’ sides on the south side of the tracks. - “Essentially they are adding cars to the train in the order that they” are going to be eventually

dropped off to the customers,” CN official Gra-

ham Dallas said of the events leading to the de- railment. “They do that in the yard s so the cars will

bei in the right order.” “We can’t speculate, on what may have caused the accident. We have to wait until the investiga-

tion has been completed,” he said, adding at least one senior manager was expected to. arrive on™

scene to evaluate the situation.

When trains are being assembled they ar are sfre-- ‘quently moved back:and forth at slow speeds.

None of the cars were carrying any chemicals or other items and as such no clean up of materials

“was necessary.

The derailment drew plenty of interest from

_Passersby who flocked to the embankment near.

‘SARAH A ZIMMERMAN PHOTO "

the bridge. “These are pretty sturdily built rail, cars and

if they roll onto their'side it probably. won’t have

much impact on their structural integrity, they will

‘have to be checked for that,” Dallas said.

- The train had 40 cars at the time of the derail- ment. While Transport. Canada placed a restric- tion on the length trains that run in the area of the Cheakamus Canyon in the Lower Mainland where.

- numerous train derailments caused environmental

damage in recent years, Dallas says there’s no-

such restriction in the Terrace area,

~ The clean up continued the next day:

MLA opposes Alcan power sales plan.

By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN |

SKEENA MLA Robin Austin is in Montreal

this week sending a message to Alcan officials

' and shareholders that they should. not be selling electricity produced by a public resource. .

-The company’s head offices are in Montreal ~ and it is holding its annual general meeting there. -

this week. ‘T’m going there to ‘let the shareholders be

aware of the fact that the relationship between Al- . can and the province — which has worked so well.

for 50 years and has been mutually beneficial — is now being disregarded in Alcan’s plans to put in new technology that will not fully utilize the wa- ter resource and instead use a significant portion to generate electricity sales,” he said.

Austin has lobbied hard against Alcan selling

off excess electricity generated in Kemano for profit.

“The intent of this agreement, both the original

‘one of 1950 and the one of 1997 after Kemano

completion was cancelled, was that the’ public who own the water gives that to Alcan in return

for creating jobs smelting aluminum,” said Aus-:.

tin. ry

“It was never ‘the intent to give water to create’ electricity sales that benefit only Alcan'sharehold-

ers and not British Columbians,” he said. Lo Alcan officials disagree with that interpreta-

tion saying the company has always sold, off exX-

cess electricity.

_ “Since the 1950s Alcan has always sold power, . we have always had the ability to have extra pow-

er because Kemano by its very nature was over- built,” says Alcan official Colleen Nyce, adding in high water years the company has the ability

to produce more electricity than is required to run .

the smelter. Austin will also encourage the shareholders to

“ae a . Hes a

‘sign on toa plan called the Replacemerit Electric _ ity Supply Agreement (RESA) that formed part of

the 1997 agreement between Alcan and the prov- ince after the cancellation of the: Kemano comple- tion project.

The agreement guarantees Alcan’ a block of electricity: at below Market Prices for smelting aluminum. ’

It also means Alcan must use all the electricity. generated by Kemano for smelting before it can

use the RESA power.

Alcan has until Jan. 1, 2007't to accept the offer

and begin construction « ona new smelter before

it expires.

_ “’m going there to encourage ‘them to take the RESA. and that would enable them to build . a much larger. smelting facility: which would of course generate more jobs,” said Austin:

“Cont'd Page A2

$219, 868 and i is third again this year at $229, 116. °

.» dollars on the project since 2004.

: voice submitted by:

m:. fees paid to PBK Architects, the-V; v

_ has prepared ‘several sets of detailed ‘awings for different: 7 configurations of the second | ~ sheet of ice over the last two” _ years. Any additional. costs.: " incurred inthe future will’:

. at the meeting and asked for -

: ing in the near future, Christensen said: : : - Talstra concedes the city has not ‘done a 1 good. job of kee — ing past donors and those who have pledged money, informed 7

By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN

‘MAYOR JACK Talstra says groups who have donated and remain confident contributions will g0. toward building” a

project earlier this year.

. > The comments follow the deliberations of the Downtowa a - Terrace Rotary club. as to whether it-should ask the city to:

_ return money already donated t to the Project and withdraw its: - pledge | for more.

y....pledged, ‘Mmoney..to.the proposed, sportspiex_ project, should... as

Council . halted . its most: ‘recent ‘construction: effort ia” -

March when it decided that building bids were too high The issue of what council is doing with money that’s been .

donated and raised for the’ project. has become a. hotly. ‘con. .

- tested issue in light of having spent m more than half a a million -

oe Si

.., About 90‘per-cent. of those’ expens S reflect u uver-based firm,

also come out of that grant” leaving donated: funds by ° community groups unspent. =:

~ Downtown Rotary ‘club’. ‘members _aren’t — talking ». about a motion. made ‘at a recent meeting to withdraw | the $10,000 it has donated ° to the project in 2003 and. withdraw .the commitment - of a further $40,000 over. the next several years.

- Mayor Jack Talstra was’

the motion to be tabled fora couple months. ‘The motion - ° to table the request was sec-. onded by former city coun-. = . .cillor and club ‘member Stew Christensen. Club: members

ee t want.to discuss the issue, saying it is club busines:

“T wouldn’t say anything on that,” said club president di Steele last week. “I won’t comment right now.” -: |

- Jack Talstra.~

oy

He did say the $10,000 donation’ ‘already: rade and any . .

future commitments are still on the table. The i issue is expected to be revisited at an upcoming mee

about how the city plans to proceed with the. project. .

\. “We may have done a poor job of. updating’ them at the 7 ‘moment and we intend to speak to them:once we know. what © we.are doing precisely,” he said:last week... ‘

And though.the city has said.it’s taking a breathe! from. . | proceeding with the project right now, Talstra admits council a

must now sit down and determine what to tell donors. 3)". “We plan to sit down with everybody,” Talstra said, add: ing it’s not just the Downtown Rotary club, that needs some: clarification, |: : ag He admits council has’ been discussing its options and Continues to seek new money for the second sheet of ice, but . the substance of those debates aré being done in private. . “We're brainstorming: a little bit within council and we’ Te

_ checking some things out here and there and if it looks like

they’ve got some legs to it then we'll announce > that that’s the route that we are going,” he said. oo ,

i second sheet of ice despite council putting the brakes on’ ‘the eT