What it all means: Laugh yourself silly The Midas touch Find out how the Chretien govern- Terrace Little Theatre's production Everything they touch is golden - ment's spending plan affects you of "Suitehearts" will make you Terrace's junior curlers win at the and your money.kNEW$ A5 howI!\COMMUNITY B1 B.C. Winter Games\SPORTS !]5 WEDNESDAY March 8, 2000 $1.00 PLUS 7¢ GST mm m m ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the T, N DA o11 Jl__J VOL.'--'- 12 NO. Fears raised over school start By ALEX HAMILTON cause the ministry approval is still trying to track it but we can't find it." school was originally slated for com- on hold, pending on whether or not the SCHOOL DISTRICT administrators based on the original motion that [the A new school, which could cost as pletion as early as 2003. education minister approves the new hope a replacement for aging Skeena new school] will be built on the Skee- much as $11.6-million, is needed to Administrators completed the pa- location for building the replacement Junior Secondary won't be delayed be- na site or on the bench," said school replace 45-year old Skeena Junior perwork explaining the change in for Skeena Junior Secondary. cause of some missing paperwork. district secretary treasurer Marcel Secondary School, which is rundown building site plans last week and had "We can't go ahead and build on The school board last April chan~ed Georges last week. and needs extensive work. it rushed off to education minister its mind on where it wanted to build the bench until the Skeena "Regrettably there was no letter Trustees voted to build the new re- Penny Priddy. [replacement school] location is fina- the 650-student replacement. from the [school board] chair sent to placement school beside Caledonia to Skeena MLA Helmut Giesbrecht lized," said school district acting Although the education ministry the ministry to get approval for the offer students more course options. said there shouldn't be a problem get- superintendent Sharon Beedle. gave its approval for one of two loca- school to be built on the Caledonia Having the school next to Caledo- ting the minister's approval to build "[That's] because, there's still a tions, on the bench or on the current site." nia would allow all students to share the new school on the Caledonia site. small chance education minister Skeena Junior site, the board came up School district acting superinten- old and new facilities, eliminating the "They assured me there was no Penny Priddy will say build it up on with a new one - beside Caledonia dent Sharon Bdedle says she under- need for two music rooms or two auto hang-up," Giesbrecht said. "If that's the bench." Senior Secondary. stood that the paperwork was, in fact, shops. where the board wants to build it, Beedle said the ministry originally However, the paperwork asking the completed last year and sent to the The school board recently short lis- that's where it wi!! be." gave the board its approval to build education ministry to approve the new ministry. ted five architects and was about to mmmmmm the Skeena replacement school on the location can't be found. "We don't know where that paper select one of them before getting side- CONSTRUCTION OF a new elemen- "It's true. We've lost 10 months be- was lost," Beedle said. We've been tracked by the ministrY. The new tary school built on the bench is also Cont'd Page A2 Cat, dog deaths School district increase surplus seen MORE DOGS and cats SCHOOL DISTRICT se- were euthanized at the cretary treasurer Marcel Terrace Animal Shelter Georges is predicting a last year because the city slight budget surplus by wanted to save money. the end of this school year, The number of cats de- marking the first balanced stroyed rose from 77 to 120 school district budget in last year and the number three years. of dogs put down quad- "I'm anticipating the rupled from four to 16. dis.triet will be in the The increased number black, not in the red," of pet deaths came despite Georges said at a school a 20 per cent decrease in board meeting March 1. the number of animals im- The education ministry pounded at the shelter, ordered last year the dis- Marcel Georges from 860 in 1998 to 690 trict to balance its books ahead to bring bacl~-pro- last year. and repay its past accumu- grams such as Grade 6 and City chief administra- lated deficit of $321,000 7 music which were cut to; tive officer Ron Peele said by this June. save money. the city tightened up its Through a number of' The district still has to' policy last year on how budget cuts and thrifty hire a number of admin- long unclaimed animals spending strategies, the istrators, including a new can stay at the shelter be- board expects to have superintendent, director of fore they're destroyed. saved anywhere from instruction, principal for By law pets have to be $100,000 to $200,000 on a the correspondence school, kept there at least three budget of $50 million. and a clerical assistant for days and the limit is six "That's providing we the director of human re- days. spend at the current rate sources. But the shelter has al- until the end of the school And the district could ways had considerable year," said acting superin- also face WCB payments leeway on the six-day tendent Sharon Beedle. of hundreds of thousands of maximum, enabling staff "The surplus is minor but dollars for new safety re- to keep animals longer, we're out of red." gulation requirements. particularly when there's a Georges added that if it School districts had first possibility they might be = Making her mark weren't for the accumula- , been told the education adopted. ted debt, the district would ministry was to cover "In the past we have Three-year-old Kayla Miller gets her fingers dirty while Terrace RCMP Constable Kurt Grabinsky at- boast a $500,000 surplus those costs. But the mini- been keeping them for two tempts to get a clean copy of Kayla's finger prints during a child safety session at the Terrace Child by the end of the fiscal stry has since changed its to three times that much," Development Centre at the United Church on Thursday, March 2. The session was part of the year. But that doesn't ne- mind. Peele said. "It was costing centre's weekly Building Blocks program for new parents. Building Blocks runs every Thursday at the cessarily mean the district Districts are appealing the city money." Centre from 6 p.m. to 8 p,m. will have that extra the ministry's revised He added the city has $500,000 in the years stance. !aTxSinlYY~!gtt°h~tiCskx'%°a~; Majority of auxiliary police quit "If we think we can find a home for an animal, we'll still keep it longer," By CHRISTIANA WIENS most under the direct ing with the job because signation here isn't being Terrace detachment, said ience in the community to added animal control offi- supervision of a member at she enjoys community po- repeated elsewhere, they'll be missed, an ever-changing police NINE OF Terrace's 11 cer Frank Bowsher. all times," he said. licing. "They're most certainly "We're not happy about force, their presence sped The main cost of keep- auxiliary RCMP officers are quitting. The two auxiliaries who Simons, who has been the exception. But we re- it," said Holland. "It's a up officer response time, ing animals longer is food, are staying - Lisa Raposo an auxiliary for eight spect the fact that they loss to the community in a said Holland. "We no longer feel we which adds up to around and Debbie Simons -are years, says she would .'realize this program isn't number of ways." Holland said the de- can complement the $4,000 a year. also worried about working never put herself in dan- for them anymore." Unlike other places, tachment here paired auxi- RCMP," said Jim lppel a He added the number of the 160 hours a year that's ger, or go on patrol with a Clark said auxiliaries Terrace auxiliaries were liaries with regular mem- 29-year auxiliary veteran. pets euthanized here is required to remain an aux- regular officer without a were never intended to used to complement regu- bets in one squad car and "We're just not helping still low compared to iliary, weapon to protect herself, work as backup to regular lar officers on patrol, allowed them to act as many other shelters and the way we've been trained to help." "I'm hoping they're not B.C.'s auxiliary coordi- officers. Not only did auxiliaries backup in disputes and Compared to the numbers going to be very diligent," nator, Cpl. Tom Clark, Cpl. Rod Holland, act- lend their years of exper- home robberies. that used to be destroyed lppel says the issue is • said Simons, who is stay- said the large-scale re- ing staff sergeant at the just a few years ago. more than having auxiliary "Our figures are way guns taken away in 1998 down from what we used or being required to wear to put to sleep," Bowsher different uniforms than re- said, adding it used to be gular RCMP officers. Police want to hire more officers routine to put down a cou- New policies now in TERRACE HAS enough homicides, robberies extremely labour intensive and if more than ricer was a corporal but is now a sergeant.