BUT YOU'LL HAVE TO SHOVEL NEXT WEEK
Pick
up, garbage collectors
by DON MORHERG Citizen Staff Reporter
Numerous complaints to city hall about garbage pick-up in city alleys have resulted in new orders to garbage collectors.
The garbage crews have been ordered to pick up all garbage this week; but residents will not get a reprieve from clearing snow from garbage can stands.
Crews had been ordered not to pick up garbage from houses where snow had not been cleared from stand areas; but city engineer Ernie Obst admits the order had been taken to the extreme in some cases.
The complaints were about large amounts of accumulated Christmas garbage and also about dogs tearing open garbage bags and tipping cans.
“It was really a failure in communications,'’ Obst said. “By the time the policy got down to the men it was a bit extreme."
Refusing to lame garbage collectors for the misunderstanding. Obst said the result was the men interpreted their orders to mean they weren’t to pick up garbage if a path hadn't been shovelled to the garbage stand — no mat-
ter where the garbage was placed or how much snow was left.
“I ordered the crews this week to clean everything up no matter what the snow was like or how much garbage there is," Obst said, "so we're starting now with a clean slate.”
A citizen tour of city back alleys Tuesday revealed large amounts of accumulated garbage, much of which had been spread by marauding dogs.
It also showed many residents had made no attempt to clear snow from garbage can stands. In some areas snow drifts nearly a metre deep stood between the cans and the tracks where the garbage truck drove by.
But behind one duplex, more than 25 bags, boxes and cans of garbage remained untouched despite less than 15 cm of snow surrounding them.
Only two such situations were found in six blocks as garbage had been picked up in places where attempts had obviously been made to clear the snow.
City sanitary engineer Les Nemeth said his crews had been ordered to make pickups when there was a cleared, flat area and the garbage was readily accessible.
A number of complaints said crews were taking the instructions too literally; but Nemeth defended his crews.
“We trust our crews," he said Tuesday. “Some people have not cleared the snow away from their garbage stands. People interpret things differently."
Nemeth said that if the crews went in and picked up the garbage when there was a little snow in the way, the residents would not bother to clear the snow away next time it snowed because they knew the garbage would be picked up.
As the city catches up with its snow-pjowing chores, people with garbage cans in alleys may find they will have much work to do before they can get their garbage picked
up.
Climbing over piled snow to get at garbage containers is definitely out for the collectors, so residents will have to clear away piled snow before pick-ups will be made.
The large amount of garbage accumulated over the Christmas season contributed to the complaints.
Nemeth said the problem was confined to the areas where garbage pick-up is done in the alleys.
Garbage collectors have been told to pick it all up.
The
Citizen
____ .. .ii£> 15‘ Copv
Wednesday, January 11. 1978
Vol 22; No. 7 m k Prince George. British Columbia
Settle clai
ms
first,
Berger
urges
EDMONTON (CP) - The settlement of native land claims in the Yukon and Northwest Territories should be the most important consideration in northern pipeline development, says Mr. Justice Thomas Berger of the British Columbia Supreme Court.
“At the heart of my recommendation is the need to settle native claims,” the commissioner of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline inquiry said in the second volume of his report scheduled for release today.
He said he based his recommendations on the assumption that “in due course the industrial system will require the gas and oil of the western Arctic." Mr. Justice Berger, who in his first volume released last spring called for a 10-year moratorium on Mackenzie Valley pipeline development, said the issue of native claims “impinges again and again on virtually every aspect of northern life.”
Mr. Justice Berger reiterated in his new volume that the need to settle land claims bears directly on all social, economic and environmental issues in the north.
Since the first report was released, the Canadian and U.S. governments have decided in favor of an Alaska Highway pipeline route to ship natural gas from Alaska to the U.S. mainland, bypassing the ecologically-fragile Mackenzie delta.
Mr. Justice Berger maintains in his second volume that it a pipeline has to be built to transport Alaskan gas to southern markets, the Alaska Highway route is preferrable from an environmental point of view.
A Mackenzie Valley pipeline would have “devastating social impact and limited economic benefits” and would ’’frustrate the goals of native claims if it were built now.” He said any pipeline eventually to be built along the Mackenzie Valley route would depend on the size of natural gas reserves in the Beaufort Sea.
Failure
rate
climbs
VANCOUVER (CP) - An alltime high of 40 per cent of the University of B.C.’s first-year English students have failed their Christmas examination.
The exam, English lOOchair-man Andrew Parkin said Tuesday, was “no more difficult” than those of previous years, consisting of a prose passage, questions and an essay.
But the students, he said, had difficulty expressing themselves in clear, lucid English, and also had problems w ith spelling, even though they were allowed to use dictionaries.
“The factors are different with each student. . but my real feeling is that there's a problem with literacy, and all English teachers are concerned about it.
“We’re working the best way we can,” Parkin said.
THIRD MAN IN THE MIDDLE
Chiwn photo by Tim Swanky
Northern B.C. Winter games field staff member Jacquie Stohbe examines program
WINTER SPORTS
PM here for games?
Prime Minister Trudeau could be among the spectators at the B.C. Northern Winter Games in Prince George in early February.
The prime minister’s office said today that a whistle stop tour of northern and central B.C. has been tentatively scheduled for Feb. 2-5. It includes a skiing facation in the Vernon area that week-end.
The spokesman emphasized the tentativeness of the trip and said a confirmation and itinerary would be announced at the appropriate time.
The Citizen has learned the trip includes arriving in Prince George in late afternoon Feb. 2, staying over and taking in some games events Feb. 3. before whistlestops in Williams Lake and Penticton with a speech in Vernon the evening of Feb. 3. The weekend will be taken up with skiing in the Vernon area.
A Liberal party organizer in Vancouver said, “The trip is set in our minds; but not in the prime minister’s. He's a very unpredictable person.”
It is not known if the prime minister will arrive in time for the games’ official opening at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 2.
Co-incidental with the announcement from Ottawa was a local announcement that official games programs go o’i sale Friday.
The 52-page program also serves as a pass, allowing the bearer entry to all events
throughout the games. The 10,000 programs will cost $2.50 each.
Linda Werbecky, project manager for the games, said group purchases of the programs could be made for $2 per program for resale as a fundraising venture.
The games run Feb. 2-5 with 5,700 participating athletes of all ages.
Programs will be available
Friday from booths in Park wood Mall, Pine Centre Mall, at the YM-YWCA and at the games control centre at the civic centre starting Jan. 16.
On that date, 564-1978 will be the new telephone number of the games office.
Billeting has now reached the halfway point as games officials seek temporary homes for the 3,200 junior athletes who will be visiting the city.
Latest federal move irks telephone union
by .JAN-UDO WENZEL Citizen Staff Reporter
Appointment of Mr. Justice Henry Hutcheon Tuesday as industrial inquirer in the long dispute between B.C. Tel and the Telecommunications Workers Union, was met with skepticism today by local union officials.
“The company turned down a recommendation by the first appointed mediator. Dr. Noel Hall. Mike Collins, the second appointee, told (federal Labor Minister John) Munro he could not make any progress. Now Munro appoints a third one and tells him to come up with something in two weeks. It’s unbelievable,” a union official said.
To show their disgust with the lack of action by the federal minister, the union will stage a protest rally Saturday in front of the Unemployment Insurance Commission offices on Sixth Avenue, which happens to be just across from B.C. Tel headquarters.
Picketing continued for part of the day today at the offices of School District 57 and at the D.P. Todd secondary school now under construction. B.C. Tel supervisors were installing telephone conduits at the school.
Munro recommended Tuesday the 10,000 employees of B.C. Tel on strike-lockout since Nov. 24, return to work while Mr. Justice Hutcheon conducts his inquiry and TWU president Bob Donnelly in Vancouver said the union’s bargaining committee would meet as soon as possible to discuss the request.
Vesta Bolt of Prince George, a member of this committee, left for Vancouver Tuesday night.
B.C. Tel chief executive Gordon MacFarlane, however, has already attached conditions on a return to work by the union members.
He wants a written declaration signed by union members and stating they would work productively, not take any job action and not damage any company property.
But both men have pledged their co-operation to Mr.
Justice Hutcheon.
The union, however, would have preferred a decision by Munro forcing B.C. Tel to accept the terms of the Hall report.
The judge has a background in industrial arbitration in the B.C. forest and the shiploading industries. He was appointed inquirer in this dispute under a section of the Canada Labor Code.
A major issue in the dispute is the contracting out of work clause which the company wants to delete from the contract.
The union’s last contract expired Dec. 31, 1976. •
History made orbit
in
MOSCOW (AP) - Two Soviet cosmonauts launched Tuesday linked up with two orbiting comrades, marking the first time two spacecraft have joined together at the same space station, Tass reported.
The Soviet news agency said Soyuz 27, the spaceship sent aloft Tuesday, and the Salyut 6 spacelab connected at 5:06 p.m. Moscow time (9:06 a.m. EST).
Tass said a correction had been made in Soyuz 27’s flight path prior to the linkup and that both spacecraft were functioning normally.
Vladimir Dzhanibekov and Oleg Makarov docked their Soyuz 27 ferry vehicle with the space station Salyut 6. Awaiting them were Yuri Romanenko and Georgy Grechko.
WIFE HAD READ FILES
Juror relieved of duties here
by AL IRWIN Citizen Staff Reporter
One of 12 jurors in a B.C. Supreme Court murder trial here was relieved of his duties Tuesday after it was learned his wife had access to and had read files relating to the case.
Wallace Sergeant’s wife Jo-Anne, works with (he Prince George RCMP in the department where files for all cases in the subdivision are read
The trial of Kehar Singh Gill, 40; his son Meva, 20, and John Arthur Haw , 19, continues today with 11 jurors.
It is possible to continue a trial with 10 jurors, but no fewer.
The three Prince George men are charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, in connection with the deaths June 11 ot a Prince George couple.
Piara Singh Thind, 34, and his wife Gurdip, 24, were found dead in a ditch
on Beaver Forest Road, 27 km east of Prince George. They had been shot to death.
The couple’s blood-stained van was found in a downtown Prince George parking lot.
Testimony by an RCMP officer Tuesday indicated the couple may have been killed where they were found.
Cpl Dan Rahn told the court the passenger’s window of the van was smashed and a bullet hole was found in the floor of the van behind the driver’s seat.
Using tire tracks on the road near the bodies, and a pool of blood and broken glass on the road, Rahn had re-created what he believed was the location of the van when the bullet that made the hole was fired, he said.
Rahn said the re-creation led to the discovery of an expended bullet in the road.
He also said a cast made of a rock
impression found on the side of the road near the bodies matched the size and contour of a rock found on the floor of the van. The plaster cast had not set and was later destroyed, Rahn said.
Rahn said in addition to the bullet hole in the floor, two bullet holes were found in the lining of the roof of the van.
An expended .303 cartridge was found in the van, and four were found near the bodies, Rahn’s testimony indicated.
The male victim, Piara Thind, was shot once in the temple and once in the chest, a pathologist testified earlier.
Dr. Anthony Law said the woman was shot once; the bullet entered through her back and exited through her chest.
The woman also suffered a massive bruise on her temple, and a massive skull fracture, caused by a blunt object, the doctor testified.
Another bruise on her chin was caused by considerable force, he said.
The trial continues.
TODAY
Tm not much on the Middle Cast. How are you on Margaret Trudeau?'
(featured inside
""'Cili/en
cntERtninmEiYC
TV listings included in Mid-Week supplement.
# Prince George cable-TV subscribers pay a high price for the service, but the company says this is justified. Page 3.
• A father’s baseball dream is closer to reality today. Page 13.
Bridge................... .............19
(•ardening column.. .......30
City, H.C..........2,: i,», io, :jo
Classified............. .......16-21
National............ 7
Croshword........... .............18 Nixon column.......... .......10
Editorial............... ...............4 Sports........................ ,.i;m5
THE WEATHER
A ridge of high pressure across the Central Interior is expected to bring Prince George stagnant conditions of low fog or clouds with the chance of light snow flurries or freezing drizzle, today and Thursday.
The forecast high today is -9, the low -12. The high Tuesday was -11, the low -13, with a trace of precipitation. On this date last year the high was -8, the low -11.
NOW HEAR THIS
cl
J
• A local man says he’s walking evidence that you shouldn’t let your barber read a girlie magazine over your shoulder while you’re having a haircut. Talk about thin on the sides. . .
• A local wit claims to have a cat that has brought mouse hunting to the state of a fine art. Before embarking on a mouse hunting sojourn the cat eats cheese then waits by a mouse hole with “baited breath.”
• A proposal to turn the grassy centre of a highway turnabout at the end of the new Fraser Bridge into a playground brought little support from a budget-groggy council Tuesday. “A playground in the centre of a race-track?” one council member asked. “Let’s grass the centre of PGARA (Oval-racing track) and invite families for Sunday picnics,” Mayor Harold Moffat said.