INCLUDES
TV
TIMES
The Prince George
Citizen
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1987
50 CENTS
Right-wingers organize 5 Boy's donations stolen 7 Lions sign coach, QB 13
Ann Landers................35 Entertainment.......... 18-23
Bridge......................31 Horoscopes.................31
Business...................8,9 International ................7
City, B.C.................2,3,6 Lifestyles...................35
Classified................25-34 Movies...................20,21
Comics.....................18 National.....................5
Crossword..................27 Sports....................13-17
.. .and in tomorrow's Citizen...
Architect Tom West points out features of the proposed cultural-convention centre concept in a model at city hall. Public library can be seen trough the window. Citizen photo by Dave Milne
DOWNTOWN COMPLEX
$21 -million price seen
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
Costs not originally envisaged by the city could push the pricetag of Prince George’s proposed cultural-convention centre to $21 million, the project’s building committee chairman said today.
Site development, including landscaping, road improvements and parking, will add roughly $5 million to $6 million to the project, said Bob McFarlane, following a press conference this morning.
A preliminary study by the Cornerstone Planning Group last January put the project’s cost at $15 million.
McFarlane cautioned that until the final design is completed in two months, and a report is received from cost consultants, the bill for the planned showcase civic centre will not be known.
Another consultant will present estimates on operating costs and potential revenues, he said.
Cornerstone had not considered the costs of building a proper road access, a two-storey parkade and a park where the aging Civic Centre is now located.
An engineering consultant has estimated the lifespan of tne Civic Centre at three years, so the building will ultimately have to be torn down anyway, said city planner Graham Farstad.
The cultural-convention centre's concept, approved by council earlier this week, includes an art gallery, a 1,234-seat theatre and a meeting room joined to the northeast corner of the library by a covered lobby.
The meeting room would be able to handle 1,150 delegates while the convention buildings would have underground parking for 650 cars.
The theatre is designed to meet minimum national requirements and would have facilities for TV production, while the meeting centre would have news
media facilities to handle political conventions.
McFarlane said Cornerstone had under-estimated the room needed for theatre equipment and had not incorporated conference rooms in the meeting centre, which are now included in the concept.
Site development would put a focus on Quebec Street and Seventh Avenue, which will become a grand, entrance to the civic centre, said Tom West, the local architect who is working with Arthur Erickson on the project.
Quebec Street would be a treed boulevard linking Seventh Avenue to a civic square outside a common entrance to the centre. •
On one side, where the Civic Centre now is. there would be a park and on the other a two-storey parkade with capacity to become a four-storey facility.
“The city is desperately in need of a downtown park, I think that’s been felt for several years,” West said.
He said the proposed parkade, behind the Inn of the North, could incorporate a glass-facade shopping complex in future.
West said the project is designed so that the different components can be phased in. But both he and McFarlane acknowledged that it would be difficult to decide what facility should be built ahead of another.
But West said the road and landscaping “infrastructure” should be built with whatever part of the project is proceeded with first.
He said the building committee had spent thousands of hours ensuring that the centre doesn't become a “Cadillac” project but efficiently meets the future needs of the city.
West defended the need for the centre.
“As the mayor said the other day. we are the capital of the north and if we want to stay that way we’d better start acting that way.”
'They warned us in hairdressing college this day would come."
High Saturday: 3
VTikafllet futot 2
CITY IN RUNNING
KKK must pay award
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) - The mother of a black teenager killed by two Ku Klux Klansmen in Alabama has been awarded $7 million US in damages, a verdict her lawyer says may put the largest Klan group in the United States out of business.
The all-white jury deliberated about 4Vi hours Thursday before returning the award against the United Klans of America Inc. and six past or present members, including the two sent to prison for the slaying.
U.S. District Judge Alex Howard.
who presided over the three-day trial, will hold a hearing within 90 days to determine the assets of the United Klans, which has about 2,500 members and operates in the southeastern United States.
“I hope the jury's decision will put it out of business,” said Morris Dees, a lawyer for the family of Michael Donald, 19. who was beaten and strangled in 1981 and whose body was left dangling from a tree.
“I’m just glad justice was done.’’ said Beulah Mae Donald. “Money don’t mean a thing to me. It won't bring my child back.”
4
Why don’t more Prince George business people take advantage of courses that w-ould help them do their job better? In this week’s Saturday Forum, you’ll find out why.
Also planned:
■ A preview of the Calgary Winter Olympics.
■ The first Israeli war crimes trial since Adolf Eichmann was hanged in 1962 begins Monday with the so-called Ivan the Terrible trial.
$70-million plant
proposed for area
by KEN BERNSOHN Staff reporter
Prince George is in the running for a $70-million, 400-job meatpacking plant being considered for north central B.C.
“Whether it is close to signing is conjecture by the media,” says Mayor John Backhouse, who mentioned that a “major” project was under consideration for the north in a luncheon speech Wednesday to the Kiwanis Club.
Although Backhouse didn’t previously say what the project was, it has now been confirmed as a large meat packing plant.
“There’s a great deal of work to be done. To talk about lining up for jobs is premature,” the mayor said in a telephone interview from Vancouver this morning.
There has been local involvement with both the mayor’s office and the Prince George Region Development Corporation, as well as by the provincial government, and other people in the north central Interior, he said.
The principals involved are from B.C., although a West German industrialist is also involved. At least one principal is now in the industry, according to Backhouse, who declined to provide their names.
Similarly, the mayor would not discuss a possible site for the plant, nor financing, saying the city had agreed to keep all information in confidence.
•His only other comment was: “From the information I’ve received, I think the financial back-
Capital punishment vote soon?
OTTAWA (CP) — Goverment sources said today that MPs will likely get an opportunity to vote before June on whether to bring back capital punishment.
The vote, which will technically satisfy a pledge made by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney during the 1984 election campaign, will be only the first stage in a process that could take up to a year to work its way through Parliament.
Details were to be announced today in a statement to the Commons by Deputy Prime Minister Don Mazankowski.
Insiders say that under the plan, drafted by the government in consultation with Conservative backbenchers, there will be a free vote in the Commons in which MPs will decide “in principle” whether to restore the death penalty to the Criminal Code.
If the vote is favorable, a special committee of MPs would work out the specifics, including the offences for which the death penalty would be imposed and the method of execution to be adopted.
It would be up to the committee to decide whether to hold public hearings during the three months it would have to study the issue.
The committee would also have the power to draft the •Criminal Code amendments, calling on experts from the Justice Department for assistance. This would be the first time a committee of MPs would exercise such power, conferred on them under recently reformed Commons rules.
Finally, the bill would have to go through the usual three readings in the Commons with debate at each stage, further committee study and further public hearings.
ing is solid. . .the next stage is up to the principals.”
At least some radio reports alleging a $20-million loan request for the plant are wrong, according to Mike McGillivray, the Prince George accountant who is chairman of the B.C. Development Corporation.
Although a Vancouver radio report stated the firm has applied for a loan from BCDC, McGillivray said he hasn’t received any business plan or request for a loan.
“I heard about this a couple weeks ago and said ‘Send them around,’ but we haven’t heard from them,” McGillivray said.
Bob Food, assistant deputy minister of economic development for
the province, said he first heard of the proposal on radio this morning. The provincial Ministry of Agriculture has not received an application for meat inspection, but that’s normal, according to Bill McConnell, supervisor of regulatory services.
“The Ministry of Health has to be involved. On their recommendation we determine if an inspector is required,” he said.
He added that at the moment, meat from only three areas of the province is inspected: the Lower Mainland-Fraser Valley, Victoria, and the area covered by the school district of Dawson Creek. Other meat packers are licensed, but not inspected.
Tory MP LaSalle
now in hot seat
Here's a long list of Tory problems
peddling, conflict of interest, and kickback schemes.
In another incident, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney is alleged to have put pressure on a lawyer about a civil lawsuit against a friend of his.
Meanwhile, Canada and France signed a controversial cod agreement that outraged Newfoundland, infuriated the opposition and led to an unprecedented emergency premiers’ conference.
These incidents join a long list of scandals, affairs, controversies, bungles, and questionable decisions that have brought the Tories to an all-time low in the public opinion polls.
Starting with the latest fiascos, the list includes:
■ THE OERLIKON AFFAIR: On
Jan. 18. Mulroney fired junior transport minister Andre Bissonnette and announced an RCMP investigation into a land scam in Bissonnette’s St.-Jean riding.
A 45-hectare parcel of land tripled in value to $3-million within 11 days in January, 1986, immediately before it was sold to the Swiss defence firm Oerlikon Aerospace. This was just a few months before Oerlikon was awarded a $600-mil-lion Defence Department contract to build a new low-level air defence (LLAD) system.
Normand Ouellette, president of the St.-Jean Conservative riding association, and a director of Bissonnette’s blind trust, is alleged to
Continued page 2
his home in nearby Crabtree, LaSalle said the party was organized by Tory MP Michel Gravel.
Gravel, 47, who represents Mont-real-Gamelin riding, is facing 50 counts of influence peddling, bribery and breach of public trust.
After several postponements, his preliminary hearing is scheduled to resume in Hull. Que., on March 13.
The Quebec Court of Appeal is considering a motion by Gravel to have the charges quashed.
LaSalle said the government has been "embarrassed by me a little in the last three weeks,” referring to the fact that he fired two of his aides after it became known they had criminal records.
However, he fought back angrily when reporters asked him about the $5,000 contributions.
“It never cost a cent for anyone who might want to have their names on the public works list,” he replied.
Some local businessmen who attended the news conference, where LaSalle announced a grant for a new runway at the airport near Joliette, also denied knowledge of the $5,000 fe