City council gave third reading Monday to a zoning bylaw that allows commercial redevelopment of this land in Carrie Jane Gray Park.
Citizen photo by Brock Gable
School district staff approves strike action
by DIANE BAILEY Staff reporter
Support staff in School District 57 have voted 75 per cent in favor of strike action, says International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 858, business manager Peggy Smalley.
More than 200 of the district’s 400 clerical and custodial workers, teaching aides and bus supervisors cast ballots over the weekend.
Smalley said the strike vote was called because of the district’s “reluctance to continue negotiations.” She said the two sides had been tentatively scheduled to meet Nov.
21 and 22, but the district cancelled.
"They said they didn’t have anything more to offer us than they already have, so there was no point in meeting.”
Smalley said she approached the district’s chief negotiator Monday about getting back to the bargaining table, and was told the same thing. The two sides last met Sept.
26.
She said there is a “bit of a difference” in wage proposals. The district is offering 20 cents an hour retroactive to June 1, 20 cents retroactive to Oct. 1 and 20 cents Feb.
Labor relations problems seen
KITIMAT, B.C. (CP) - The Kitimat school board will damage labor relations for years by going to the Industrial Relations Council to have the strike by 180 teachers declared illegal, says the president of the Kitimat Teachers’ Association.
About 2,500 students have had an unexpected holiday since the strike began Monday morning after negotiations broke down Sunday.
It is the first walkout in British Columbia since new legislation gave teachers the right to form unions and to strike.
1, four per cent in the second year and five per cent in the third year.
The union wants a two-year contract with a 5Vz-per-cent increase each year.
But Smalley said there are nonmonetary issues to be resolved. One area in which the two sides remain far apart is a district demand that clerical workers be required to get an industrial first aid certificate.
“That is not a problem if they let our people volunteer,” said Smalley.
District negotiator Ken Waldron could not be reached for comment.
Smalley said the strike vote was not supervised by the Industrial Relations Council, as required under the Industrial Relations Reform Act. A recent strike vote taken by Prince George teachers was not supervised by the council either.
Both the operating engineers and the Prince George District Teachers Association are participating in a B.C. Federation or Labor boycott of the council to protest the labor legislation.
In Kitimat, where teachers are in the second day of a strike affecting 2,500 students, the school board is in the process of filing an application with the IRC to declare the walkout illegal, said board negotiator Ian Dalgleish.
Although the 180-member Kitimat Teachers Association voted more than 90 per cent in favor of striking, the vote was not supervised by the council. If the strike is declared illegal an order requiring teachers to return to work would be filed in B.C. Supreme Court.
Although Dalgleish admits that using a technicality to circumvent the strike mandate may harm relations with the teachers, he said the board did not have any other alternative.
“It is being filed because we are at an impasse and we need help. I don’t know of any other avenue to go,” he said.
Wedding photo his undoing
LANGLEY (CP) - A knife-wielding rapist who was identified by his wedding picture in a local newspaper has been sentenced to
10 years in prison.
Noble Adams, 24, pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault in the rape of a 17-year-old girl in June.
The victim spotted Adam in a j)hoto and story of his wedding car-
"What's the get-well card for?”
ii iwnr
TENACITY
FIRST STEPS TAKEN
ried in the Langley Times. The vicious attack happened only a month after Adam was married.
Following an argument with his new wife and a bout of drinking, Adam broke into the young woman’s apartment and sexually assaulted her. He also stabbed her in the back, chest and arms.
VANCOUVER (CP) — The head of British Columbia’s largest labor organization gave the province’s unions a pat on the back and its government the back of his hand Monday.
Ken Georgetti, president of the 275,000-member B.C. Federation of Labor, congratulated unions for withstanding what he termed the assault on union power contained in the 18-month-old Industrial Relations Act, still referred to as Bill 19.
“Bill 19 was designed to weaken the labor movement,” Georgetti told delegates to the federation’s annual convention. “It had the opposite effect.”
The threat of increased government power over unions helped draw the union movement together, he said.
“As this convention opens there are thousands more members of unions than there were last year,” he said, noting membership in federation-affiliated unions has climbed by 15,000 in the last year.
The federation, which has 46 member unions, has led the fight against the legislation, which replaced the old Labor Code and gave the Social Credit government more power to intervene in disputes and pre-empt strikes.
B.C. woodlot owners form association
Citizen news services
FORT ST. JOHN — Small woodlot owners in British Columbia say they want a say in shaping new forest policy in the province.
“We recognize that forest policy and the entire forest industry in British Columbia is chinging,” Peter Sanders, newly elected president of the Federation of B.C. Woodlot Owners Associations, said Monday.
“We believe that unless we get together and speak up, the private woodland owner and woodland licence holder could get swamped in the surge of change.”
The federation held its inaugural meeting here. The group was created to provide members with a provincial voice to take their concerns to Victoria.
A woodlot is a privately owned, non-industrial area of forest land that is often part of a larger area, such as a farm.
Sanders believes private woodland owners often do a better job of forest management than either industry or Crown forest managers.
Bulletin
Sale of parkland draws opposition
PENTICTON (CP) — Two preschool children died and their mother was ii\jured today in a fire in a motel room in this Okanagan Valley community, police said.
No names were released. The woman was in hospital with undetermined injuries.
The fire damaged two adjoining units in the single-storey Kozy Guest House, but there were no other injuries.
by MALCOLM CURTIS Staff reporter
Resisting opposition from the public gallery, city council took the first steps Monday to rezone a corner of undeveloped land in the northeast corner of Carrie Jane Gray Park for commercial development.
Northland Plymouth Chrysler, the car dealer, has shown interest in the 1.7-hectare parcel, appraised at slightly more than $500,000. Any funds derived from development on the site would go towards future park and recreation development.
Real estate salesmen, architects and several neighboring residents lined up at a public nearing to oppose sale of the parkland.
But in a 4-1 decision, aldermen gave third reading to a rezoning bylaw, deciding the city has other land better suited for park development and could use the revenue from a commercial land sale. The five aldermen formed a quorum, minimum number out of nine councillors required for a valid council meeting.
Reflecting the majority opinion, Aid. Cliff Dezell said “times change” and today’s council shouldn’t feel bound by past decisions to set aside land for park use.
Dezell and other aldermen noted the city has steadily expanded its parks, adding 11 hectares in the last two years alone.
Aid. Colin Kinsley said the city has to be flexible in changing economic conditions. “We have to look at ways to generate revenue and to increase the city’s tax base,” Kinsley said. “I don’t think this will have the devastating impact some people think it will have.”
The parkland in question is a triangular parcel bounded by Highway 16 and 20th Avenue, and se-
Sarated from the rest of Carrie ane Gray Park by a B.C. Hydro substation.
Harry Backlin, real estate salesman, led the opposition against the rezoning, which is subject to final reading next month.
Bacluin said the land was set
Residents, many opposed to the plan to sell off city parkland, jammed council chambers. Citizen photo by Lisa Murdoch
aside by council as part of a “sacred trust.”
It’s not enough to say that the land “looks terrible,” he said. In future years the park could be developed and the Hydro sub-station can be landscaped.
Incoming alderman Noel O’Beime expressed concern for investors who have bought commercial land elsewhere in the city.
Former city planner Des Parker, now an architect, admitted to having an interest in seeing other commercial land developed.
But he said he would not accept a commission for a development on the site.
Parker suggested sale of the parkland would desecrate the memory of the former mayor after whom the park was namea.
One Seymour subdivision resident said she mistrusted real estate salesmen who talk about saving parkland but she hoped council would listen to “the people” and spare the parkland.
As well, the Christian Reform Church, located on 20th Avenue, sent a letter against the rezoning.
Alan Greenwell, an architect hired by Northland, said the prop-
erty is “almost wasteland” and> doesn’t serve any parkland pur-' pose, while revenue from sale of the land could be put to good use elsewhere in the city.
Northland wants to relocate its dealership from its current downtown location.
Once the zoning bylaw receives final reading, tne city has the option of putting the land up for bid or leasing it.
At the suggestion of Aid. Art Stauble, council asked city staff to examine the possibility of a land lease to retain control over the landscaping of any future commercial project at the site.
Under the proposed zoning, development would be restricted to the following ventures: an animal hospital, car or truck rental, car sales or service, car wash, nursery or greenhouse, and recreational vehicle sales.
The planning department recommended these categories as the only ones appropriate for the site.
Acting mayor Aid. Richard Godfrey voted against the bylaw because he felt the city could benefit from a more general zoning.
INQUEST TESTIMONY
'Kids doused with gasoline'
by Canadian Press VICTORIA (CP) - A five-year-old girl who survived a gasoline-fed brush fire that killed her mother and two brothers told people the mother doused the children with gasoline, a coroner’s inquest was told Monday.
Judith Williams said she was out picking blackberries Sept. 5 when she found Vicki Mansell leaning up against her car. The girl was bruised, scratched and soaked in gasoline.
Williams said the girl looked up and asked: “Why did momma pour gasoline on me?”
She told the inquest that at one point, the girl said “Momma says she doesn’t want me any more — do you want me?”
Adam Mansell, 2, died the day of the fire. Edith Mansell, 35, and Norman, 3, died in hospital four
days later from bums suffered in the fire.
The father of the family is in prison serving a five-year term for sexually assaulting a child.
Williams testified the girl told her her name, age and telephone number before blurting out “my brothers (are) on fire. I tried to save them, but it was too hot and smoky. My mother poured gasoline on me.”
Williams said she and a friend took the girl to their home and then to a nearby hospital. On the way, they passed the fire scene and the girl started to shake. The child then began playing with Williams’ hair and jewelry and talked like a baby.
Williams said the girl craved attention and there has been a bond between the two of them since that day.
“I’ve stayed close and in touch,” she said.
Karla Williamson told the inquest the mother and her children had visited her the afternoon before the fire. She described the mother’s state as “very calm.”
But she said the mother had complained about being raped four days before by a man who had lived in an apartment above her.
Maurice Hale vehemently denied the accusation, calling it “absolutely false.”
He testified that he visited Mansell on Aug. 29 and she appeared to be begging him for companionship. He said they had sex, hut he did not stay the night.
Hale said ne sold Mansell a $100,000 life insurance policy last February. But he said she never spoke to him at any time about committing suicide.
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The Prince George
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TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1988
50 CENTS
Barrett still has fire 2
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