The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 1989
50 CENTS
Low tonight: 2 High Thursday: 7
Ann Landers____
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Cult leader charged 6 Bakker behind bars 7 Government waste 16 Kings whip Quesnel 17 Beer drinking guide 32
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Track star mystery turns to tragedy
AL RIVAS
by MARILYN STORIE Staff reporter
A skeleton discovered Friday in the Fraser River has been positively identified as the remains of city track star Al Rivas, 18, missing since June 10.
His remains were discovered by three youths boating on the river near Red Rock.
An examination conducted Tuesday by pathologist Dr. Jennifer Rice ended in positive identification of Rivas. “There was no evidence of any trauma or injury,” said Prince George coroner John Wolsey.
Rivas’ mother Kathleen identified clothing found with the remains as that of her son’s.
“I don’t know,” she said when asked if she thought an investigation should continue. “The only
thing I did yesterday was identify the clothing. Any further investigation is up to the police.”
When last seen Rivas was wearing a navy blue and grey jacket, navy blue jogging pants, and runners.
The Prince George Senior Secondary School athlete had taken a break from studying about 11 p.m. the day he disappeared and gone for a jog. He dropped by a party at a friend’s Aleza Crescent home for a few moments and then said he was going to finish his jog.
He was last seen jogging north on Central Street near Spruceland Shopping Centre.
Rivas, who won a silver medal in the 400-metre run at the B.C. high school track and field championships in Burnaby two weeks
previous to his disappearance, was intending to attend university this fall. He had been accepted by both Simon Fraser University and the University of B.C. and was discussing an athletic scholarship with Eastern Washington State.
PGSS students, Rivas’ friends and their parents set up a $500 reward fund in June. PGSS principal Doug Hallam is out of town today ana was unable to comment about what will be done with the money.
A second $500 reward fund was set up the following month by several Prince George residents. Lawyer Ian Meiklem said trustees of the fund will decide whether the youths who discovered the remains will receive the money.
Rivas was the focus of a massive search by police and volunteers. Searchers combed the city, particularly jogging routes favored by the runner, and the banks of the Fraser and the Nechako rivers. Police boats and a helicopter were also used in the search.
Police went so far as to conduct a prolonged river search, travelling the Fraser in a jetboat from Prince George to Quesnel. Crimestoppers posters made Rivas’ faie familiar to the public, but few clues to his disappearance surfaced until the Friday discovery.
Meanwhile, RCMP Staff Sgt. Elies Peleskey, reported in Tuesday’s Citizen as “cautioning” the public not to “jump to conclusions” about the identity of the
remains, said today he was misquoted. “I didn’t say the public,” said Peleskey. “I said police have to be cautious in releasing this kind of information.”
Peleskey added police will be continuing to investigate the death, accepting any information or tips from the public, but they have “no evidence of foul play.” The official cause of death has not yet been announced by the Prince George coroner’s office.
Two other Prince George residents reported missing have not been located.
A still-running pickup truck belonging to Brian Carman Law, 30, was found abandoned on the Simon Fraser bridge May 4.
Joey Hamilton Tom, 21, was last seen at the Greyhound station in Prince George on Feb. 27.
Meech Lake pact facing rocky road
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Norman Clark finds giving blood a pleasant expe- clinic has a long way to go to reach its goal of rience when attended by two attentive workers, 1,450 units, with only 285 collected during its first RN Jacqueline Holmes, left, and clinic assistant day Tuesday. The clinic at the Civic Centre conti-Lorena Salvador. The Canadian Red Cross Blood nues today and Thursday from 1:30 to 8 p.m.
School trustees eye raise
by PATRICK NAGLE Southam News FREDERICTON - The Meech Lake quagmire grew murkier Tuesday after a New Brunswick legislative committee recommended major changes to the constitutional accord.
The New Brunswick report was much softer in tone than a Manitoba report which called Monday for a complete overhaul of the pact.
But the differences between the two reports demonstrate that not only is there disagreement over Meech itself, there’s disagreement among the hold-out provinces over what needs to be changed.
The reports set the stage for next month’s first ministers’ meeting and Senator Lowell Murray, the minister responsible for federal-provincial affairs, conceded it’s
Protesters must pay loggers
VICTORIA (CP) - Union loggers have successfully sued five people for lost wages after their protest held up a clear-cut logging project.
Provincial court Judge W. E. Macleod ruled Tuesday in favor of 11 members of the largest forest workers union in Canada — IWA-Canada.
The loggers, members of the International Woodworkers of Ameri-ca-Canada, sued a group of environmentalists for wages lost because the Clayoquot Sound area on the west coast of Vancouver Island was shut down Aug. 8, 1988.
The blockade occurred when about 30 people formed a human chain to prevent the loggers from working.
The five people named in the suit were Steve Lawson, Shari Bondy, Dan Videau, Julie Draper and Steve Rankin. They were ordered by MacLeod to pay a total of about $1,500, plus 10 per cent interest.
The loggers lost about six hours
See LOGGERS, page 2
unlikely the Meech impasse will be broken at the two-day event.
“It’s difficult to envision how unanimity can be reconstructed among the 11 governments if even the hold-out provinces have different priorities,” Murray told a press conference.
Manitoba and New Brunswick have so far refused to ratify Meech and Newfoundland Premier Clyde Wells, who supports the Manitoba report, is threatening to rescind his province’s endorsement if the accord isn’t amended.
The federal government is now hinting that some renegotiation of the pact might be possible but Quebec Premier Robert Bourassa is insisting that not one comma in the accord can be changed.
The accord must be ratified by all provinces by June 23, 1990, or it dies.
Prince Edward Island Premier Joe Ghiz threw another monkey wrench into the works Tuesday, declaring that the accord is effectively dead.
As long as it must be renegotiated, Ghiz vowed to demand redress of P.E.I.’s concerns — the closing of the Summerside armed forces base and Via Rail cutbacks — before agreeing to another pact.
In New Brunswick, Premier Frank McKenna said the report gives him a “mandate to negotiate a richer, more generous Meech Lake accord.”
He said he’s prepared to accommodate his province’s requirements either in an amended Meech Lake document or in a separate parallel agreement on constitutional rights.
“I would prefer to open Meech Lake rather than negotiate a parallel accord,” McKenna told a press conference.
“This is the most important issue facing Canada,” he continued. “I believe we are going to have a Meech Lake. . .but it’s obvious the accord as it is now will not be the final agreement.”
The New Brunswick report says that Quebec’s “distinct society” status must be maintained but that minorities across the country must be recognized in the accord as well.
Gift of life
E. Germany to allow free travel
EAST BERLIN (Reuter) — East Germany’s leaders have said they will let their citizens travel abroad, 28 years after building the Berlin Wall to stop them from doing so.
The Communist party Politburo said Tuesday it will draft a law this year allowing all citizens a passport and the right to travel.
“It is planned that every citizen will have the right to a passport and to travel with a visa to all countries and West Berlin. “
It said it will call for an end to the current requirements that family members stay behind as insurance so that the travellers return, and that current demands for reasons to travel should be dropped.
If the promise is fulfilled and East Germans are allowed to visit the West freely, it would be an unprecedented reversal by one of the toughest governments in the Soviet bloc.
East Germany built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop its people from fleeing to the West. Since then, it has shot, imprisoned or branded as traitors those who tried to get past the wall.
More than 120,000 East Germans have gone to the West this year, both legally and illegally. It is the largest exodus since the wall was built.
Thousands of people again underlined their dissatisfaction with the lack of reform by taking to the streets of East Berlin on Tuesday evening, hours after new party leader Egon Krenz was appointed head of state.
School District 57 trustees are gearing up to follow the lead of other B.C. school districts who’ve already given themselves a salary increase ranging from 20 to 200 per cent.
Until B.C.’s new School Act was proclaimed earlier this year, trustees’ salaries were fixed at $5,000 per year with board chairman Gordon Ingalls receiving an additional $2,500.
But trustees now have the authority to increase their stipends. The Vancouver, Central Okanagan, Vernon and Central Coast school districts have taken
advantage of the new act to increase their annual salary to between $6,000 and $18,000.
During Tuesday’s school board meeting, School District 57 trustee Bob Holtby introduced a paper in which he says he believes School District 57 trustees should be paid from $10,000 to $15,000 annually.
In the paper, Holtby points out trustees handle a larger budget than, and are required to attend more committee meetings than city council members who currently receive an annual stipend of $11,950.
But aldermen are required to
attend more public council meetings and appear at more civic functions, he said.
He also called on trustees to decide whether the trustees’ role is still considered one of public service or whether it has grown to the point where some trustees are suffering financially when they must take so much time off from their job to perform their school district duties.
Holtby estimates he spends an average of 44 hours per month attending meetings and performing
See TRUSTEES, page 2
HERMAN'
'This is one I did on my trip to Australia."
NEW COMMUNITY HALLS
Volunteer efforts get boost
by ARNOLD OLSON Staff reporter
Two community halls will soon stand as tributes to the dedication and hard work of residents in their areas.
Blackburn Community Associations’s 14-year dream of having its own hall is nearing completion, and another hall is to be built next year at Cluculz Lake.
Both will be completed with the help of Go B.C. grants.
Jackie Muise, Blackburn Community Association president, said today her group has received $138,453.
“The grant will complete the hall. We were running out of our own money.”
She said the community has a great amount of pride and exhibits
it through the involvement in raising funds and doing volunteer work toward making its dream come true.
The hall is 7,400 square feet (687.46 square metres), and will contain administrative offices as well as being able to seat 250 people for a banquet or dance.
Asked if she will offer to head the association again next year, she laughed and said she is determined to sit in those new offices, if her community will re-elect her next February.
“I’ve worked hard for this.”
Minnie Martinsen, president of the Cluculz Lake Community Association, said today that plans for a 3,600 square-foot (334.44 square-me-tre) community hall are ready, application for building permits have been made and percolation tests
for the sewage system will be done.
The association began raising funds in 1984.
She said building will probably start as soon as the frost is out of the ground next year, but a more definite date will probably be set at an association meeting tonight.
She said government officials have told the association that an application for a $31,200 grant has been approved.
To qualify for grants, associations must raise two-thirds of their budget total — either in cash or a combination of cash, material donations and volunteer labor.
She said about $30,000 is in the bank, and the balance of the two-thirds is represented by promises of labor and materials.
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