The Prince George
Citizen
MONDAY, APRIL 8,1991
m
51 CENTS Low tonight: -1
(Plus GST) High tomorrow: 8
We’ve had our share 5
Tourism is gameplan 8
Mowatt final set to go
11
Poitier back on tube
14
TELEPHONE:
562-2441
CIRCULATION:
562-3301
Planners chosen for UNBC
The Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership of Vancouver have been appointed primary consultants to develop a master plan for the campus of the University of Northern B.C.
Secondary consultants will be Earl R. Flansburgh and Associates, Inc. of Boston, Mass., UNBC’s project manager Des Parker announced today at a press conference.
Prince George native Paul Zanette has been appointed as project architect to work with the Boston-based firm’s UNBC design team which will be led by Flansburgh and the firm’s vice-president, David Soleau.
Some B.C. landmark designs created by the Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership include Canada Place, Park Place, The Daon Centre and The Bentall Centre in Vancouver, the B.C. Tel headquarters in Burnaby and the Canadian Airlines International building in Richmond which was awarded a gold medal for design excellence by the Architectural Institute of B.C.
Earl R. Flansburgh and Associates, Inc. has extensive experience in the design of educational facilities. The firm’s clients include Cornell and Harvard Universities, the Universities of Maine and New Hampsire, Worcester Polytechnic and the Wang Institute.
The firm has won recognition in the United States for its designs of multi-use and specialized university and college classroom and laboratory spaces, dormitories, libraries and multi-use athletic spaces.
The appointment of the firms responsible for developing the master plan for the university is the next step leading to the construction of the facilities atop Cranbrook Hill.
After the master plan including design guidelines for all the facilities is completed, it is hoped many northern architects will be engaged to design segments of the project, Parker said.
Reformers to stay out of provincial politics
By a huge majority Reform Party delegates this weekend reaffirmed their refusal to get involved in provincial politics, says Prince Gcorge-Bulkley Valley riding association president Dick Harris.
“The party has resolved that it will not seek involvement in any provincial election in any way, shape or form,” he said Saturday from the Reform Party’s spring assembly in Saskatoon.
“They will use all means possible and available, through the legal system or otherwise, to discourage unauthorized use of the Reform Party of Canada’s name, logos and membership lists by any group seeking to pass itself off as a representative of the Reform Party or affiliated with it.”
The resolution to reject expansion into provincial politics had to be passed by at least 75 per cent
of the voting delegates at the spring assembly. It was passed by 97 per cent of the delegates at Saturday’s session.
Party leader Preston Manning had opposed the idea of getting involved in provincial politics, Harris added.
Ninety-six per cent of B.C. delegates voted against Reform Party involvement in B.C. politics. The small percentage supporting activity at the provincial level centred on Ron Gamble and his group from Vancouver, which earlier this year had been trying to promote a Reform Party of B.C., Harris said.
The Prince George-Bulkley Valley riding association sent eight delegates to the spring assembly, and the Prince George-Peace River association sent 15.
See also page 6
Space ‘cart’gets test
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP-Reuters) — Two space-walking astronauts rode a cart along a rail in the shuttle Atlantis’s open cargo bay today, testing techniques that will be needed to build a U.S. space station.
It was the second day in open space for Jerry Ross and Jay Apt, who on Sunday took an emergency trip out to fix a stuck antenna on a $617 million observatory.
“Very nice braking; this thing moves very, very easily,” Ross said as he zipped up and down the 14 metres of track on the manually
operated cart. “This is the way to travel around the world.”
Said Apt, who joined Ross aboard the cart to test its capacity: “Boy, this thing glides slick. It really does.”
An unplanned, but not totally unexpected, spacewalk on Sunday was the first by U.S. astronauts since December i985. Ross and Apt donned their spaccsuits and fixed the arm of an antenna that will transmit information from the Gamma Ray Observatory to scientists back on Earth.
INDEX
Ann Landers . . . . 10
Bridge..... . . . 17
Business .... ----8
City, B.C. . . . . . . 2,3
Classified . . . . 15-18
Comic.....
Commentary .
Crossword . . . . . . 16
Editorial ....
Entertainment . . 14
Family..... . . 10
Horoscope . . . . . . 17
International . . . .7
Lotteries .... . . .6
Movies..... . . 14
National .... ----6 '
Sports..... 11-13 *>J\
Television . . . . . 17
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Back to the 'SOs
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
Greased Lightnin’ recalled the spirit of the ’50s when they performed Saturday at Vanier Hall during the Prince George Dance Festival honors performance. The local group, one of many to help close the week-long festival, is affiliated with Judy Russell’s Enchainement Dance Studio. Scholarship recipients, Page 3.
SUSPECT FACES WEAPONS CHARGES
A tense afternoon in Heights
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen StafT
Rene Cote, 21, of Prince George will appear before a provincial court judge Thursday after an incident that led to a College Heights street being sealed off for 3 Vi hours Saturday, RCMP said Sunday.
At 3:51 p.m. Saturday, RCMP received a report from Mari-onopolis Place of a man who had threatened to shoot his wife and her friend. By the time police arrived, the wife had left the residence as well as the other people who had been in the house, RCMP said.
The area was sealed off. Constables later learned the suspect had left the residence between the time his wife had left the house and police arrived.
Police located the suspect at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and Carney Street at 6:17 p.m. and arrested him without incident, RCMP said. He was not armed at the time of his arrest. However, police seized firearms — shotguns and rifles — from the Marionopolis Place residence.
Cote has been charged with weapons offences, including pointing a firearm, and assault. He appeared before a justice of the peace Sunday, and was released.
A crowd of about 50 people watched the incident unfold Saturday afternoon. There were four regular RCMP squad cars in the area as well as unmarked cars and at least one canine unit van.
Traffic on Gladstone Drive backed up as motorists and even a city bus driver slowed down to get an idea of what was going on.
■ Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
This home In College Heights was the focus of attention for this RCMP constable and other members of the Emergency Response Team Saturday afternoon.
The wife of the man police were seeking alternately spoke with friends gathered by a car parked on the north side of Gladstone Drive and paced up and down the street, smoking a cigarette.
Constables took no chances that the man might still be in the house or in the immediate neighborhood and still armed. Around 5 p.m. two of them approached a house at 7721 Marionopolis in a crouching position. Two others were positioned behind a travel trailer that was parked in a driveway on the south side.
Constables eventually entered the house and soon after one of-
ficer came out holding and examining a shotgun evidently taken from inside.
Among the crowd of onlookers at the intersection was a man who identified himself only as the owner of the house at 7721 Marionopolis. He said he was convinced the man the police were seeking had already left the house, and expressed displeasure with being denied access back into his home.
“They (police) phoned me and I got out,” he said. “But they’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
“I’m missing a hell of a good hockey game,” he added.
The owner said he and his wife had a suite downstairs that was being rented by the man sought by police and his wife.
Around 6 p.m. a constable began to clear people away from the intersection of Marionopolis and Gladstone and asked those parked near the intersection to move their cars farther away.
But about 30 minutes later a constable in a green uniform returned to a blue van with a police dog and put the animal back in its compartment.
Around 6:40 p.m. it was clear the incident was over. RCMP gave residents clearance to return to their homes.
FOUNDING CONVENTION HELD
New party seeks balance of power
'Are these cornflakes biodegradable?'
■■■■■■Bnanni
by Canadian Press RICHMOND, B.C. — The B.C. Pacific Party began staking out its political turf Saturday, claiming there’s room for one more free enterprise banner in the province.
Donna Telep, a former Social Credit dissident who led an unsuccessful movement to oust Bill Vander Zalm as premier, said 60,000 Socred memberships have lapsed since 1987.
She told about 50 people at the party’s founding convention those people will be looking for a place to go and the new party will also appeal to others who don’t like Social Credit or the New Democratic Party.
“I have also been asked, ‘Isn’t it a fact that there’s only room for one party on each side of the line?’ In reality, the people of this province have been telling me they have nowhere to go.”
B.C. politics have been polarized
for years with only Social Credit and the NDP electing members. Standing in the legislature is Social Credit 43, NDP 26. An election must be trailed this year.
Telep also said it’s possible the B.C. Pacific Party could elect 10 members to the legislature and it might hold the balance of power or become the official Opposition.
Party chairman Gowan Guest said the low turnout at the founding convention was likely the result of Vander Zalm’s decision to resign as premier on Tuesday.
He quit after conflict-of-interest commissioner Ted Hughes found the premier mixed personal business with his office in the sale of his Fantasy Gardens biblical theme park in this Vancouver suburb.
Guest said many who didn’t attend are saying “let’s stand back and see. . .maybe it’ll be a different Social Credit.”
Telep said others were too shy of the media to attend.
Guest estimated the B.C. Pacific Party membership at about 1,000 and said there have been no requests for refunds since Vander Zalm resigned. A formal membership drive will begin Monday.
One high-profile Socred who did attend was Barbara Smith, wife of former attorney general Brian Smith, one of the first ministers to quit the Vander Zalm cabinet She said she originally came as an observer but purchased a membership.
Guest also rejected suggestions the party is only for dissident Socreds.
Instead, it was founded after polls suggested one-third of British Columbians wouldn’t vote Social Credit in the next election and others said they just wouldn’t vote because they had no alternative.
"As long as we simply smile
when the media reports that the B.C. Pacific Party was founded by dissident Socreds when they gave up trying to oust Vander Zalm, then the label can stick and it simply isn’t the fact.”
Bulletin
VICTORIA (CP) — B.C mier Rita Johnston brough Couvelier back to cabinet nance minister today, less i week after taking over froi graced premier Bill Vander 2
Couvelier quit cabinet month, saying he couldn’t s as long as Vander Zalm con to sit in the legislature as p while under investigation fo flict of interest.
Vander Zalm, faced w scathing report concluding t mixed private businesswith office, resigned as premie Tuesday.
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