The Prince George
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13-15
“You can tell me now. I took the batteries out of his hearing aid."
Police issue motorcycle warning
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
The latest motorcycle accident here has Prince George RCMP warning drivers they’ll be pushing their motorcycles home if they do not comply with the restrictions of their licence.
“It may be partly the age group,” said RCMP Const Les Leyh, who drives a motorcycle himself, “but we seem to be experiencing more accidents involving motorcycles. Anyone caught without a licence is going to be pushing their bike home.”
An investigation completed into a traffic death last Wednesday at the South Kelly Road and Hart Highway intersection has determined Myron Earl Bliss, 19, died as the result of a motorcycle accident. The Fort Sl John man had a learner’s licence to operate a motorcycle.
Sgt. Garry Rogers, head of the city RCMP traffic section, said today a coroner’s investigation and a pathological report indicate Bliss’ death is attributable to an accident involving his motorcycle. Evidence at the site did not indicate the involvement of another vehicle.
Leyh said he attended a motorcycle collision at 8:17 p.m. Tuesday. The drivers, Darren Michael Pauls and Terry Robert Pearson, both aged 18, suffered minor injuries from the accident at Third Avenue and Freeman Street About $1,000 damage was done to each motorcycle, a 1986 Yamaha and a 1987 Kawasaki.
Pearson was charged under the Motor Vehicle Act with speeding in a municipality. Both Pearson and Pauls were also charged with driving contrary to the restrictions on their driver’s licence.
Leyh said a driver must have a Class 6 licence to drive a motorcycle. “A high proportion of the motorcycle drivers we stop have only their novice or
Darren Michael Pauls, 18, receives treatment for a suspected after his motorcycle collided wtth another Tuesday evening.
learner’s permit — and we charge them.”
With a novice licence — what Leyh referred to as a “learner’s learner permit” — or learner permit, drivers are not allowed to carry passengers and they are not allowed to drive faster than 60
kilometres per hour or to operate a motorcycle after dusk. Learning drivers also must be in sight of someone with a Class 6 licence; in a parking lot, for example, or must be accompanied by a Class 6 driver on a second motorcycle' or in a car.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
broken wrist from paramedics
“Motorcycles opearate differently than a car and the restrictions are to give drivers a chance to practise,” said Leyh. “Too many drivers are taking a written exam and hopping on a motoryclc without complying with the restrictions.”
PROJECTS COLLEGE NEEDS THROUGH 2001
CNC wants $65-million expansion
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
The College of New Caledonia has released a $65-million master site development plan that calls for a $27.7-million expansion in die near future.
The expansion would accommodate 600 additional students and provide more library, classroom and faculty office space.
On the basis of the report, the college is asking for $1.18 million now to do detailed planning for the project that would expand floor space by about 25 per cent, CNC president Terry Weninger said today.
The report projects CNC’s needs through the 2000-2001 academic year. It envisions a second and third phase of expansion that, together with the first southeast expansion, would total $65 million of construction in 1993 dollars and nearly double the college’s building size. The
consultants foresee a college enrolment of
4,322 full-time equivalent students by then.
Resources Planning Group of Vancouver prepared the 600-page report with an initial $70,000 grant the college received last November from the ministry of advanced education, training and technology.
Weninger sent the report and the request for additional planning funds to the ministry a week ago.
The $1.18 million would allow the college to continue with detailed planning so CNC could tender for construction by late next summer.
The proposed expansion of the southeast part of the CNC building would include a new library, additional classroom space, faculty offices, a bigger college store and daycare facilities, Weninger said.
The bookstore and many classrooms and offices are now located in dilapidated
portable classrooms. “This expansion would eradicate the need for those portables,” he said.
“In addition, it would allow us to expand to provide adequate facilities for our nursing program, and long-term care and home support worker programs. It would provide us with additional facilities for our electronic technology and forestry programs.”
If the planning money is approved, the college would retain an architect by the end of this year. Construction would begin late next year and the extension to the southeast part of the building would be ready for occupancy for the 1994-95 academic year, when the college expects enrolment to have grown to the equivalent of 3,225 full-time students.
During the 1989-90 academic year the college had the equivalent of 2,611 fulltime students enrolled.
This past year the college enrolled the equivalent of 2,600 full-time students, but a head count of more than 5,500 students attending either full- or part-time.
The second phase would see the construction of a trades building at a cost of $24.1 million. “That would allow us to consolidate electrical and carpentry programs on our main campus that are now delivered on an off-campus site and permit an all-around expansion of trades programs,” he said.
If enrolments reached the equivalent of
4,322 full-time students, Phase III would mean construction of fourth and fifth floors to the present main campus building to provide additional classroom space and allow for an expansion of the new library.
The report indicates that enrolment in university-transfer programs would dip by about 40 full-time students after the University of Northern B.C. opens in 1993,
but would rise back to current levels by the 1995-96 academic year and increase by more than 20 per cent by the year 2000.
An expanded college would not compete with UNBC for students or funds, Weninger said.
“I don’t think it’s the ministry’s position to downgrade one facility at the expense of another. There is a legitimate need, and Prince George and the North deserve a first-class college and first-class university facilities.
“Really, it would be a disservice to the people of the North if I didn’t bring forward the needs of the college now.”
Lethbridge, Alta., and Sudbury, Ont, are examples of two smaller cities that are regional centres that support both a strong university and thriving community college, he said.
Top unions join forces, report says
MONTREAL (CP) — Canada’s two biggest public-service unions have decided to join forces for an “inevitable confrontation” with Ottawa this month, says Montreal La Presse.
The newspaper says the
170,000-strong Public Service Alliance of Canada and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, which represents 46,000 people, agreed last week to forge solidarity links and to support each other in the face of “attacks.”
In a letter obtained by La Presse, the two unions promise to form a united front to resist any move by Ottawa to cap salary hikes at three per cent.
The letter — signed by alliance head Daryl Bean and postal union president Jean-Claude Parrot — says they are preparing for a confrontation and a general strike.
“The time has come for us to
stick together,” Bean and Parrot say in the letter.
An official of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers told La Presse the agreement means if either union goes on strike, the other will probably follow.
Members of the postal union — who’ve been without a contract since July, 1989 — will be in a legal position to strike seven days afler Labor Minister Marcel Danis releases a conciliation board report, expected this week.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada, which represents most federal employees from Customs officers to dockyard workers, is waiting for seven conciliation reports.
The alliance is seeking salary hikes equal to the rate of inflation, while the postal workers are pushing for annual wage increases at about seven per cent.
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 14,1991
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: 11 High tomorrow: 28
Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
De Cuellar wants ‘magic formula’
GENEVA (AP) — UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said today he hopes Israel would release some Arab detainees this weekend as a gesture to speed the release of westerners held in Lebanon.
But he warned against false expectations that today’s talks with senior Israeli negotiators, who arrived in the Swiss city this morning, would solve the long hostage crisis.
“I am not expecting that the Israelis will give me the magic formula,” he told reporters.
Israeli media reported that at today’s talks, the Israeli negotiators would propose a two-stage exchange of western hostages for Arab detainees.
Arab diplomats said they believe a broad agreement had been reached for a series of hostage swaps that could end the ordeal of the 11 westerners, including five Americans, still held in Lebanon.
Speculation about an imminent Israeli release of Arab detainees intensified after Israel radio said 50 Shiites would be released if videotape were provided of missing Israeli navigator Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down during a bombing mission in south Lebanon in 1986.
However, Israeli Defence Ministry spokesman Dan Naveh called the reports “disinformation.”
Perez de Cuellar, asked if he expects Israel to free some prisoners as early as the weekend, replied: “That’s my hope.”
The Lebanese kidnappers holding the westerners want Israel to free 375 Arab prisoners, including a Shiite Muslim cleric, under its control in exchange for the hostages and seven missing Israeli servicemen.
However, the secretary general said terrorists convicted or held in Europe should not be included in any swap, despite hostage-takers demands to the contrary.
“I think we should not mix up the hostages and the detainees and the prisoners with those who are in other European countries. . .because that is a legal problem, rather different that a political problem,” he said.
German officials have briefed the secretary general on two Shiite terrorists jailed in Germany, but Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher refused today to say whether the prisoners might be involve in any swap.
Germany holds the brothers Mohammed Ali Hamadi and Abbas Hamadi. Mohammed Ali Hamadi was convicted in May 1989 and sentenced to life in connection with the murder of a U.S. sailor during the June 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner.
According to one Israeli report today, by the daily Yedioth Ahronoth, the Israelis were expected to propose that they would release a group of Lebanese prisoners upon receiving solid information on their missing in Lebanon.
Nuclear waste timebomb 5
Man admits to murders 9
City council box score 12
Too hot and too dry 23
Blast destroys offices
VANCOUVER (CP) — A restaurant worker was in critical condition in hospital today after a fierce early-morning explosion destroyed a commercial block on the fringe of the downtown core.
About a dozen businesses, including four restaurants, were damaged when the blast occurred at about 4:15 a.m. PDT at Dynamite Pizza.
The building, which was reduced to a blackened shell, was at the comer of Broadway and Cambie, a busy intersection during daylight hours.
The blast, which occurred three blocks from City Hall, had only a minor effect on the morning rush hour as an army of street sweepers cleaned up most glass and debris before traffic volumes built up.
“There’s a possiblity an employee of the restaurant here was cleaning the oven and the overhead fan with some gasoline last night and as you can see an explosion resulted,” said Vancouver police Insp. Brian McGuinness,
The employee, who walked away from the explosion, suffered extensive bums and cuts to his entire body.
The force of the blast drove a metal door frame from the pizza restaurant across the street and through the plate glass entrance to a bank on the other side. A fire broke out but was quickly brought under control.
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