The Prince George
Citizen
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1,1992
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: 0 High tomorrow: 15
A lesson on dignity
How city council voted 12
Canucks fan withers
CTV butchered Oscars
15
20
Phone: 562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
BOARD CUTS $6 MILUON TO BALANCE BUDGET
School jobs, services slashed
by DIANE BAILEY Citizen Staff
The School District 57 board balanced its SI 16.5-million budget Tuesday, but only after a series of painful job and service cuts totalling nearly $6 million.
The equivalent of 52 full-time jobs will be eliminated starting July 1, when the 1992-93 budget year starts,' said board chairman Gordon Ingalls.
“We don’t know how many individual people will actually be affected in the final analysis,” he said after the four-hour meeting.
“We talked about attrition tonight. We hope a good portion of it can be handled through that process.”
Teachers, clerical Staff, custodians, groundskeepers, curriculum specialists and special education support teams will all be affected by the cuts. District communica-
tions officer Dave Belford watched as trustees voted to eliminate the job he’s held for seven years.
Ingalls blamed the provincial government for its "questionable” decision to limit education financing increases.
"I’m not convinced at this time that it’s justified,” Ingalls said.
“I don’t think we’ve been running a system that’s out of control or costing too much.”
Rene Schweizer, president of the Prince George and District Teachers Association, echoed Ingalls’ comments.
“It’s not like our business is suffering. We have more students than ever, and that is supposed to be what drives the system,” he said after the meeting.
Schweizer and trustee Adrienne Radford warned that the public should not expect the same level of service from the schools.
‘Pretty scary’ flight to city lands safely
by SHERYL THOMPSON Citizen Staff
The first flight of his life turned out to be more than Burnaby resident Brian Do! bargained for today.
Arriving in Prince George to start a job at a local mill, Dol was one of 41 passengers on Canadian Airlines flight 562 from Vancouver, which landed shortly after 8 a.m. at Prince George airport with one of its two engines shut down.
The airport was in full emergency preparedness with crash and fire rescue services, RCMP, the city fire department and ambulance on the scene before the flight landed.
Airport manager Christine Le-gault said the “full call-out procedure” was followed, a standard procedure when an aircraft engine is shut down.
During the descent into Prince George, a light went on indicating the right engine of the 118-seat Boeing 737 was overheating, airline spokesman Gerry Goodridge, said in a telephone interview from Calgary.
“The crew shut down the engine,” standard procedure when there’s an overheat indication, Goodridge said. .
About 10 minutes before landing the captain told the passengers they would be landing with one engine. Right attendants then showed passengers where emergency exits were and demonstrated the crash landing procedure, said Vancouver passenger Mark Dailey.
Dailey said he thought something was wrong before the captain’s announcement because a flight attendant seemed “flustered, or worried.”
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CHILIBECK
The plane landed safely, minutes ahead of schedule.
“I was sitting above the engine that blew,’" Dol said. The landing was “pretty scary, for the first flight ever.”
Passenger Barry Chilibeck, of Vancouver, said “the captain and crew were well prepared.”
A thin trail of black smoke from the left engine seen as the plane neared the runway was caused by the increased power given to the engine to maintain the descent on one engine, Goodridge explained.
“The airplane is built to fly on a single engine,” he said.
“There was excellent response, they (emergency personnel) all responded well before the flight arrived,” said Legault.
The 24 Vancouver-bound passengers booked on the aircraft’s return flight were rescheduled on an Air BC flight, Goodridge said.
A Canadian Airlines maintenance crew from Vancouver was scheduled to arrive in Prince George today to check the aircraft.
No further schedule disruptions were expected today, Goodridge said.
Ann Landers . . . . 21
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City, B.C. . . . . 2,3,12
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Commentary . . . . . 5
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HERMAN
“When we finish this process it will not be business as usual,” Radford said early in the meeting.
Schools must cut staffing by two per cent, which will save the district about S1.3 million. That’s equivalent to about 25 teachers, although some of the cuts might come in clerical and other nonteaching staff.
Expert assistance for teachers has also been slashed. The budget for curriculum specialists, who help teachers implement the Year 2000 curriculum and other changes, was cut by $400,000.
Regional teams and itinerant staff working with special education students lose $200,000. But at the same time, trustees made one of their few injections of new spending into the budget by adding $365,000 to move ahead with the integration of disabled students into their neighborhood schools.
In proposing the addition, trustee Ann McQuaid cautioned trustees not to lose sight of its educational philosophy in the harsh light of fiscal restraint.
“This board made a very strong commitment to neighborhood schooling, where feasible, for special-necds children. I don’t think this is the time to back away from that.”
But McQuaid lost a fight to save the elementary band program, which was eliminated at a saving of close to $300,000.
“I’m a little bit concerned that over the years we have tended to cut arts-related programs,” she said. “I think it’s a bad direction for the board to be taking.”
Schools and playground equipment will look a little more drab next year. The budget for painting and flooring contracts was cut by more than half to $250,000.
Although that cut doesn’t directly affect jobs or services to children, Radford was reluctant to again put off work that needs to be done.
“We’ve hit it too many times, too hard, too often,” she said.
The debate Radford touched off with her comment reflected the frustration trustees felt as they struggled to balance the budget.
“We’re going to cut the custodians and replace the floors so they can’t be cleaned? I don’t see the logic in that,” said trustee Doug WaUs.
The custodial budget was hacked by $100,000, while the grounds budget lost $200,000.
The board had earlier built a three-per-cent inflationary cushion into its budget, and that was eliminated Tuesday. But it did add an extra 1.7 per cent for wage and benefit increases next year.
Citizen photo by Chuck Nisbett
Parents are worried about the safety of Kelly Road Secondary students who cross the Hart Highway on their way to and from school.
HART HIGHWAY
Parents want underpass
by DIANE BAILEY Citizen Staff
Parents in the Kelly Road Secondary School area say they are scared someone is going to get hit by a car as students cross the Hart Highway to get to school.
There were a couple of close calls just last week, said Neil Henderson in an interview.
Parents are petitioning Highways Minister Art Charbonneau for an underpass between Weis-brod and Nordic Roads, said Henderson. Right now, the closest safe pedestrian crossing is about a kilometre away at East Austin Road.
Henderson said parents went house to house and collected 950 signatures. People at only six households refused to sign, he said. Another petition left at area businesses was signed by 1,000 people.
The issue came to a head after 11-year-old Michael Laing was struck and killed by a car in front of Kelly Road school about three weeks ago, said Henderson.
Although Laing was not on the Hart when he was hit, the accident got the parents talking.
It also, surprisingly enough, increased the risk to students crossing the highway.
“With all the awareness the accident created, people are stopping for kids on the highway,” Henderson said.
But not everyone is stopping at the same time, he said. Vehicles are whizzing past those that are stopped, putting kids who thought they had safe passage in a precarious position.
“It’s a time bomb,” said Henderson. “A lot of people are getting scared about what might happen.”
Terry Burgess, acting district highways manager, said he has organized a brainstorming session involving students, parents, RCMP, ICBC, city, school district and school representatives.
“We want to address the situation, but we want to make sure what we do is going to cure it,” he said Monday.
The problem is deciding what kind of crossing would be most effective, said Burgess. A high water table in the area may rule out the underpass parents say they want, and experience has shown that young people don’t bother with overpasses.
He said students cross at several points along that stretch of highway, and because, “You’re not going to change that pattern,” installing traffic lights at either Weisbrod or Nordic is only a partial solution.
The best and simplest solution may be to have students ride the Prince George transit bus that crosses the highway on its way to the school.
Henderson said many already ride the bus, but that doesn’t solve the problem of students crossing the highway at noon to get snacks from a local food store or at night after dances or sports events.
Legislature sits through night
by Canadian Press
VICTORIA — Members of the legislature held their second consecutive marathon session overnight before finally passing a government spending bill today.
The house adjourned just before 9 am. and the legislature was to resume sitting at 2 p.m. today
The NDP government said it required quick passage of the bill
because it needed legislature authority to spend money before its 1992-93 budget is officially passed.
Finance Minister Glen Clark said the Liberal Opposition wasted taxpayers’ dollars by forcing uic house to debate the bill through the night.
Clark said the Opposition used a juvenile approach with stupid and
time-wasting technical questions. The Liberals said the NDP was trying to ram the bill through the house without proper debate.
“The. government is now effectively illegitimate,” Liberal house leader David Mitchell said after the government’s spending authority technically ran out at midnight.
“It has no power to spend.”
The 600-member International Union of Operating Engineers, representing teaching assistants and custodial, clerical, security and cafeteria staff, has tentatively accepted the 1.7-per-cent increase. Negotiations with three other employee groups, including teachers, have yet to be completed.
Trustees could have chosen to go to local taxpayers in a referendum for permission to spend more money, but rejected that option early in the process saying the public is not in the mood for more tax hikes.
Instead, it expanded its budget deliberations to include employees and parents. And, once the final figures were tallied Tuesday, trustees agreed it was a process that worked.
The board will give final approval to the budget at its regular meeting next Tuesday.
Elective
surgery
cancelled
Citizen news services
Elective surgeries and other medical admissions to Prince George Regional Hospital for Thursday and Friday have been cancelled.
Due to anticipated labor action by the 500 members of the Hospital Employees Union, hospital administration announced today the cancellations and closures of 15 surgical beds and 15 medical beds by Friday.
HEU members walked off the job for three hours Tuesday as part of province-wide rotating strikes by 29,000 B.C. hospital suppor workers, who walked out at 15( hospitals.
The union’s contract expiry March 31, 1991. No talks scheduled and Health M Minister Elizabeth Cull government has no plain.
Carmela Aliev aut, business manager of th Hospital Employees Union tended the walkouts, saying ron-union staff were able to pick ^p the slack in most cases.
She said workers maintained essential services at health care facilities throughout the province, but this was disputed by hospital officials.
The Health Labor Relations Association, the hospitals’ bargaining arm, protested low union staffing to the provincial Industrial Relations Council.
The hearing began Tuesday and will continue this afternoon.
Drizzling rain didn’t dampen the spirits of the union members in Prince George, who carried balloons, banners and pennants with union slogans of “Be fair to those who care.”
The HEU members at PGRH provide nursing services, practical nursing, long-term care in Jubilee Lodge, meal preparation, housekeeping, medical records, clerical, payroll, pharmacy and other functions throughout the hospital.
In reference to a Canadian Press story in Tuesday’s edition of The Citizen which outlined the current disputed issues, John Hurren, local spokesman for HEU, said the union’s position was reported incorrectly.
The union has reduced its demands on the 35-hour work week and the wage demands. As it currently stands, the union proposes the 35-hour work week begin March 1993. The union is asking for a wage settlement “equal to what other public sector unions have already won for 1991, ranging from $1.49 to $1.78 per hour.”
The union members are refusing to work overtime, he added.
The hospital will continue to provide care for emergency and urgent cases, but further bed closures will be considered as the need arises.
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