WEDNESDAY, MAY 22,1996
High today: 14 Low tonight: 3 Details page 2
PRINCE GEORGE
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
Pre-school measles warning issued
INDEX
Ann Landers.................22
Bridge......................24
Business ................18,19
City, B.C..............3,15,17
Classifieds..............23-27
Comics .....................20
Community Calendar ..6,16
Crossword ..................20
Entertainment...............21
Horoscope ..................24
Lifestyles ..........5,6,16,22
Movies......................21
Nation ....................7,8
Sports ..................11-14
Television..................21
World..................9,10,27
CANNES
5830?
00100
■ Actor Hugh Grant was pushing his latest film, and refusing to answer questions about his private life at the Cannes Film Festival. Meanwhile, the Golden Palm for best movie went to Britain’s Secrets and Lies. Page 21
FOOD
■ California chef and cookbook author Hugh Carpenter is waging war against food crime: fashionable multi-course gourmet meals that
minutesf
require hours of preparation to produce works of culinary perfection. He suggests replacing complexity in cooking with simplicity and flavor. Page 5
WAR
■ Filipino villagers are demanding compensation from a Japanese soldier who killed seven people while he hid out in the jungle for 28 years after the Second World War. Page 2.
RUSSIA
■ The key questions in Russia’s coming election isn’t who is going to
be the next president. It’s bigger than that — it’s what kind of country do the people want. Page 28
SPORTS
■ The mud might have been the biggest challenge to racers this weekend during national and provincial BMX races at Carrie Jane Gray Park, but local cyclist Jamie Parker still managed two wins in her category. Page 11
WORLD
■ Beijing is experiencing a nightlife explosion. Bars, clubs and cafes are electrifying the Chinese
COMMUNITY
This morning’s top local headlines:
Tropical visitors like our weather/page 3 Nature inspires composer /page 15 UNBC convocation ceremony set /page 15
city’s once nonexistent nightlife. No longer does sunset mark the end of the day. Page 27
CANADA
■ Experts say the winter we’ve just been through was one of the wickedest this century. It was unusual for its length and vicious extremes. Snow came early and stayed late. Page 8
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen Staff
The provincial health officer — worried at the low turnout of pre-schoolers for a province-wide measles immunization catchup program — is encouraging parents to bring their children to local clinics.
“The message I’ve been trying to get out, is measles is a serious illness,” provincial health officer Dr. John Millar said Tuesday from Vancouver. “It’s still killing kids, it’s still causing brain damage — and we’ve got a very good vaccine that has a very low incident of side affects and we know that if we get two doses into children we can pretty well eliminate any given child from getting measles and also epidemics
from occurring.”
But Millar says while they’ve had a good turnout from children in kindergarten to Grade 12 (about 90 per cent) for the voluntary program, there’s been a poor turnout from the preschool group from 19 months to five years old (less than 10 per cent).
“We’re just afraid that people’ haven’t quite got the message,” said Millar, pointing out the program is finished at the end of June.
The massive $4.5-million program, which began in April, is meant to prevent an outbreak of measles, otherwise expected to occur this year or in 1997.
The last B.C. measles epidemic hit 7,000 people in 1986.
About 800,000 children will be immunized in B.C. — about 35,000 in the Northern Interior region including Burns Lake, Valemount, Hixon and Bear Lake.
About 95 per cent of children get a measles vaccine after their first birthday now, but a second dose is required to protect kids 100 per cent.
Following the catchup program, a second does of measles vaccine will be given to children at 18 months of age at an annual cost of $487,000.
The government expects to save $1.8 million annually for the next 20 years by eliminating measles.
Ontario, Quebec, the Yukon and North West
Territories are starting similar campaigns.
★ ★ ★
Pre-school immunization clinic dates:
■ June 2 — Peden Hill Elementary
■ June 7 — Pineview Elementary
■ June 10 — Foothills Elementary
■ June 11 — North Nechako Elementary
■ June 12 — Columbus Centre
■ June 13 — Hartland Church
■ June 14 — Highglen Elementary
■ June 19 — Columbus Centre
■ June 20 — Hartland Church
An appointment is necessary.
Phone the Northern Interior Health Unit at 565-7311.
Tight school spending prompts hiring freeze
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
School District 57 has imposed a hiring freeze, starting today, applying to all non-instructional staff in order to cover part of a budgetary shortfall they could not meet by other means.
The freeze will continue until the $350,000 is made up.
“This will have a pretty dramatic effect,” trustee Doug Walls said Tuesday. “We will eliminate 20 per cent of hiring that would have taken place in the district.”
The freeze applies to all positions where the job-holder does not have personal instructional contact with students. Included are jobs like custodians, clerical staff, administrators, librarians and even some categories of teaching assistant.
The school board put the final touches on the 1996-97 operating budget of approximately $115 mil-
lion Tuesday. With $1.28 million for building maintenance and upgrading, and $6.9 million for debt service on previous major capital projects, the entire School District 57 budget for the next fiscal year will be about $124 million. Trustees expect to pass a bylaw for final approval June 11.
School trustees approved most of 33 measures administrators proposed in March to cover a $2.469-million shortfall. But they had to abandon a plan to charge fees to some categories of bus riders and shelved a plan to charge parking fees.
In addition, trustees learned they had a $250,000 budgetary deficit from this year to deal with. They expect permission from the Ministry of Education to absorb that deficit over two years, but that still means the district has an additional $125,000 in red ink to soak up in the 1996-97 fiscal year.
Altogerher, then, trustees still had
almost $400,000 to go before they could balance the new budget.
Trustees decided to save $8,000 by not replacing telephones as quickly as planned. Through seeking a better deal with a chartered bank, they expect to earn another $37,692 on bank deposits. The hiring freeze will make up the other $355,806 of the remainder of the shortfall.
“In my nine years as trustee, this has only happened once before,” Walls said. “That was when we were down about $1 million because of an unexpected drop in enrolments.” A hiring freeze was imposed then, too, he noted. The board agreed to accept an offer from Education Minister Paul Ramsey of help from the Ministry in dealing with deficits. Trustee Shirley Bond said only good could come from that, and trustees agreed it might help Ministry officials learn how difficult their financial situation is.
Debt remains big election issue
Citizen staff
The provincial debt remains far and away the most important election issue in the North.
In the latest batch of responses to The Prince George Citizen’s unscientific readers’ poll, the debt was mentioned 13 times as an issue voters will be concentrating on in next Tuesday’s provincial election.
Added to previous tallies, the debt — a subject including taxes and spending — was named 64 times, nearly twice as many times as the next most important topic to readers, health care (36 mentions).
Two weeks ago, The Citizen published a coupon giving our readers an opportunity to let the public, and the politicians, know which issues are important to them.
In the most recent batch of
responses, received in the past week, readers added some new issues to the list which was published in last Wednesday’s Citizen.
One of those, problems with the Workers’ Compensation Board, was named 12 times, putting it firmly in the top 10 on the response list. However, all of those mentions were received from different people in the same envelope.
Health care issues were named nine times in the past week, while honesty and integrity of elected officials was mentioned seven times.
Native land claims and other treaty issues were mentioned six times, while education was picked five times.
Overall, the top 10 issues were:
■ Debt, the deficit and spending (64);
■ Health care (36);
■ Land claims and treaty issues (26);
■ Education (19);
■ Honesty and integrity (16);
■ Environment (13);
■ Unemployment, job training and welfare (13);
■ Workers’ Compensation Board issues (12)
■ Bureaucracy (8);
■ Justice and crime control (7).
A sampling of new responses:
■ “Honesty: No one believes any of their wild promises when most of their talk is mud-slinging.”
■ “Environment: Air quality, water quality, eliminate fluoride, save the rivers!”
■ “Politicians must be held personally responsible for election promises.”
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
DOME SWEET DOME — The Sistine Chapel it isn't, but our new law courts building has some striking views all its own. With the dome looming over them, Eric Moore and Rod Cryderman of Admiral Roofing repair a railing on the third floor inside the building taking shape downtown. The dome will provide a striking addition to the city's skyline.
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