PRINCE GEORGE
High today: -20 Low tonight: -25 Details page 19
Citizen
Serving the Central Interior since 1916
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31,1996 80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 50 CENTS A DAY)
TODAY
In 2 Minutes
Next paper Thursday
The Citizen will not publish Wednesday, January 1, 1997. Regular publication resumes Thursday.
From all our staff, a very Happy New Year!
NEW YEAR’S EVE
■ If things seem relatively tame this New Year’s Eve, rest easy — and rest up. Three years from now, the world will romp into an end-of-the-century birthday bash the likes of which have never been seen. The planning has already begun. Page 12
ENTERTAINMENT
■ Despite promotion controversies resembling more soap opera than grand opera, the Three Tenors concert is tuning up for tonight in Vancouver. Technicians are dressing B.C. Place Stadium for opera’s top talents, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti. Page 17
COMMUNITY
This morning's top local headlines:
Travelling? Check conditions/page 3 Crisis volunteers kept busy /page 13 Cleanup continues at library /page 13
E-Mail address: CITIZEN@NETBISTRO.COM
INDEX
Ann Landers........ .. .1?,
Bridge............. .. .20
Business ........... .21,22
City, B.C...........3,13,15
Classified .......... 18-20
Comics ............ . . .16
Community Calendar ...14
Crossword ......... .. .16
Entertainment....... ...17
Horoscope ......... .. .7,0
Lifestyles........... 12,14
Movies.............. .. .17
Nation............. . . .5
Sports ............. ,8-11
Television........... . . .17
World ............. ....7
58 07 00100
Book to explore our quality of life
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
A book should be out June 1 detailing what it is like to live in this city.
A draft of the Prince George quality of life study should be out in February for the public to comment on during the following three months, says University of Northern B.C. political science professor Alex Michalos. He’s overseeing research going into the publication.
“This will allow the people of the city to have some input on the structure of the report,” Michalos said Monday.
A dozen people, mainly students, have been working on the research for the publication since last spring.
Among other statistics, they used data from the B.C. Health Ministry and StatsCan. Categories of information deal with the city’s population structure, the number of intact husband-wife families, the number of single-parent families and similar details.
Other information going into the book comes from Michalos’s 1994 quality-of-life survey of Prince George.
“In January, we hope to have all the basic data collected, and decide
how to use it to tell the basic story,” Michalos said.
City council’s Healthy Community Committee is involved in the project. The idea for the project ultimately derives from the Healthy Community concept started by the United Nations’ World Health Organization.
The Prince George quality of life study should have about 15 chapters. One chapter will deal with health and health care, and another with employment, income levels and poverty.
A chapter will be devoted to crime and the criminal justice sys-
tem. Other chapters will deal with housing, education, environmental quality (including air quality), local social support groups, community arts groups and government agencies and services.
There will also be chapters on women, minorities, youth, seniors, special-needs groups, multicultural-ism, local natural resources and business and industry.
“The focus is Prince George, but some of the data have been collected on a regional district basis,” Michalos said. “Sometimes we have to pick a broader base when going from chapter to chapter.”
Snow-removal cost climbs over budget
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
The city is over budget for snow clearing for this calendar year, says Frank Blues of the public works department.
But that is not because of an especially bad year for snow accumulation, he said. Costs can also increase according to the number of times it snows, or whether it snows heavily starting Friday night, requiring snowplow and sanding crews to be called out on a weekend.
By mid-month, the latest date for which complete figures are available, year-to-date expenditures on snow removal had reached $3.5 million, Blues said. That’s about 16 per cent over the $3 million budgeted.
The $3.5 million figure by midmonth does not include wages, internal equipment costs and rentals of equipment from outside agencies and private firms since the middle of the month.
The city spent $1.9 million removing snow during the winter months at the beginning of this year. From Jan. 1 through late spring, 53 centimetres of snow fell in Prince George, well below the average 103 centimetres, Blues said.
Between Nov. 1 and Sunday night, 99 centimetres of snow fell on the city.
That is below the 30-year average of 120 centimetres during that same period, Blues said.
The timing and frequency of snowfalls and ice buildups on roads determines the total cost of snow removal and sanding in a given year, Blues explained.
If motorists noticed roads were a little treacherous last week, and sanding was minimal, it wasn’t an attempt by the public works department to save money at the end of the budget year and keep overruns to a minimum.
Last week an electrical connection blew in a line that fed power to the block heaters in sanding trucks. As a result, not many of them would start, Blues said.
“All the trucks that were available were in use.”
Sanding trucks were back out on high-priority arterial routes Monday, said Scott Cameron, division supervisor in the public works department.
For streets in the Bowl area, the city has switched to using fracture, as opposed to any mixture containing sand.
Fracture refers to bits of crushed
Courthouse
damage
heavy?
Citizen staff
A burst water pipe in the new courthouse downtown likely caused much greater damage than at first indicated.
Floor tiles were damaged, and carpet was soaked. Gyproc was also extensively damaged by the water, said Dennis Bell, manager of court services in Prince George.
Custom-made carved wooden baseboards in ornate courtrooms are warping and pulling away from walls, Bell said Monday. Insurance adjusters are still assessing the damage.
Earlier this month officials in the attorney general’s ministry hoped, after several delays, that the courthouse would be open by the middle of next month. The opening date may have to be delayed again.
Court administrators here hoped to have conference call discussions Monday with officials in Victoria to try to set a new opening date. But up to 70 centimetres of snow in that city prevented many government officials from getting to work, Bell said.
If it cannot be arranged for today, the conference call may have to be put off until Thursday or later, he said.
The B.C. Buildings Corporation oversees public works projects. Other than to say the damage was typical flood damage, local BCBC officials declined to comment on how much repairs might cost and directed inquires to Dennis Racine, the Crown corporation’s public affairs representative.
Racine could not be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
• Citizen photo by Dave Milne
City employee Terry Hammell shovels frozen sand through a screen on his truck before spreading It on our slippery streets.
rock small enough to be sifted breakup.
through a screen. Yet fracture does As snow continued Monday night,
not contain fine sand that can later snowplows were out on main roads
contribute to annoying and and bus routes as is usual when new
unhealthy clouds of dust after spring snow arrives, Cameron said.
Furnaces hungry
VANCOUVER (CP) — The cold and snow that’s hit B.C. in recent days has people jacking up their thermostats all over the province.
B.C. Gas says while the final numbers aren’t in yet, all indications are that B.C. broke a one-day record for gas consumption on Saturday or Sunday.
Temperatures have been far below average in the Interior and Peace regions for almost two weeks.
Temperatures of -40 have been commonplace in the Dawson Creek area, with -50 recorded over the weekend in nearby Toms Lake.
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