PRINCE GEORGE
High today: 21 Low tonight: 6 Details page 2
Citizen
Serving the Centro! Interior since 1916
TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2002
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 54 CENTS A DAY)
Layoffs handed out to school workers
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff
As of mid-afternoon Monday 106 layoff notices had gone out to support staff union members in School District 57, said Marilyn Hannah, president of Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 3742.
Ninety-nine were received Friday, she said.
All these were for staff at the 12 schools the board has slated for closure.
In the long run, not all of the 99 will necessarily lose their jobs, Hannah said.
Some may be able to use their seniority to bump down into jobs in other schools, or, in the case of some teaching assistants, follow a student they are assisting into another school.
“Some jobs will be re-posted,” she said.
Another seven layoff notices were received by support staff members in areas outside those 12 schools by mid-afternoon Monday, Hannah said.
More layoff notices still have to go out, and a complete picture will not be available until the end of today, the deadline under the collective agreement for the district to provide layoff notices to support staff, said superintendent Dick Chambers.
Hannah said some principals were facing enormous planning paperwork in having to make projections for three different scenarios — for staff layoffs if their schools were to close, for staff changes if the school were to stay open under reduced operations, and for staff additions if their school were to accept and amalgamate with their own student population some students might be assigned to them from other schools that could be closed.
“It’s just going to be utter chaos,” Hannah said.
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INDEX
Ann Landers____ ........17
Bridge......... .........6
Business ....... .....18-20
City, B.C........ . .3,5,6,13
Classified ...... .....21-23
Comics ........ ........16
Coming Events .. .........2
Crossword ..... ........16
Entertainment .. ........17
Horoscope ..... ........14
Lifestyles....... ........17
Movies......... ........17
Nation ......... ......7,14
Sports ......... ......8-12
Television...... ........17
World ......... ........15
canada.com
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten
SIZZLING AFTERNOON OF WORK — Firefighter Blake King dowses out a grass fire on Griffiths Avenue across from PGSS Monday afternoon. The fire spread into the trees before it was finally put out.
Long bus rides ridiculed
School bus plan for Hixon students unsafe: parent leader
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff
Busing Hixon children a minimum of 45.8 kilometres from their homes to schools well outside their area will pose serious safety hazards, says a mother in the community with four school-aged children.
It will also mean too many hours away from home and children will be too tired to do their homework properly, Kristine Brownscombe, a member of the Hixon Elementary School Parent Advisory Council said.
“How can they function on litde sleep and big rides?” she said Monday. “It’s not quality education when you roust them out of bed at 6 a.m. to have them get on the bus at 7:10 and ride the bus for an hour, and then have them ride the bus for an hour again after class and they’re not back until 4:30.”
Hixon elementary school, which has an enrolment of 50 this year, is one of 12 schools the School District 57 board has slated for closure by September in order to save $2,285 million in a time of multi-million-dollar deficits. Hixon students would be bused to Buckhorn elementary school.
The bus rides may become even longer if the Buckhorn school is also closed to help meet further deficits projected for the 2003-04 school year. That is what Brownscombe and Art Kaehn, Fraser Fort-George Regional District di-
rector for the area, are predicting.
This year Brownscombe has three children attending Hixon elementary school and a Grade 8 student attending Blackburn junior secondary school, which is also slated for closure before
Busing worries Wells parents
In September the 13 children now attending Wells-Barkerville elementary school will have to be bused 77 kilometres to Barlow Creek elementary school on the northeastern outskirts of Quesnel.
Dave Jorgenson, a Wells parent with a daughter going into Grade 7, said students will have to be up at 5:45 a.m. to get to the bus stop on time, and would be on the bus 75 minutes each way before being deposited back in Wells at 4:30, said Jorgenson, who is also spokesperson for the Save Our School Committee.
“You’ll find the kids doing homework on the bus and some of them sleeping on the bus, and they’ll be
cut off from their home community,” Jorgenson said. “The kids would be ffvyav from their home for nine-and-three-quarters hours minimum.”
Some Wells parents are talking about moving to Vancouver Island or Prince George to live near relatives who are located closer to a school, or about home-schooling their children rather than have them on the bus so long every day, Jorgenson said.
Last week the Quesnel school board voted to close Wells-Barkerville elementary and Richbar elementary to help meet a budget deficit. There is a 60-day consultation period before a final decision will be given.
this fall.
Next year, if all the school closures are carried out, she will have two children attending the Buckhorn school and two attending Lakewood junior secondary school. And during the 2003-04, after the Buckhorn school’s closure, Brownscombe will have children going on buses in three different directions to attend school — two to Blackburn elementary school, one to Lakewood junior secondary and one to Prince George Secondary School.
Brownscombe urges parents of children who would have to be bused from the Hixon area to Buckhorn to set out a yellow flag to let people know how many children travel by bus, where the bus stops are and how far some children would be asked to travel.
Fraser Fort-George Regional District director Betty Abbs met with Bear Lake elementary school parents Sunday to talk about busing issues and how to keep rural schools open. The Bear Lake school is also one of the 12 the SD 57 board has slated for closure, and parents are being asked to have their children bused to Salmon Valley elementary school about 50 kilometres away.
No progress made at softwood summit
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
No decisions were made during a summit in Vancouver on Monday on aid packages Ottawa might use to help workers and forest companies hurt by the softwood lumber dispute, but Mayor Colin Kinsley called it a useful exercise.
“It was great to see the federal government involvement,” said Kinsley, one of a number of community and industry leaders from this area who attended the summit. “But as always we go into these things as community leaders expecting more concrete plans.”
The summit, called by B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, was attended by International Trade Minister Pierre Pettigrew and Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal, as well as B.C. community, industry, First Nations and union leaders.
The summit took place just days before the U.S.-
based International Trade Commission is expected to uphold a preliminary ruling the American lumber industry was injured by Canadian subsidies and lumber dumped across the border below cost. It would mean Canadian companies would have to start paying cash on duties totalling 27%. The Canadian lumber producers could also be on the hook for $1 billion in retroactive duties. Proposals that were discussed included extending Employment Insurance benefits for mill workers, and a more controversial plan to offer loan guarantees to lumber companies paying the duty, confirmed Kinsley.
Several mills have been closed on the Coast of the B.C. already, but Northern Interior mills continue to run this year, particularly now that there’s a window in which the duties have lapsed and lumber prices are up from last year. At stake is $10 billion in annual lumber exports to the U.S., $2 billion of which origi-
nate in B.C.’s Northern Interior.
The province unveiled some details of how it plans to use $12 million ear-marked for a public relations campaign to let American consumers know duties on Canadian lumber hurt them. Kinsley said one of the ads — to be run in American newspapers — showed a boy sitting on a picket fence and declared: “Why tax Canadian lumber? It’s what the Canadian dream is made of.”
Kinsley said he liked the ad idea, but it alone won’t lead to a resolution of the trade dispute. The mayor said there was no indication the federal government intended to get back to negotiations with the Americans. Talks broke down last month with both sides saying the other was making unreasonable demands. Canada has said it will pursue legal challenges at the World Trade Organization and under the North America Free Trade Agreement, which could take years.
—See related story on page 6
Final day to file taxes
Citizen staff
Today is the last day to get your 2001 income tax return post marked and filed. The concierge will be available to stamp returns until midnight in the lobby at the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency building at Third Avenue and Victoria Street, where a mailbox is conveniently located outside. As well, H & R Block at 316 Victoria St. will be open until 9 p.m. The government suggests it is a good idea to file an income tax return for the following reasons:
■ to be eligible for the GST/HST credit;
■ to begin or continue receiving Canada Child Tax Benefit payments;
■ for seniors, to renew the Guaranteed Income Supplement and Allowance benefits;
■ to build up future contribution room for RRSPs.
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
HERITAGE ART — Michelle Cundy, left, and Marie Heudes paint pennants depicting Canadian heritage at an art session at the Van Bien School Training Centre. Their work will hang at the sixth annual Prince George Regional Heritage Fair at the Civic Centre May 9.
Cool spring not so bad
by SCOTT STANFIELD Citizen staff
The past month might seem like the worst-ever start to spring, but long-time Prince George residents may recall April in the 1940s and ’50s as being even cooler and snowier. As of Monday, the average maximum temperature for the month was 7.1 degrees Celsius, compared to a normal average of 10.8 degrees, says Jim Sustersich, meteorologist at the Mountain Weather Centre.
This reading, however, is warm compared to 1954. According to Sustersich, that year was the coldest on record in Prince George, when the mean maximum was only 3.6 C.
We have also been “way above normal for snowfall,” Sustersich added.
Prince George has, so far, had 18.5 centimetres of snow during April, up from an average of 8.8 centimetres. In April 1966, the city received 37.3 centimetres of snow.
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