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BEAR FACTS — Meghan Nicholson has a time out with a good book at the museum Friday, lounging on an old bear rug. It was professional development day for district teachers Friday, so the kids were enjoying a day off.
Call centre slashes staff
by KAREN KWAN Citizen staff
After five months of operation, poor productivity and a smaller workload at the IiveBridge call centre has forced the company to cut more than half of its workforce, management said Friday.
Reports of problems at the Second Avenue centre, which opened in October, are troubling to Initiatives Prince George, which has borrowed $2.6 million from the city to finance operations, president Gerry Ofifet said.
LiveBridge’s vice-president of human resources Donald Vena confirmed the call centre has fired 40 of its 170-member staff who were not performing well during their three-month probationary period. Another 55 people were laid off, effective immediately, because the poor record resulted in the client cutting back on the number of calls being made by the centre, he said. Affected employees were notified Friday. The company hopes to recall laid off employees once the centre gets more work, possibly in early April, Vena said. “We’re trying to address the quality problem ... We’ve retained our top performers, they’ll demonstrate that we have the ability to meet the client needs, the client will again start shipping calls to us or other clients will be put into Prince George,” he said. The centre is currently doing telemarketing calls for a major U.S. bank.
Oregon-based IiveBridge is also starting a permanent quality-control operation at its Prince George centre to monitor calls conducted by all of its call centres, which will require 20 to 25 employees. That means some of the laid-off workers could re-
turn as early as next week, he said.
Vena said there are no plans to close the centre.
“We have a lot of time and effort invested iri Prince George. We’re not shutting the centre. It’s part of our long-term plans,” he said.
There are still plans to switch to an inbound-call centre after a couple of years, which provides telephone support for customers of client-companies.
Offet said the development is worrisome, but if doesn’t mean the effort to bring the call centre to the dty was a mistake. “While there was a risk, it wasn’t a significant risk and we and the council of the day decided to go ahead,” he said. “Even if Uve-Bridge did leave, it doesn’t mean the whole thing was a mistake. Then the challenge for us would be to find alternative tenants,” he said. The call centre; was a way to bring jobs to the dty quickly while the economy recovers and other sectors develop, Offet said.
The Prince George Devdopment Corp., now Initiatives Prince George, stepped in with an eleventh-hour agreement to salvage the call-centre deal for the dty last August. It borrowed $1.7 million from, the dty to purchase the building at 1190 Second’ Avenue so it could lease the facility to IiveBridge-; That move ensured the company could open a cen-t tre in Prince George in time to meet its deadline, af> ter negotiations with the previous landlords went? off the rails. Initiatives is also financing up to{ $900,000 in renovations and equipment leasing * IiveBridge agreed to make monthly payments, plusj interest. Offet said the company has been meeting1 its obligations. i
Another gas station robbed
Citizen Staff
For the second time in as many days a gas station was robbed by a shotgun-wielding intruder Friday.
RCMP say the two hold-ups may be linked.
In the latest inddent Friday, a masked man carrying a shotgun entered the Chevron gas station store in the 2200 block of the Hart Highway around 6:15 a.m. and demanded money from the derk, police said. The suspect fled with an undisdosed amount of cash in a rad Ford pickup truck, which was later found abandoned and determined to be stolen.
The suspect is described as a Caucasian male, about five-foot-eight, and was wearing a black ski jacket and a black mask.
Friday’s robbery was not as violent as Thursday’s hold-up, where one of two suspects blasted open the door of the Shell gas station store at Fifth Avenue and Tabor Boulevard with a shotgun after finding it locked just before 2 a.m. An employee was inside at the time but was not injured. The pair made off with
some cash and cigarettes. Police believe they* jumped into a vehide that had been parked at the. apartment building next door.
The suspects are described as five-foot-seven to five-foot-ten with average builds. One male was wearing a red jacket with three, one-inch stripes — beige, white, and black or dark blue — running har--izontally around the upper part of the coat. The man was also wearing a black hooded shirt that was pulled around his face, and black or daik-blue snow pants, boots and gloves.
The other suspect was wearing a blue jacket with a one-inch white stripe running horizontally across the coat and down the arms. He was also wearing a black hooded shirt that obscured his face, as well as a light grey or white nylon-type pants, boots and
Anyone with information on the robberies is asked to call RCMP at 561-3300 or Crime Stoppers at 564-8477.
Deal calls for city to recognize Gay Pride Days
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff
Youthquest has won the seven-month battle with the city over proclaiming Gay Pride Days in Prince George.
An agreement was ratified Friday between die organization for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and the dty at no finantial cost to the dty. Under the deal, the dty has agreed to:
INDEX
■ Issue a proclamation annually through to 2005, at the request of Youthquest, in the usual manner for issuing prodamations.
■ 1% the Pride flag during weekends assodated with the proclamation.
■ Provide opportunities for Youthquest to present information to dty council about their work, how they operate, and their goals, and to com-
municate issues of concern from the perspective of the gays and lesbians.
To recognize the agreement, city council has agreed to a one-time spedal proclamation to recognize Pride Days on the weekend of April 5 and 6.
“It’s satisfying to have this issue behind us,” said George Paul, city manager.
Speaking of the agreement, Shawn
Peters, chair of Youthquest, said the members “want to be treated equally with all other groups, and we’ve achieved that.” Youthquest members voted unanimously to accept the deal.
In August 2002, Youthquest requested the dty to proclaim Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgendered Pride Day in Prince George. Instead, dty council approved a reworded document entitled
Come As You Are, which only induded the words “sexual orientation”.
In September, Youthquest filed a complaint with the provincial human rights commission, asking for $25,000 in damages and training programs to overcome homophobia. They made it dear at that time they were prepared to negotiate, rather than go through a costly tribunal.
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Nearby subdivision pans casino move
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff
A neighbourhood across Highway 97 from a proposed $20-million casino and hotel complex has come out against the project, and have forwarded their position and a petition to dty hall, says Assman subdivision resident Keith Adams.
The petition had 93 names on it, which Adams collected last weekend. His main concerns are the casino will attract crime and prostitution to the area and the Assman subdivision will become a pathway to the casino from the dtys core.
He also does not like the idea of having a casino near schools—either Carney Hill or Van Bien elementary.
“The bottom line for those of us who took part in this petition is we believe late-night entertainment facilities such as the casino should remain downtown,” said Adams. “It shouldn’t be near schools, playgrounds or neighbourhoods.”
When he petitioned his neighbours, he said he found
that many of them already live in fear of crime and many have reinforced their windows, installed alarm systems and have large dogs im their yard for protection. He said that’s because the neighbourhood is on the edge of the inner dty known as “the hood.”
“We want that element pushed back, not to come this way,” he said. “That’s why we’re so opposed to the casino. We feel it will just swallow us into the hood.” Adams said he’s already told the developer — local gaming operator John Major — he’s not interested in working with his team.
The developers are already working with residents of the Van Bien area to address their concerns, which indude an increase in crime and migration of prostitutes to their area. The casino and hotd is proposed for a 5.1-hectare parcel of land behind the Mr. RG. landmark at the intersections of highways 16 and 97.
Casino Hollywood spokesman Craig Briere said despite Adams refusal to put together a committee of neighbourhood residents to work with them, they are
continuing to try to find a way to work with the areas residents. Briere said an update of the casino project and an offer to address their concerns is being sent out soon.
Briere also questioned whether Adams represented a consensus position in the neighbourhood, noting that a copy of the petition presented to him appeared to represent only 40 households. There are more than 120 homes on Borden and Abbott crescents and MacDonald Avenue, the three streets off Upland Street which make up the subdivision.
“We encourage anyone that has concerns to get a hold of us,” said Briere.
The proposed casino project’s engineer, Dave McWal-ter, said they’ve already had a meeting with the RCMP to discuss some of the neighbourhood crime and prostitution migration issues. The RCMP are one of the agencies that will offer an opinion on the project when it comes before dty council for rezoning, expected within the next month.
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