High today: 11 Low tonight: 4 Details page 2
WEDNESDAY,
Council approves Third Ave. project
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff
The long-awaited Third Avenue revitalization project will go ahead — but not with all the bells and whistles.
Council voted unanimously Monday night to go with the basic option of streetscaping and repaving four blocks from Victoria to George streets. However, the project no longer includes a heated road and sidewalks and the traffic lights at Brunswick, Quebec and George Streets are going to be replaced by four-way stop signs.
At $3.6 million, the project will still cost the city $605,000 more than budgeted, despite the fact that $205,334 was shaved off or re-assigned from the bid that Western Industrial Contractors submitted for the streetscaping work and that $185,000 will be saved by not reinstalling traffic lights at Brunswick, Quebec and George Streets.
City transportation manager Frank Blues said the extra expense is simply a matter of the project costing more than originally expected, but stressed that the tendered work will still cost the city the about the same as when it was first put to tender last year.
Property owners along the four blocks will contribute $925,000 to the project and council balked at asking them for more financial support. Instead, they voted to cover the extra cost by taking money out of two reserve funds so that this year’s tax rates won’t be affected.
Although concerned about the cost, council members agreed that the work is still worth pursuing. Mayor Colin Kinsley said it’s paramount it happen. The work includes the addition of trees and hanging planters, two-way traffic and new sidewalks and lighting.
To minimize the disruption, WIC will be asked to do the work on a block-by-block basis, substantially completing each segment before moving onto the next. Precisely when and how long the work will take is still to be determined. WIC will be paid $2,029,297 for the revitalization work — and should the work come in under budget, the savings will be split evenly with the dty. The remaining $1,572,020 will be devoted to “work between the curbs” including, paving, street, light pole and fixture installations, signals at Victoria and Dominion, and contract administration with the paving to be completed by Columbia Bitulithic through a three-year contract with the dty.
Had council members opted to include sidewalk heating, the bill would have increased to $5.5 million and if they went for both sidewalk and street heating, the project would have cost $7 million, although both are substantially lower than the costs from the first tender submissions.
For Blues, the outcome also puts to rest about two frustrating years of wrestling with the bids and contracts that saw the dty put the project to tender on two separate occasions.
In June 2002, a new tender was issued because the winning bid, one of two submitted, was over budget and because the city wanted competitive bids on the street and sidewalk heating. Delays related to the heating components of the work pushed the deadline back to late February.
WIC was the only company to submit a bid the second time around, but Blues said the cost will remain about the same as the last time around.
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INDEX
Annie’s Mailbox..............32
Bridge.......................23
Business .................16-18
City, B.C..............3,5,6,13
Classified ...............20-23
Comics ......................26
Crossword ...................26
Horoscope ...................23
Nation .....................6,7
Sports ....................8-12
Television...................27
World..................14,15,24
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Concerned parents and members of the public, some with signs, watch and listen at the school board’s closure meeting at Vanler Hall Tuesday night.
Board closes seven schools
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff
Prince George school trustees voted Tuesday night to close seven schools from a list of 12 that they had been considering for closure since their Jan. 28 meeting.
They estimate the closures, to take effect Aug. 31, would save about $1.6 million.
These savings would be applied to a budgetary shortfall superintendent Dick Chambers said still stood at $7,983 million.
The board decided to close King George V, South Fort George, Shady Valley, Wildwood, Meadow, Highland Traditional and Lakewood elementary schools.
Saved from closure were Central Fort George Traditional, Heritage, Highglen, Quinson and Foothills elementary schools.
The decision to close the seven schools follows seven school closures last year.
About 160 people were in the gallery of Vanier Hall where trustees met for more than five hours. Tearful comment sometimes punctuated debate among trustees, and there was often applause or exclamations of concern from the audience as trustees concluded their voting on each school.
“Sacrifices have to be made,” Bev Hosker, chair of the District Parent Advisory Council, told trustees during the public comment session at the start of Tuesday’s meeting.
“Parents say, if you have to close schools, do so sooner rather than later,” she said.
“Do what you have to do and get on with the task of educating our children.”
Board chair Bill Christie said that, despite the board’s best efforts at lobbying and the good offices of MLA Pat Bell (Liberal, Prince George North), Education Minister Christy Clark determined that the rural-school grant could not be considered for Shady Valley school before 2006-2007.
The small community supplement grant, as it is called, is usually about $100,000.
There was a shout from the audience of “Shame on her!”
Samantha Tyler, who has two children in South Fort George elementary school, said she was greatly disappointed by the board’s decision to close the school.
“I’m very upset,” she said during an intermission in
AFFECTED SCHOOLS
Closed as of Aug. 31, 2003:
■ Highland Traditional elementary
■ King George V elementary
■ Lakewood elementary
■ Meadow elementary
■ Shady Valley elementary
■ South Fort George elementary
■ Wildwood elementary
Saved from Closure:
■ Central Fort George Traditional elementary
■ Foothills elementary
■ Heritage elementary
■ Highglen elementary
■ Quinson elementary
the board meeting.
“South Fort George elementary is a vital part of Prince George’s history. They (trustees) should look at what we have to offer Prince George because of our history.”
She said she was concerned about safety issues for the school’s children who now face having to walk to Carney Hill Community School or Van Bien elementary school, as the trustees have directed.
However, she acknowledged trustees had difficult decisions to make in view of the deep budgetary shortfall they must meet.
“I know it’s also very hard for them,” she said.
Patty Astorino, a member of the Central Fort George Traditional Elementary School Parent Advisory Council, said she was happy her children’s school had been saved.
“It’s an excellent decision,” she commented.
Asked if the school was now safe from consideration for closure in future years, she said, “We really have a long ways to go. We need to work at getting enrolments up.
“We will have a steady increase in enrolment as people become more educated that the opportunity for a traditional-school education is out there.”
In the gallery, Foothills parents carried placards with messages like “Foothills Rocks! Let’s keep it!”
Smoking
bylaw
changes
pondered
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff
Smokers may still be allowed to light up in pubs, bars and bingo halls, but their fate in restaurants and bowling alleys remains up in the air following Monday night’s dty council meeting.
Coundl voted 6-2 to reject a controversial proposal to ban smoking from all public places in the dty. However, council also voted 6-2 in favour of a report from staff on the merits of two options raised respectively by councillors Sherry Sethen and Brian Skakun.
■ To prohibit minors from entering designated smoking rooms.
■ To ban smoking from restaurants and bowling alleys in the dty within 18 months.
Since minors, defined as anyone under 19 years old, are already prohibited from entering bars and bingo halls, Sethen said her proposal would apply to restaurants and bowling alleys.
She added it’s about finding a compromise that will move the health agenda forward in terms of preventing youth from taking up the habit while at the same time not hurting establishments that have spent tens of thousands of dol-lars on designated smoking rooms, which Sethen believes are effective.
Skakun, meanwhile, says he originally was completely against closing down designated smoking rooms but letters young people submitted convinced him to find a way to at least protea youth.
As for Sethen’s proposal, Skakun had doubts that the measure could be effectively enforced, particularly if a parent wants to have a smoke but doesn’t want to leave the children alone.
Sethen said Skakun’s proposal has some merit, but feels that her proposal gives adults who smoke more freedom. “It’s a little softer,” she said.
Of the two options, Nechako Bowling Lanes manager Hanne Wilson said she prefers keeping minors out of designated smoking rooms, and added that the room at her facility is off limits to players in the youth bowling leagues.
Likewise, Humpt/s Restaurant own-er-operator Dennis Morrison said he prefers putting an age limit on who can enter the designated smoking room.
“The other way is just crazy,” he said of the proposal to completely ban smoking from restaurants and bowling alleys.
For Prince George Clean Air Coalition chair Bruce Strachan, closing down smoking rooms in restaurants and bowling alleys is the best option, but he says it still does not go far enough.
“That does not address workers’ safety in pubs and nightclubs and other places where people are forced to go into an unhealthy and disease-causing environment, and I think that’s the more-important thing,” he said.
Councillors Cliff Dezell and Don Bassermann, who both voted in favour of the ban, voted against the options. Dezell sought a task force to look at the issue, and Bassermann dismissed the proposals as cop-outs.
Staff was given four weeks to return with a report.
— See story on page 3;
Meisner column on page 4
Quesnel grad part of SARS discovery
by BERNICE TRICK Citizen staff
Correlieu secondary school in Quesnel is bursting with pride knowing that a former graduate is being internationally recognized as one of the scientists who identified what is suspected to be the SARS virus.
Dr. Marco Marra, who graduated from Correlieu in 1984, is director of the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre at UBC where researchers, at 4 a.m. April 13, published the draft sequence of the virus that is thought to cause Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
“We’re sure proud Marco came from here and was one of our grads,” Correlieu principal Adrian Monych said Itiesday.
“People here (at the school) have great memories of Marco. He was one of the really likable students,” said Monych, who was teaching at the school in 1984 when Marra graduated.
Mike Stevens, a retired teacher, was Marra’s chemistry teacher and basketball coach.
He said Marra was “a determined student in every aspect” who, during his graduation year, was eleaed student council president and was the captain of the basketball team.
"He was a hard worker and a quiet leader who led by example. He was a pleasant boy whose smile was infectious.”
It’s said after the Vancouver scientists sent off their
CP photo
Dr. Marco Marra, director of the Genome Science Centre, holds a mlcrotltre plate next to Dr. Caroline Astell, project leader at the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre In Vancouver.
virus findings in the wee hours, they celebrated with a round of doughnuts and a sigh of relief.
Just hours later, the U.S. Center for Disease Control in Atlanta published a blueprint of the virus they thought causes SARS, and Marra said there were only “innocuous differences” between the two.
“Our preliminary observation is that these sequences are substantially similar if not identical,” Marra said in an interview with the Vancouver Sun.
Atlanta CDC director Julie Gerberding recognized the work of the B.C. researchers during an international teleconference Monday, saying, “they deserve an enormous congratulations for their efforts in getting it out as quickly as they did.”
It was Marra and Dr. Caroline Astell, project leader, who pushed the investigation that led to the discovery. Researchers worked around the clock on a number of different strategies to break the code.
The breakthrough means that days from now doctors all over the world may be able to accurately test for suspected cases of SARS.
A German company announced Monday it had developed a test using the Vancouver research, and more will follow, Gerberding said.
Researchers presume a test can be done on suspect cases sputum samples and concluded within 24 hours at most medical laboratories, ending the 10-day quarantine of suspected cases. But scientists say a cure for SARS could be years away.
Originally, the SARS virus was thought to be a hybrid of a coronavirus (common cold virus), but Astell says new evidence shows differently.
Scientists now believe the virus originated in an animal species in China, and following a few replications, mutated in such a way it was able to attach itself to human receptor cells, she said.
Astell said it’s not known what animal species is involved, or how it’s transmitted to humans.
— See related stories on pages 6 and 15
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