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CITIZEN
Serving the Central Interior since 1916

PRINCE GEORGE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2004

80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 56 CENTS A DAY)

City lost $215,000 on parking meters
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff Parking meters took a heavy hit from vandals, city bylaw services manager Ken Craig confirmed during council's budget discussions Wednesday night. Craig said the city is down to about 500 meters after starting the year at 900 meters, and cost the city $215,00 in lost revenue -- $143,000 from coins and $73,000 from fines. About $230,000 was collected last year Staff is concentrating on purchasing more cast iron meters, although they're more expensive and difficult to find -- a shipment of 60 double meters from Louisiana arrived last week, Craig said. City manager George Paul said a proposal to place one or two ticket vending machines on either side of a block may come to council. "It's a little less convenient for the parking public but it also removes that proliferation of meters everywhere on the street, which is certainly a benefit from a lot of perspectives including aesthetics and snow removal," he said. Coun. Dan Rogers asked about adopting socalled smart cards, similar to what's used on the city's bus system and on meters in Victoria, that would allow motorists to pay for parking in advance and lower the need to plug meters with coins. Craig said the possibility is being investigated.  An increase of $3 per session for swimming lessons was approved, but not before Coun. Don Zurowski noted that revenues finished below predictions for 2003, indicating that an increase may backfire. In answer, city aquatics division manger Lana Keim said much of the drop was because five of the six elementary schools closed this school year were long-term customers. It's expected that the Canadian Red Cross's new swim at school program should help bring revenues back up, Keim said. "And we know when we get them coming in for lessons we also get them coming in for public swim sessions, so we're confident that will have an impact," she said. Partnerships with other programs, such as youth soccer which uses the fields next to the Aquatic Centre, will also be proposed, she said, in addition to promotions for families in the fall and winter when numbers tend to drop off.  The fee schedule for seniors at the Pine Valley golf course will be reviewed after it was learned former season pass holders in that age group were paying more than double under the Game Pak scheme introduced last year.  A budget for the RCMP that includes a seven per cent increase was approved. The increase, about $750,000, puts the 2004 budget for police protection at $14.46 million and is due largely to salary hikes this year. It also covers 116 members, up by four from last year's total. Mayor Colin Kinsley defended the increase, which was identified by staff as a major reason for a projected 3.4-per-cent increase in the property tax levy, saying surveys of residents consistently put policing at the top of the priority list.

Citizen photo by Dave Milne

BAND OF BROTHERS -- Brothers Jordan, left, Richard and Jason Macleod roll a giant snowball in the Gateway Christian schoolyard Wednesday. Warm weather has made the snow perfect for rolling giant balls.

2010 WINTER OLYMPICS

P.G. has to target benefits, forum told
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen staff Prince George will realize significant benefits from the 2010 Olympics if it works hard to get them, seminar participants at the University of Northern B.C. heard Wednesday. "It's not what the Games will do for you, but what you will get if you act now," said Ian Tait, former director of community relations for the Vancouver 2010 Bid Corporation. "What motivated me to get involved was that there would be no connection between the Olympics and our regional economic strategy unless we made it happen," said UNBC president Charles Jago. "We have to act and be in there. Otherwise this event will take place, and it will pass us by." The Northern Sports Centre proposed for the Prince George campus of UNBC from the province's Olympics legacy fund will mean economic benefit as teams come to the city in advance of the Olympics to take advantage of the facility for training events, said Mayor Colin Kinsley. About 90 people attended the threehour seminar entitled The Impact of the 2010 Olympics on Northern B.C., sponsored by the Northern Economics Students Society. The $20-million Northern Sports Centre, which would train future Olympians, is the kind of facility that the province wants built as soon as possible in advance of the 2010 Olympics, Rob van Adrichem, UNBC public relations director, said during the intermission. Kathie Scouten, manager of corporate affairs for Initiatives Prince George, said the 2010 Olympics will be an opportunity to promote the community as a winter city and to further develop tourism in northern B.C. Prince George and other northern B.C. communities will be well positioned to supply forest products and other raw materials for construction projects for the Olympics, said Ian Kincaid, manager of economic analysis for InterVistas Consultants Inc., transportation and tourism consultants. Prince George can also provide practice venues, Kincaid said. In addition, the city can piggyback on an international marketing campaign about the games being undertaken by Tourism B . C . a n d To u r i s m Va n c o u v e r. The economic benefit of the 2010 Olympics on northern B.C. will be minimal, said Marvin Shaffer, a professor of economics from the University of B.C. in Vancouver and a specialist in costbenefit analysis. "It's not an economic development strategy for the North," he said. The Olympics will create about 5,000 to 8,000 jobs, a fairly small number in the overall provincial economic picture, and few of these will be in the North, Shaffer said. Prince George and the North may be able to leverage some new facilities from t he province through the Olympics, but municipal officials should make certain the projects are part of the local development strategy. "Otherwise you may find they were provided by diverting spending from other things you might have had," Shaffer said. "The projects may come at the expense of education funding." The province seems to hope benefits from the 2010 Olympics will trickle out to the regions, but has provided no mechanism to ensure that will happen, said Paul Bowles, UNBC economics professor. "There is nothing to ensure that the whole of B.C. will benefit," he said. "They will get Trail, Prince George and other communities to compete with each other from the rich man's table."

Board mum on CN response to train crash
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff A Transportation Safety Board investigator confirmed Wednesday that Canadian National did issue a response to allegations about the state of a wooden trestle where two railway workers were killed in a fiery train crash last spring. However, like CN Rail spokesman Jim Feeny did Tuesday, safety board spokesman Tom Wozny gave few specific details, saying the response is part of the ongoing investigation. "There's certain allegations, obviously, that would contradict what we would say," Wozny said. Engineer Art McKay and conductor Ken LeQuesne were killed May 14, 2003 when their freight train derailed off a wooden trestle bridge 4.5 kilometres west of McBride, about 200 kilometres east of Prince George. Both were 51 and longtime employees of Canadian National Railway with 30 years experience each. In an interim report completed in late December and leaked to the Citizen earlier this week, the TSB alleged that work on critical components of the bridge had not been completed by the time the crash had occurred, despite finding the problems more than three years before. In part, the TSB blamed CN's system for setting maintenance priorities. Despite signs of crushing or rot that required immediate attention, the overall condition of the bridge caps was rated "fair" because the system did not take the condition of individual components into consideration, the report said. The TSB also found lapses in CN's adherence to its inspection system as well as that of Transportation Canada investigators. Consequently, the TSB issued two interim recommendations in late December, essentially calling on the two bodies to live up to established standards. In response, Feeny said CN had since forwarded information to the TSB showing CN did perform all the necessary work prior to the accident. Wozny said the TSB is currently assessing the new information and will develop a response. "Certainly, the issues that have been brought up will be covered in the published report," he said. Wozny said the TSB typically tries to conclude investigations within a year of the incident, but this one has been hampered by the fact that the bridge and the train's data recording box were destroyed in the blaze. Two locomotives and the first six cars of an 86-car freight train derailed and all eight units caught on fire. "The only physical evidence that was left was the non-combustible type, like the rail," Wozny said.

Life expectancy less for Aboriginals: study
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TORONTO (CP) -- Life expectancy for First Nations and Inuit peoples is five to 10 years shorter than other Canadians and infant mortality rates are two to three times that of the Canadian average, a report on health disparities reveals. The report, released Wednesday, highlights some troubling inequalities across different economic, demographic and ethnic groups in the country. It does suggest the worrisome rise in childhood obesity over the past two decades may have stabilized -- but experts note that with nine per cent of young boys and 10 per cent of young girls clinically obese, there's little to celebrate there. "When you use the word stabilizing, it seems to be a good thing -- at least it's not getting bigger," said Doug Willms, a University of New Brunswick researcher who has done a lot of work on childhood obesity. "(But) it's not a good thing to be stabilizing at such a high level." The report showed that physical activity rates for children were stable or increasing. Still, four of five Canadian teenagers weren't active enough to meet international guidelines for optimal growth and development in 2000-01.

Entitled Improving the Health of Canadians, the report was produced by the Canadian Population Health Initiative, a division of the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Largely aimed at policy makers, it focuses on the health of children, aboriginal peoples and the enduring disparities between Canadians of different income levels. It also makes recommendations on how to improve conditions for all. The chair of the health initiative said governments have to play a role if obesity rates and other ongoing threats to the health of Canadians are to be addressed. "Yes, the choices that you make as a person are important for the shape of your health," said Cam Mustard, who is also president of a not-for-profit Toronto-based think tank called the Institute for Work and Health. "Physical exercise is important. Eating right? Yeah. And then you've got your DNA, which you got from your parents -- and that has something to do with it too. But from the perspective of a society, the choices that people can make are very much determined by the world that they're in."

Citizen photo by Dave Milne

BRANCHING OUT -- City environmental services worker Bob Elmore trims an elm tree in the Miller Addition to reduce the load on the branches so they're less likely to break under snow or wind.

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