Quebec chef making waves /32

Cartoon from Jordan links cultures /29

Senators on the ropes in NHL playoffs /12
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2006

Piano prodigy to play with PGSO /13
80 CENTS (HOME DELIVERED: 59 CENTS A DAY)

Schools face crunch over teacher subs
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff Teachers' concerns that the Prince George school district faces a severe budget pinch over substitute teachers are well founded, according to superintendent Dick Chambers. The issue has emerged from the recommendations by labour mediator Vince Ready that helped end last fall's teachers' strike. "The Ready proposal that both sides agreed to in October only set aside $5.9-million for teacher-on-call pay and seniority," said Prince George District Teachers' Association president Karen MacKay. "It is a certainty that the cost will be at least a fivefold multiple of that amount." Chambers confirmed the problem. "That is absolutely true," he said. Chambers said the $5.9 million only covers the remainder of this school year and there is no indication from government that it intend to fund the new costs. If it doesn't, the money will have to come from the district's budget. Chambers explained that prior to the Ready recommendation, substitutes were paid about $180 per day for their services. If they worked four consecutive days on the same substitute assignment, they were bumped up to teacher pay scale (about $250 to $300 per day, dependent on the substitute's level of education and experience) for the remainder of the assignment. Under the new rules, substitutes will be paid $190 per day, but they will go to teacher scale after four consecutive days of any assigned work anywhere in the district, and it will be retroactive to the first day. With the drastic labour shortage hitting teachers' ranks as hard as any profession, substitutes are in shorter supply than ever. Almost anyone who qualifies to be a sub would get virtually as much work as they want, and now almost all of it would be at full teacher pay. "The costs are going to just go whoosh," said Chambers. "It could conceivably be a 60per-cent increase in the cost of (substitutes)." He said another side effect might manifest as well. "If they are going to get the same money as a teacher to be in the classroom, what we might see is some teachers decide they don't want to be full-time teachers, they could just be TOCs and they won't have to do a lot of the marking, they don't have to do class planning, they don't have to do parent-teacher interviews, they can take time off whenever they like ... it has some interesting ramifications." -- See DISTRICT on page 3

Citizen photo by Brent Braaten

Eden Wiebe, 6, and Spencer Schovwenburg, 7, practice the Basket Dance as part of the folk ballet The Adventures of Yuri, which is being performed by the Yalenka Ukrainian Dancers on Sunday.

Lheidli T'enneh treaty closer
by GORDON HOEKSTRA Citizen staff The Lheidli T'enneh First Nation and the provincial and federal governments finalized a 4,360-hectare land package Wednesday, a key step in reaching a treaty. A key change to other tentative land packages is the inclusion of three parcels within Prince George city limits. The parcels include 112 hectares adjacent to the Vista subdivision near Shelley, the band's reserve community 16 kilometres east of Prince George, 167 hectares in Harmony Valley, west of Foothills Boulevard and north of the Nechako River, and 664 hectares on Cranbrook Hill near the University of Northern B.C. The package also adds land adjacent to the Shelley reserve lands, and other parcels next to Willow River, Narrow Lake and Stoney Lake. The experimental farm near the airport, a piece of federal land, is also part of the and package for the band's 315 members. "There's general approval (from band members) I believe, but we won't really know until we go through the ratification process," Lheidli T'enneh negotiator Mark Stevenson said. -- See FIRST on page 3

Dancers take stage
by STEPHANIE MORGAN Citizen staff The Yalenka Ukrainian Dancers hold their year-end concert Sunday. Comprised of a variety of regional dances from the Ukraine and one folk ballet, the concert showcases what the senior and junior groups have been practicing all year. The concert is at the Prince George Playhouse; tickets are available at the door, $12 for adults and $7 for children 12 and under. The dance troupe is comprised of two classes, one junior and one senior. The junior class starts at six-years-old and the senior class goes up to adult. There are about 20 dancers in total. The concert will have two halves -- six dances in the first half and a folk ballet, the Adventures of Yuri, in the second. The story was put together and orchestrated by Yalenka instructors. The show changes every year. "We pick whatever the kids are interested in," said Dianna Bihun. The dances are from different areas of the Ukraine, showing both the regional costumes and dances from the country.

Consider sports tourists with RV bylaw, councillor urges
by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff Coun. Brian Skakun wants the needs of out-of-town people in Prince George for sports tournaments and other events to be taken into account when city council takes another look at where recreational vehicles should be allowed to set up camp. After rescinding a motion to ticket r et a i l e r s w h o a l l ow RV s to s t ay overnight on their parking lots, city council members are now looking at establishing a time limit somewhere between 12 and 24 hours. While time limits may help keep socalled boondocking at a reasonable level, Skakun said it could complicate matters for visitors who want to stay overnight at the sites of ball tournaments, rodeos, swim meets and other such events. Skakun said a possible answer would be to grant temporary permits to allow participants to stay at the sites for the duration of the events. But by the same token, he said such a move would also create more labour for the city's bylaw enforcement officers and create a bureaucratic hoop for visitors to jump through. Skakun said his preference continues to be to let things continue as they are, with RVers still camping out on parking lots if they want to without any time limit and with no enforcement of the section of the zoning bylaw that prohibits the practice. "There hasn't been a problem until now and we don't want to go after the sporting tourists that come to our community and say you can't stay at our ball fields or people have to go through extra processes just to park their campers or RVs for just a couple nights in a row," he said. But if there is to be a compromise, Skakun said it would be to create some sort of process to let those participating in events in the city to stay overnight at the venues without being penalized. The ot her possibility, he said, would be to amend the city's zoning bylaw to increase the number of locations RVs can stay at from just designated campgrounds. Coincidentally, the bylaw is in the process of being reviewed, "so now is the perfect time to take at look at that," Skakun said. Had council followed through with the idea of ticketing property owners who allow boondocking in contravention of the zoning bylaw, bylaw enforcement officers may well have had to issue tickets to the city as a result, Skakun added. "It's an enormous issue," he said. "It's not just a matter of bylaw services monitoring big-box stores." Current planning manager Dan Milburn said it will take some time before staff comes back to council with some possible options because groups will have to be consulted and research conducted. As well, he said the review of the city's zoning bylaw could come into play. mnielsen@princegeorgecitizen.com

RCMP officers honoured for bravery
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff Two North District RCMP officers won awards for bravery and high policing standards Wednesday. Const. Pete Berndsen of the McBride detachment and Const. Dave Piket of the Prince Rupert detachment were presented with the commendations in Prince George by the province's commanding officer, Deputy Commissioner Beverley Busson. Berndsen received his award for an incident on Nov. 3, 2005, when a 20-year-old Montana resident loaded a firearm in front of scared patrons in a McBride cafe. Berndsen was the only officer on duty at the time, but was at home having lunch. "It's a small town, the people all know where the policeman lives, so I got a knock on my door," Berndsen said. "I put down my sandwich, went down to take a look, peeked around the corner and saw a packsack and the gun sitting on the ground and he was nearby." Berndsen calmly announced himself to the young man, whom he described as looking disoriented and puzzled. He hoped the confused fellow would comply by coming forward to meet him, and to his relief, he did. "He told me he was from the States, and he was in Alberta," Berndsen said. "I got him to sit down in the back of the car and we just went with the flow, no problems from him at all." It was an act of extraordinary interpersonal skills and police tactics without force that Busson said was an honour to the RCMP and a credit to the kind of person Berndsen is. When compared to the American experience with the same suspect, that becomes even more apparent. "I called the Montana sheriff's department about this guy, once I got him settled, and they told me I had better call for backup because it took four sheriffs to restrain him the last time they dealt with him," Berndsen said with a chuckle. The man had been recently released from a Montana mental institution, bought a gun and drove across the border, through Alberta and into McBride. He was apparently in a psychological haze as he was not taking his prescribed medication for a mental disorder. Berndsen said he ended up committing a further crime back in Montana and is currently in custody there. Piket was cited by the commanding officer for plunging into Taylor Lake (near Prince Rupert) to free a pair of youths trapped inside a vehicle. It had crashed over the bank, rolled multiple times and came to rest wheels-down with the roof barely visible to those on shore. Piket was the supervising officer at the detachment

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INDEX
Annie's Mailbox . . . . . . . . . 32 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Business . . . . . . . . . . . .22-24 City, B.C. . . . . . . . . . . .3,5,13 Classifi ed . . . . . . . . . . . 17-20 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . 15 Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . .20 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14,21

Citizen staff photo

RCMP E-Division commander Beverley Busson presented awards of merit Wednesday to McBride Const. Pete Berndsen, right, and Prince Rupert Const. David Piket. that night in July, 2003. When he arrived at the scene firefighters were already there, as were civilians who had attempted in vain to swim down to the vehicle. Two other youths had escaped, but knew their friends were still inside. -- See SELFLESS on page 3

Problem Solver premieres in today's Citizen
Longtime residents of Prince George will remember CJCI radio announcer Don Prentice and his helpful household hints -- everything from cooking and cleaning to simple ways to remove virtually every stain. Eventually, Prentice created a booklet, titled Don's Little Helper, with proceeds going toward community projects. The Citizen and Pine Centre Mall are carrying on the tradition that was started by Don, who was this city's most popular radio personality for years. Inside today's edition is the Problem Solver, published in co-operation with the CI Community Interest Account Society, the organization that Prentice created before he died of cancer in 1978 at the tender age of 34. A bit of local history comes back to life.

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