See brarnevol vabrenns w Wednesday, November 4, 1992 inionPAGE | Op Mary Ann Fullerton Circulation Manager Burt Campbell Publisher Emeritus L.V. Campbell Aug. 7, 1947- Feb. 15, 1973 OurViEWS AdrianRAESIDE City trods over toes At best, it’s a lack of courtesy. At worst, it’s irresponsible government. Castlegar city council should have known better than to walk all over the toes of School District No. 9’s trustees with its brief to the provincial govern- ment’s education funding review panel. In an Oct. 9 address to the panel, Coun. Doreen Smecher declared the city’s endorsement of centralized power in Victoria for B.C. school boards and |- provincially-appointed superintendents. It’s safe to say Smecher’s comments might never have been orated if school trustees had been consulted or even if all of council been given a chance to debate the issue. This is precisely why we have seven elected city representatives. Such a self- serving paper might never have seen the light of day if it required a majority vote. Already, Coun. Lawrence Chernoff has denounced the brief and now sides with the school board. Chernoff said earlier he never had enough time to fully digest the report. Mayor Audrey Moore said if council- lors found items in the brief contentious, “They could have said so.” Hardly. No city representative can have prop- er input on a document he or she first sees on the same day it is to be released. Letters to the city are received before council at its regular sessions — there for all councillors to openly discuss. Out- going correspondence and presentations from the city should be handled in the same manner. At the very least, the spirit of co-oper- ation would have seen such a brief dis- cussed with the people it concerned. Street WALK Nelson scare hits close to home Last week’s attempted abductions in Nelson hit too close to home for many Castlegar-area parents, who have mobilized to protect their children. Some parents who used to let their children walk alone to and from school bus stops have taken to accompanying them. School parking lots and curbsides are beginning to look like Columbia Avenue during rush hour as parents drive their children Ron NORMAN Comments from the Crossroads clear that children in an: community — large or} small, rural or urban — are vulnerable. We all know that these things happen; we just happen here. After all, this isn’t the Lower Mainland.? This is the sleepy West) Kootenay where life is) lived at a different pace; where the largest city isn’ even 10,000 people; where everyone knows everyone to school and pick them up afterwards. For their part, schools have warned students not to walk alone and have contacted parents to remind them to review safety procedures with their children. But it hasn’t stopped there. Parents have contacted schools with concerns about adequate supervision during recess and lunch hours in the school yards. All this concern isn’t just paranoia on the part of parents. On the contrary, what happened in Nelson last Thursday made it else. But the realities of} life in the 1990s have come don’t expect them to} crashing in on us. The unsettling aspect of the Nelson incident is the openness -with which it occurred. A man (described as white, in his ’50s, § with grey hair, about 180 cm tall and slim) tried to snatch two six-year-old girls near South Nelson Elementary School during © lunch hour last Thursday. The girls escaped by running away. please see NORMAN page 7 = Question: Do you use public transit? Do you think the service is efficient? Mary Voykin Castlegar “Yes, but I think there should be more buses.” Andy Solodiuk Castlegar Shoreacres “Not too often, but I think it works very good.” time.” Mary Moojelsky “Yes. He’s always on William Salekin Robson “Just about everyday. Service is OK.” Susan VanAsselt Rossland “Yes, but maybe there’s not enough service.” @ Wednesday, November 4, 1992 OtherVIEWS i Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1IN 3H4 or deliver them to 197 Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9am. and5 p.m. The writer's name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional cases will letters be published anonymously. Even in those cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Letters toWHE EDITOR International connections good for Castlegar I have just returned from a trip to China ‘and Japan, during which I attended the signing of the twinning agreement between the City of Castlegar and the City of Yueyang, China, I also visited Castlegar’s Japanese twin city of Embetsu. My invitation to China originated because of my connection to Selkirk College, however, since I am no longer on the college board, my trip was completely unsponsored. In this sense I was present simply as a member of the Castlegar community. The delegation’s visit to China and Japan has been a topic of discussion at Castlegar city council and was approved by the Twinning Committee and council. The communities’ representatives from the city, the college and Celgar did an excellent job as ambassadors. They were of course, well received, but had little free time and were involved in countless meetings and speeches. On my return home, I found that the only reference to the trip in the press was a rather derogatory, one sentence. statement. This may stem from lack of information, and I would like to express my own perspective on the value of pursuing the Twinning -Committee’s and council’s objectives in this regard. The sister city agreement with Embetsu was signed in 1989. A delegation from Embetsu visited Castlegar in September of 1990 and was very well received. Six Fit, educated and financially we I have committed the ultimate sin. Being an active outdoors man, I inserted an ad in the personal col- umn looking for a slim female for companionship. Horrors. It has in- volved instant male bashing by the defender of the extra pound, Bar- Selkirk students have visited Embetsu. In April of this year a group of Embetsu junior high school students stayed with students from Kinnaird Middle School. The families and the school valued this experience very much, and in our recent visit we took letters from the Castlegar students to the students in Embetsu. The feeling of the Embetsu people towards Castlegar is very positive and they are anxious to receive a reciprocal delegation from Kinnaird Middle School. Students would be well received and I am sure that, if our community pulled together, enough funds could be raised to at least assist in such a project. In the meantime the suggestion has been made that the schools attempt to establish communication electronically. The development of a sister city relationship in China has been in progress for more than two years. A delegation from Yueyang visited Castlegar last September and the president of the Yueyang Teachers’ College visited last May. The parent company of Celgar, the China International Trust and Investment Corp., suggested the city of Yueyang as a twin city for Castlegar and CITIC took a very active part in receiving the recent delegation. It was most gratifying to me to see Celgar, Selkirk College and the City of Castlegar working together in this project. I myself had no specific role to play, and for this reason I would like to convey to other Castlegar residents what a very positive impression your delegation gave. The Castlegar Twinning Committee and city council decided a number of years ago to develop three twinning relationships, fully involving many different segments of our community. The last of the twin cities is to be a community in Russia. In May of this year, representatives of the Twinning Committee, the Doukhobour community and Selkirk College visited Russia and made preliminary investigations concerning twinning with the city of Cherne. This particular agreement should be welcomed within all of Castlegar, but particularly within the Doukhobour community. It is my own sincere belief that the establishment of international connections is good for Castlegar and particularly for our young people who are growing up in a world of increasing internationalism. I have endeavoured to convey my own view of the value of Castlegar’s twinning projects, and of the different segments of our community working together in this way. I am sure that members of the delegation would be willing to share their experiences with community groups at a later stage, but, in the meantime, I certainly believe that they did a very worthwhile job on behalf of our community. Elizabeth Fleet Castlegar | off male gets bashed Our sedentary lifestyle, combined with junk food like starch, grease and sugar, will result in obesity and a variety of medical problems. Just walk through any shopping mall and you'll see what I mean about ex- cess weight; it is grotesque, half the world is starving but we have a mul- bara Murdoch. (“Slim chick’ requests a slight against all women). My reasons for a slim female are several; I don’t eat garbage and do sports because I respect myself and my body and would like to see the same in a lady. The human body is marvellous and a form of art. For example, can you picture Michelangelo’s Adam or the Venus de Milo with fat rolls? We were not intended to look like sacks or lard or Hippos unless there is a medical condition. But also, in a relationship, two people should be fairly compatible for it to work. I like nordic skiing, lots of cycling and hiking up the side of a mountain. Overweight women don’t do these things and they have my blessings in continuing to overeat and wearing out the couch (pota- to?) According to Statistics Canada only 2 per cent of overweight people suffer from glandular problems. For the rest, it’s just inactivity, but mostly this: show me what's on your plate and I'll tell you why you are fat. ti-billion dollar industry on dieting. My respect to all the slim women who laugh at the term diet because they know that nutritious food combined with real activities maintains regular body weight which results in a better quality of life. Mindless consumerism and armchair sports have been with us for some time but I refuse to comply with the masses. Personal ads ask for all kinds: non smokers, christians and bi-sexuals. Why should it be an issue that I am looking for a slim woman? They are out there and they look great. Being fit, educated and financially well off, I have a lot to offer to a health conscious female who loves out- door activities. If regular weight was the norm out there in consumer land, I would not have to use the world slim. You see my point? Peter Weingard Winlaw continued from page 6 The man returned to the same school at afternoon recess Oct. 24 while playing with her brother and his friends in front nothing illegal occurred, there that happens already. is little they can do. However, What doesn’t always happen and tried to get a third child into his vehicle. He failed again. The man then went to another school, Trafalgar Junior Secondary, where he tried to grab a nine-year-old boy. Again, he wasn’t successful. These attempted abductions contrast sharply from the incidents we normally hear of, like that of Dawn Shaw. In that case, the six-year-old Courtenay girl went missing of their family townhouse. She was later found murdered. It wasn’t just the occurrences in Nelson and Courtenay that concern parents in Castlegar . It was the fact the two incidents came in the middle of reports that a suspicious vehicle was seen around local schools during the last several weeks. Parents here were already on edge. (Castlegar RCMP say they identified the vehicle and -its occupants. Police say that since RCMP notified the schools of the vehicle’s description and stepped up patrols). The incidents raise questions about how children, parents, schools and the community deal with such situations. Certainly, children must be taught how to deal with and to report abduction attempts. Schools have to be prompt in turning the information over to police and police have to respond immediately. Much of is regular communication. Both schools and police too often are concerned about alarming the community over what may or may not be a threat. Granted, there is a fine line between alarming the commu- nity and informing it. But sure- ly the safety of a single child should outweigh any concerns about whether the community will be overly excited. Because, as we've seen in the last week, it can happen here.