New economic opportunities Central Kootenay’s econ- omic base laregly has relied on the forest products and on the mining industries, Due to downturns in these sectors, caused by declining interna- tional markets, communities must be prepared to think and act creatively on Be ating new its rural lifestyle and natural environment, has become a major centre for craft pro- ducers and artists. Several hundred people have home- based industries creating a wide: variety of products ranging from tools to textile arts, to specialized: printing and to portunities to pick up the slack of our resource inter- ests, Communities that. couple small new industsies with the traditional larger ones will be in a much stronger position to deal with fluctuating econ- omic realities than those who continue to concentrate only on a few basic industries. Furtunately, Central Koot- enay does have the land base, the resources and the people - to create new businesses to the proce: The. Kootenay Boundary Artisan Alliance recently formed, acting as an agency to improve marketing prac- tices and education for local producers, As a strong mar-. keting image evolves it is ex- pected that fine arts/crafts and home-based industries will. become the full-time livelihood ‘of many Central Kootenay residents. b , Agriculture “Today, serleulture is the trees and minerals, Oppor- tunities do exist in secondary manufacturing, agriculture, tourism/recreation and edu- cation. Secondary Manufacturing Other products besides lumber and plywood can be produced from our forests. Based on existing and poten-. tial markets, product diversi- fication in the forest sector includes; cedar siding, shakes and shingles, post and: rail fencing, custom furniture, and industrial handling mat- erial such as packing crates and pallets. The West Kootenay, due to of major industry in the Creston Valley. Other areas, including parts of the Slocan. Valley, ‘and Edgewood, despite hav- ing the land capability for in- creased agricultural use, are underutilized. Based on the climate, production ‘in these locations is possible strawberries and raspber- ries, hardy varieties of apples and cherries, certain vege- tables, specialty meats, seed production and goat cheese. As agriculture's pri- mary base increases, pro- cessing activities which gen- Ootischenia. *' Tourlsrs One bright ght’ for. this region is tourism. Regional attractions are based on the natural environment, out- door recreational activities, ’' heritage and culture. The de- veloping craft industry also is emerging as a regional travel These end Selkirk College ‘serve not sonly as a:resource to local: - residents, but by bringing in)! “Education is a: major em- students into the region, in- ‘ployer in the Castlegar area. crease the area's disposal in- School District No. 9 pres- come. Presently Selkirk Col- ently employs 256 persons on lege is studying ways of ex-. a full or part-time basis. panding its provincial edu-) These persons fall into the cational role and the province following categories: allow Central. Kootenay to’ have a unique tourism prod-- uct as with other recently more 60.9 than a $1 million upgrade Bus drivers and Program jab the’ David Mtce. workers parts of British Columbia. With proper - planning, de- velopment and marketing, visitors levels will increase, bringing new. income ‘and jobs into the 43 ty Centre © Stenosand library aides .24 (DTUC). Thess institutions | Other district staff 6 also are the catalyst for the Child care workers 8 many .concerts, plays and ‘Teachers aids and seminars held in the region. Personal Care attendants 11 eabiomenting these. and. Noon hour supervisors 8 ‘otal: * This region has one of the best post-secondary educa- , tonal facilities in the prov- ince's interior, The’ arts “‘school, the vocational school . for f erate many jobs then be- comes possible. Drawing cards for area tourists ‘Looking for tourist ‘attrac- tions in Castlegar? ° Try the authentic Douk- obor Village reconstructed by the local historical society. Not only have the buildings been constructed with an intimate eye for detail, but the rooms have been finished by donations from many old Russian immigrant families.- Each ‘piece of: hand-made clothing or work tool has Tiny cones been painstakingly preser- ved, Nearby isa restaurant that serves the Doukhobor fare. It's mainly a vegeterian diet but the preparation includes baking ini an old-fashioned oven. Castlegar is also the home of the well-known Selkirk College, one of the few. colleges in Canada ‘offering an aviation course. They're affordable -. SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A construction company is building condominiums here that cram a living room, bed- room ‘and kitchen into* 40 square metres — barely big- ger than a standard boxing ring and smaller than a two-car pe. The price is $50,000. “You build housing: to the affordability of your ‘market, whatever that might be. The one thing we.can control is the price of the house, so we adjust the size to reduce the ice,” said Joe, Head, the president of the company, Barratt San Jose. The kitchen is fully equip- ped,’ but the appliances are mini versions. The bedroom is really an alcove, there are no halls and the bathrooms are tiny. But the homes are still coming with a sundeck- . for-two and a carport. Some slightly larger units — stretched out a tad to 45 square metres to include a separate bedroom. — will be available for $56,000. “This is the tip of the ice- berg, a stepping stone for people who can't afford to- day's housing - prices,” said architect Bill Hedley. ADJUST THOUGHT “We really have to adjust our entire thought Procéss on it,” Hedley said. how we provide housing. The old system worked up to a few years ago, but we need new concepts now.” The company is an arm of Barratt Developments, Brit- ain’s largest. home construc- tion company. The 23-year-old onganiza- tion grossed $660 million last year and its head, Sir Lawrie Barratt, was knighted re- cently for providing afford- able homes for the British. ‘The first project — 32 units, — will be built on a site covering one and one-third acres in Fremont, about 48 9 kilometres southeast of San Francisco. Hedley said the tiny con- dos are aimed primarily at the first-time buyer, singles or a young married couple, who can afford a $5,000 down payment and $600 a month. The average conventional house in the San Francisco area sells for well over $100,000. “It is small, no doubt about: “I think there will be an adjustment period for the users, partly’a physical adjustment and partly a psychological adjust- ment. But Europeans have been starting in cspace like this for years.” Taste of Art fet anything special Located downstairs at Helen's Flowers in Castlegar is a new business called A Taste of Art. Operated by Brad and Lorretta Walsh, the business opened its doors in mid- September, 1981. The most important aspect of A Taste of Art is custom framing. The store also car- ries a representative sample of paintings and: prints by ote local artists by carrying’ some of their work. Recently, they have added “BL of , opportunities, as well as‘pro- ‘The payroll of the district tecting’ the ‘traditional pri- for salaries'is in excess of mary :processing industries, seven’ million dollars pér milentre ately regional year. Therefore, over 70 per ., economic climate. cent’ of the. district's budget E THOUSAI 7 School District No. 9 Kootenay workers. to spent in their communities. The total budget for the district for 1982 was passed by the board in the amount of $10,882,246. Some of’ the new and ex- citing programs which-have been developed and put in place in the district over the past few months include ex- pansion of for gifted itiated and vis functioning well.’ ‘Although there have been some criticisms of school dis- - trict budgets recently, School District; No. 9 is acknow- ledged to operate an efficient and economical district. Both Per. pupil costs and taxation levels are historically. below the. provincial average level. In part, this ‘is, due to the, pattern students,. expanded compu~ ter program, a:new. delivery of music: at Kinnaird Elem: 9 entary School, and anitiner- ate music spectalist to serve small schools. A new program for older . students, associated with Sil-. ver Birch Schoo! has been in- of the district, but tts is also due,-to a focus ‘on direct services to children, rather than establishment of a large district, staff. In most: cases, staff: work directly in the schools or with students, and only a few per- ,Sons are employed at the dis- OF DOLLARS AND BE YEARS AHEAD _ ON YOUR _ ae AT - Kootenay Savings WITH, OUR: ‘PAYMENT PLAN” Education is major employer. goes into the mee of Went: trict level and. not ‘valved u be . with — individual students, staff or facilities, Unfortun- ately, however, this focus makes it cult to make budget adjustments which do not directly affect the edu- cational. program and ser- vices in the district. MS The school district is dedi- cated to attempting to pro- vide the best service for the least cost, but any decrease in budgetted figures neces- sitates cutting of services in some areas, However, the board and its staff are confi- dent that education in School District No. 9 will continue to . be of high quality and effec, tively delivered.. WEEKLY MORTGAGE > _EXAMPLE: ; : $50,000 Mortgage for 20 years atl 8% interest “(Check our Current Rate) Payment Monthly — $771.66 Payment Every 2 Weeks — $385.83 Total Payments of $185,198 Paid off in 20 years Total Payments $127,401, Paid Off in 12% years approx. : some lines of their business and are ex- perimenting with picture framing for the “handyman,” who would like to buy the materials and assemble the project himself. Brad.and Loretta are con- sidering ba leated by local’ ar- fists. The Wales also at- tempt to support and prom- to display some of their works, such as pot- tery. | Kootenay Savings ‘The effect of bi-weekly payments, coupled with paying the equivalent of - one extra monthly payment per year, adds upto... : BIG SAVINGS Save TIME — MONE IN- Approx. 7% years. Save Bea leg === Over $57 ,000* in interest. : --Joitt the Hundreds of Satisfied. - Mortgagors Who Have Converted to Our Plan Credit Union TRAIL... FRUITVALE: CASTLEGAR SALMO y *This saving possible only if you adopt this plan from the first day of the mortgage example shown. - # SOUTH SLOCAN — NAKUSP. NEW DENVER : WANETA PLAZA ‘Industrial ark Official Castlegar’s new industrial park was officially opened March 26 in a special breaking sround for commemorative tree planting Senator Jack Austin, MLA Terry Segarty ‘and ‘Mayor Audrey Moore. The Castlegar News captured the event in photos. (from top left. clockwise) Terry Segarty is iven instruction from city works em- loyee on finer points of operating a backhoe. Seqarty, Austin vind Mocre each had a turn Austin y. Mayor Moore presehts Senator Austin and MLA Segarty with a-gift. Each gift was han- dmade in the area. Mayor Moore and Senator bronze ploque. Senator Austin, ‘Mayor Moore and city clerk Rori Skillings follow through with actual tree planting. 4 Provincial government serves you well By HON. DON PHILLIPS Minister of Industry and Small Bi oss Development It is - million involvement in your 139,700 people working in the new water system. I hope manufacturing industry in you agree. that your provin- _ 1981, we had 169,000 working cial for me to write for you at this time, following so close .on the official opening of your new industrial park. I wanted to be there, but prior com- mitments kept, me away. Tm sure my colleague Kootenay MLA Terry Seg- arty ably represented the provincial government, and “Community Economic Ser- vices: Director Chuck Dary did his bit on behalf of my ministry. The industrial park is an achievement, and I'm’ proud to have played my part in making it happen. IDSA (a federal/provineial funding program about which I will write later in this column) was responsible for some 85 per cent of the funding involved. And that on the heels of our $4.5 en TR ee CaN! is serving in the manufacturing indus- you well. try in this province. , Each time I write a. col--. Now that is not up as much umn, it isa new adventure. as I'd like. The figures were The question, what to cover higher, then dropped because and what to leave out. In this of the worldwide economic one, I would like to write slump. But that 169,000 in about “image.” “1981 was more than four . Here in British Columbia, times as many as were work- . we have an image, a self ing in forestry and mining image. We're seen as hewers combined in that same of wood and drawers of ‘month. More than four times water. And, because we hear as many people. were em- it so often, we come to accept : ployed in manufacturing it as being the whole truth. here, than the total number We tend to forget that combined hewing wood, there's expanding secondary drawing water and: mining . and «for a whole motherload of cre- -Ihope that finally lays that ative and innovative. entre- old cliche to rest. To put it peneurship in this province. another way — taking for: I want to give you some estry as our example —in the figures. Not a lot of figures . 1980/81 fiscal year 72.5 mil- . too many figures become lion cubic metres of raw wood confusing. According to Stat-, were cut in this province. Of istics Canada, in 1975 we had. that, only 900 thousand cubic te HON. DON PHILLIPS metres were exported in a raw state. ‘In: other words, the remaining 98 per cent was processed in this prov- ince. . ..either sawn or. treated, and that is a huge secondary industry, based on our primary ‘forestry re- source. Sure, we could do better.. We want to do better. But we're not doing nearly as badly as the doom and gloomers would have you be- lieve. For instance, we have a thriving garment industry in this province. In 1980 there were 5,000 employed here in that industry with an annual ~ And the clothes they're mak- ‘ing are being sold in this province, in the rest of Can- ada, and some are being ex- ported to our overseas trad- ing partners. I mention that simply be- cause I think it will surprise you. That’s not what you hear about. All you hear or read about are the wood hewers and the water draw: and how we've got nothing else, Earlier: this month, my federal colleague the honor- able Herb Gray, Minister of sion, visited myself and the Premier Economic Expan- sion, visited myself and the Premier in Victoria. We didn’t perform any miracles, we didn't expect to. But our two levels of government sat down, discussed, and thres- hed out a few things which I know will be good for this province. Here's what we ac- complished. Firstly, we ‘agreed that our federal/ provincial Industrial Devel- opment Subsidiary Agree- ment (IDSA) become a $50 million revolving fund. This means. the monies, loaned and repaid under the pro- gram, will remain available for further low interest fi- nancing for industrial parks in B.C., such as your new one here in Castlegar. The original program had been for five years, and was due to expire this year. This new agreement denotes a of it Regional Expan- between the Victoria and Ot- tawa governments. It also means that $50 million, orig- inally destined to be returned to federal and provincial cof- fers, will now be available for new loans supporting indus- trial development in British Columbia. Myself and the honorable Herb Gray also discussed the future direc- tion of federal/provincial economic development pro- trade — two major interna- tional ports, once Prince Rupert is completed. We have some of the cheapest energy in the western world.- And believe it or not, our transportation system is con- sidered to be among the best in the world. These are examples of what the people of B.C. are doing. B.C. coal... here in the Ki «+. what they ims — plans for marine resource development and spinoffs re- lated to mega project de- velopment. British Columbia is ideally situated to take advantage of do for a living is to move rock, dig up coal, theirs is a large, complicated operation. To help it run smoothly, they developed a sophisti- cated ft the best ities of the coming decade. We've got what most of the world would like to have — we've got abundant supplies of basic natural resources in- cluding metal, coal, timber, natural gas, and fish. We have sea routes for package to monitor and plan. That computer software package cost them money, but they considered it worth it. Now they've gone one bet- ter, turned that cost centre into a profit. aur ee