Saturday, January 9, 1993 It took 43 days, but on July 21 the province-wide pulp industry strike was over. On the local scene, the agreement was not met with favorable response. Some 12,000 B.C. members of the Pulp Paper and Woodworkers of Canada, along with the Canadian Pulpworkers Union, voted 70.2 per cent in favor of the deal. But here at home, PPWC Local 1 employees rejected the offer by 77.2 per cent, and even demanded to have its independent contract with Celgar renegotiated. That request was denied. The deal saw union and management agree to a two-year package with raises of $1.10 per hour. Four statutory holidays were continued, better pensions arranged and contract language approved. Local 1 spokesperson Mike Babaeff | said, “our membership is definitely not | happy, but when you have a provincial majority there’s not much you can do. “I guess it’s all over but the crying and there will be some of that.” There was speculation that the strike would harm Celgar’s modernization plans. But only eight and one-half days of construction were lost from the six-week walkout. By the time the strike had finished, the government's role in such disputes would be questioned, the Industrial Relations Council would come under fire, and a call for a better negotiating process would be made by both labor and management. It was the summer of strikes. ‘| . As soon as Celgar’s pulp workers went | back to work, West Kootenay Power’s employees walked off the job. Some 180 members of the _ International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 213 hit the bricks July 17. Pensions and wages were the main sticking points. | WKP’s other union workers, the Office 1 and Technical Employees Union Local | 378, would soon follow suit. In July, the attention of The News was drawn to a little-known report by Price- Waterhouse. The $24,000 study, commissioned by city council, examined the overall operations of the city and its efficiency in 1990. That’s as much as the city was willing to reveal. The city flatly refused to release the study, claiming it dealt too closely with personalities. After nearly two weeks of prodding by The News, Coun. Kirk Duff called for the report to be made public. Duff, who only became aware of the report’s existence in May, said “I’ve read through the report, and I see no problem with releasing a good portion of it. “Basically, it puts into words what a lot of people have been saying about the way our city was run for a number of years,” Duff said. No further details were released. Meantime, Castlegar lost one of its elected officials to the allure of the Lower Mainland. Coun. Marilyn Mathieson announced she would leave the city to relocate to Vancouver with her husband Stuart. Immediately, the Coalition Unaccepting Rash Bureaucracy began to prepare for a byelection. The self- appointed-city watchdogs rallied the troops in a bid to fill the vacant council seat with one of their own. eee July notes: While some issues were gaining momentum in July, others were coming to a close. The much publicized ‘Bear Parts’ trial wrapped up with guilty pleas. Fifty-one-year-old Jung Kil (John) Chang pled guilty to one count of selling bear gallbladders and paws, and another of exporting wildlife out of the province. B.C. Hydro continued to come under heavy fire for the amount of water it was releasing from the Hugh Keenleyside Dam. A frustrated Ed Conroy said the Crown corporation was only “doing it for the money.” The Rossland-Trail MLA accused B.C. Hydro of betraying its own. “They don’t care about the environment, they don’t care about the wildlife, they don’t care about the fish. All they care about is money,” Conroy said. @ Saturday; January 9/1993" 198 August1 992 | 1) epme eet one OEE The headline on Aug. 8 said it all — “CITY SILENCE ENDS.” After being poked and prodded, Castlegar city hall decided to release the controversial Price Waterhouse report. Coun. Kirk Duff had asked council to reconsider its position and to make the study public. The two-year-old study examined the efficiency of the city’s operations. The decision was historical. It would be the first time that the province’s new Freedom of Information and Privacy Act would be given a test-drive. The city hired Victoria lawyer Murray Rankin to: comb through the study and determine what could be made public under the act’s guidelines. Rankin was one of _ the government’s special advisors for the act. Although Bill 50 was designed for dealing with government at the provincial level, Rankin used the act on the Castlegar study. It took the rest of August before Rankin had finally sifted through the Price Waterhouse report and released his edited copy in September. The executive director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association applauded the efforts of The News. Darrell Evans stated, “you’ve done a great service for your local residents and the people of B.C.” Even still, the president of the Coalition Unaccepting Rash Bureaucracy was unimpressed. Mike O’Connor said he had no use for a sanitized version of the report. He said he wanted the entire study released with no blackouts, including the names of staff and elected officials. “You can bet if it was an A-No. 1 report you would have had something to write about,” O’Connor said. “But when you Art Charbonneau came to Castlegar with good news. come home with a bad report card you don’t want to show it to everybody.” It was an eventful month. After years of hounding the provincial “government, Castlegar and Robson finally got their wish. On Aug. 27, Transport Minister Art Charbonneau announced that funding would finally be made available for the Castlegar-Robson bridge. The estimated cost — $26 million. This brought to an end probably the most intense lobbying the city has ever seen. The announcement especially came as a relief for the Robson-Raspberry Ferry Users Ad Hoc Committee. While members expressed their happiness that an access across the Columbia River would be restored, they said it still doesn’t make up for being robbed of their ferry four years previous. “I don’t think it changes the principle that we were violated,” Fernie Allam said. “It is still a wrong that needs to be righted.” August notes: There were plenty of cries for justice. Castlegar and District Heritage Society president John Coyle dug in his heels against B.C. Hydro. Coyle demanded the Crown corporation compensate the society for flood damage on Zuckerberg Island. High water emissions from the Hugh Keenleyside Dam washed out the island’s access road. B.C. Hydro refused to pay for the damage, but Coyle stood his ground all summer long. Local residents wanted justice from a renovation and siding company. It was the month of Diamond Exteriors. A number of Kootenay-area residents said the Castlegar company wasn’t performing work that was paid for up front. Some even claimed fraud. But owner Bill Prentice said it wasn’t true at all. He said an inaccurate media report coupled with a heavy workload blew everything. out of proportion. The issue has gone back and forth like a marathon tennis match for months. Mike O’Connor finally came out and said it. The president of CURB announced that he applied for Canadian citizenship solely for the chance to run for the mayor’s chair. The Idaho native has lived in Castlegar for the past 19 years. He said he decided to run following the Jan. 7 session of city council when a standing-room-only crowd berated the city for not being open with its citizens. O’Connor needs his Canadian citizenship application approved before he can run in the next municipal election. “(Mayor Audrey Moore) will not run unopposed if I can help it on my part,” O’Connor said.