Legislative
Parliament

Bldgs...

IT'S A START . .. Castlegar Mayor Audrey Moore lends
2 helping foot to Education Minister Jim Hewitt ino

traditional sod turning to mark the minister's announ

Library gets $200,000 grant

By SIMON BIRCH
Staff Writer

Castlegar Library's long wait for
money from the Expo Legacy Fund
ended Monday when Education Min
ister Jim Hewitt, minister responsible
for the fund, visited Castlegar to
announce a, $200,000 grant to help
construct a riew library building down

town

In announcing the grant to about 30
people crowded into the basement of
the downtown library, Hewitt said he
was “amazed” by the number of books
crammed into the small 186-square
metre building

Library board chairman Deb Chmara
was overjoyed at Hewitt’s announce.
ment

“You're niaking me very happy.” she
told the minister, adding that the
biggest question” on people's minds

Cominco
shortens
shutdown

By CasNews Staff

Lid. has shortened its
planned shutdown of the metallurgical
operations in Trail this sunmmer to four
weeks from six weeks, the company

Cominco

has announced

The shutdown period will now be
July 27 to Aug. 24, Cominco spokesman
Barrett Lawrie said today

Lawrie said the shutdown has been
shortened because some impurities got
into the zine processing system.

That resulted in lost production
which must be made up to meet com
mitments to Cominco’s customers, he
said.

“That extra two weeks will enable us
to fulfil our orders.”

There will also be minor changes in
the Trail fertilizer operations shut
down schedule.” he said.

was how much money the government
would grant the library

The Castlegar Expo Committee had
requested $200,000 on behalf of the
library last November

Castlegar Mayor Audrey Moore,
who was on hand for the announce
ment, was also pleased with the grant,
which will be matehed by the City of
Castlegar.

“This certainly is a happy day for
me.” said Moore, a former Castlegar
librarian who started work at the
library in 1970.

“| know how happy everybody in this
room is today. This project has been on
everybody's mind for 15 years.”

Moore promised the city’s coopera
tion on the project as it progresses.

“['m sure we'll all be very proud of
it.”

The new building will allow the
library board to consolidate the down

SCHOOL CLOSURES

precipitetion 40
and 50 per cent Friday

Board to hold
special meeting

By SIMON BIRCH
Staff Writer

Castlegar schoo! board decided Mon-
day to schedule another round in the
fight over the board's decision earlier
this month to close four rural schools in
an effort to save more than $100,000 in
operating costs during the 1986-87
school year

“I felt that we hadn't heard from all
parents’ groups .. . we need to hear
from other parents’ groups in the dis.
triet,” board chairman Kay Johnson
said in explaining the board's decision,
made at a closed meeting, to hold a
special meeting June 23 to hear further
arguments on the issue of closing the
sehools.

In particular, Johnson said the
meeting will allow the board to hear
from a seven-member committee of

rents from the four rural areas that
will be affected by the school closures.

The parents formed the committee
June 10, immediately after the board
announced its intention to close Blue-
berry Creek, Pass Creek, Ootischenia

and Shoreacres elementary schools ef-”
fective July 1.

But-Nina Koodrin, chairman of the
Castlegar District Parents’ Committee
and the Shoreacres representatives on
the rural parents’ committee, won-
dered Monday if there is any point in
having another meeting after protests
and pleas from parents at four public
meetings earlier this month failed to
sway the board from its decision to
close the schools.

“What is the point of anybody
coming out and talking to you again
when you've already decided (to close
the schools)?” she asked Johnson.

Johnson said the trustees will listen
one more time, but made no pr .

“There has been an outery and the
board in its wisdom says this is worth
taking another look at,” said Ed Conroy
who, along with the two other rural
trustees, George Anutooshkin and Rick
Pongracz, opposed the four city trus-
tees in the vote to close the schools.

“I would say the board is looking at
(the decision),” Anutooshkin said. “The
meeting is sort of an appeal process.”

He added that the trustees will “take
a look at what comes back to us” from
the meeting and “if need be, make a
decision to reverse their (earlier) de-
cision” to close the schools.

In an interview Tuesday, Graham
Read, a spokesman for the rural par-

“We will listen, but ultimately the
decision will be ours,” she said.

Two other trustees who stayed to
answer questions from the public and
media after the meeting also indicated
a willingness to listen to further
arguments but would not promise a
reversal of the decision to close the
schools.

ents” said he is “op

the committee can come up with an
alternate plan to dosing the four
schools and convinee the board to
change its decision.

“We will have a brief ready by six
o'clock Monday night,” Read said, re-
ferring to the time of the special
meeting.

continued on page AZ

Trail takeover proposed

cement of an Expo Legacy Fund grant to expand the
Castlegar Library

CostewsProte by demon Birch

town branch with the library's Kin
naird branch, which operates out of a
100-square-metre leased
south Castlegar.

In an interview Tuesday, Chmara
said the new building will be built on
the site of the downtown library, using
“some of the basement and some of the
foundation” of the existing building

facility in

The current building will be sold,
either as a unit or in pieces, Chmara
said

Although the board has yet to decide
on final working drawings for the new
building, Chmara said the size of the
facility will be approximately 650
square metres.

The $200,000 grant will be forwarded
to the library board once construction
of the building has started
provincial government news
announcing the grant

says a

release

Mediator ap
in health dispute

VANCOUVER (CP)
has been appointed in

A mediator
the dispute
between provincial hospitals and
health care professionals

Mediator Fred Long will hold four
days of talks with the
starting next Tuesday, a process a
union leader says is unlikely to ac
complish anything “but stalling.”

Members of the union, the Health
Sciences Association, voted 83 per cent
last week to strike against their
employers, hospitals which belong to
the Health Labor Relations
iation.

The employers’ association respond
ed by asking Labor Minister Terry
Segarty to appoint a mediator and
impose a 90-day cooling-off period on
the union and the B.C. Nurses Union,
which is also threatening strike action.

Claude Haywood, assistant deputy
minister of labor, said Tuesday that
Segarty won't be acting on the cooling
off request until after he's received

two sides

Assoc

mediators’ reports in both disputes

In the nurses’ impasse. mediator
Jack Chapelas has yet to book out al
though the union asked him to

The union's 72-hour strike
against eight northern hospitals is in “a
holding pattern.” according to spokes
man Jerry Miller

notice

He said the union is consider
giving strike notice to a new s¢
hospitals in order to break out of

limbo.

Jack Campbell, president of
Health Sciences Association
couldn't “hold out too much hope
mediation because (Long) is going :nt«
a stacked deck.”

Both unions and a third, the Hospita
Employees Union, are upset with the
hospitals’ insistence on a three
contract ‘offer containing no wage '0
crease in the first year with increases
of one and two per cent in following
years.

said

year

By BARBARA TANDORY

Community ownership of West Kootenay Power and
Light Co. got more push on the weekend with a proposal
naming the City of Trail as a potential buyer of the power
utility put on sale by Cominco earlier this month.

The takeover proposal, prepared by a small] committee
headed by former Trail mayor Buddy de Vito, came out of
une labor organized Community Economic Development
conference held in Trail.

De Vito was one of more than 50 trade unidnists,
community leaders and activists participating in the
weekend conference whose theme was local control as a way
of reversing the loss of local ownership, via a move towards
greater self-reliance of the community, The participants
considered alternative economic planning in order to reduce
dependence on the town’s single employer in the face of
Cominco’s continuing difficulties.

“The Trail district is the natural successor to Cominco
as owner and operator of the WKPL Co.,” reads the proposal
presented at the closing session of the conference. “Trail has
been the headquarters of the WKPL and it is fitting and
proper that ownership and control be attained by the people
of this area.”

“Public ownership of utilities has been a Canadian
tradition,” continues the proposal. “Historically each
community in B.C. built and operated electrical power
facilities as a needed service to the residents. =

The draft proposal urges the City of Trail to consider
the benefits of owning the facility

This act of moving towards community ownership of the
WKPL gives immediate control of power use to the
people of the area as a natural sequence of future control. If
acted upon, “it will ensure maintenance of jobs, avoid a
power monopoly and provide competitive power rates.”

If the proposal meets with a positive response, de Vito

SESSION ENDS

expects city council to turn the matter over Ao the
Community Economic Action Committee, a group in'the best
position to purchase a feasibility study out of the $2 million
Community Futures fund.

Representatives from the CBAC — including Mare
Marcolin, Cominco’s past vice-president and former
president of the WKPL, and Marten Kruysse, economic
developrienit officer for the Cemtral Kootenay and District
Regional Council — attended the Sunday session of the
conference on invitation from the labor organizers with a
view to forming closer cooperation in planning the economic
future of Trail. 4

The e n y based ic planni
was organized by the Steelworkers Local 480 with
sponsorship and participation by the B.C. Federation of
Labor

Steelworkers president Ken Georgetti, acting as
chairman, called the conference “a pilot project for the
Federation and the community.”

He said the organizers are working towards a regional
conference involving Castlegar, Nelson and Trail planned for
this fall

Immediate plans call for greater participation by
organized labor in the activities of the CAEC.

“We want to take action rather than reaction,”
Georgetti said of the labor's role in economic planning

“We can build more than a ball park,” he said referring
to the Haley Park committee which started out as a small
group of concerned citizens and ended up undertaking a
major community project. “If you can get people to build a
ball park, you can get them to save their community.”

Conference organizers hope to stir the community into
the realization that “Cominco will never be a solution to their
‘a conclusion reached by a study of the greater

continued on poge A2

problems,”

Bennett bids farewell

By PAUL LOONG

VICTORIA (CP) Barring an
emergency summer session, Bill Ben
nett walked out of the British Columbia
legislature Tuesday knowing he prob
ably will never enter that
again as premier.

Bennett announced late last month
he is resigning as party leader — and
therefore as premier later this
summer. He plans to continue sitting as
the member for Ckanagan South until
the next provincial election

After sitting for 53 days since March
11, the fourth session of the 33rd
legislative assembly adjourned Tues
day until the government decides to
recall it

One of the last items debated was
the spending estimates for the pre
mier's office, and Bennett used the oc
casion to deliver a reflective farewell
speech touching on his decade in office

“I'm going to miss the debate in the
legislature,” Bennett told reporters af
terwards.

“Some of the most intense debate, in
restrospect, was the most enjoyable
it's an experience that you really can't
describe to people unless you've been
in it

tion

chamber

his
W.AC

reference to
premier

“But that part may be over for me,”
said Bennett, who will run the province
as premier until he hands over th ejob
to his gq the July

trumpet

28-30 Social Credit leadership conven

During his speech in
Bennett jokingly invited the Opposi.
tion to call bim all those nasty names
one last time for old times sake

He listed some of them: MiniWAC (a

Bennett)
wimp, Three-Dollar-Bill, a leader who
cannot control his cabinet and never

INSIDE—

SPORTS DAY: Doukhobor
Cultural Association's an
nual sports dey was held in
South Siocan on Sunday

- 83

NEW PRESIDENT: Selkirk College boord
new president of the B.C. Association of C
LUCKY VISITORS: A couple from Compbell
with @ comera and given a helicopter tour of Expo in Vancouver on
Tuesday for being the 5,000,000th visitor since
2

from Expo chairman Jim Pattison

The Zents got VIP treatment the rest of the day
didn t have to wait in line at any of the pavilions and exhibits

listens to his ministers and backbench,
and head of a jackboot government

Please, one more time before I go
I'd like to hear those words,” Bennett
said

But all he got Opposition
Leader Bob Skelly was a concilatory
tribute We won't make his day as of
yet

The gentle t
hard

the house,

from
father, the late
dictator,
it from the NDP

was Bennett said

hairman has been elected
A2

ileges
Calit.. were presented

the fair opened May

Bill and Denise Zent also “received a personal welcome

who played a tantare on his

they