LOTTERY NUMBERS The winning numbers in Saturday's Lotto 6/49 draw were 7, 8, 11, 16, 41, and 47. The bonus number was 44, The extra numbers are Causeway Artifact awash The CasNews wraps up Saturday night's Notional Hockey League action... BY collector ; Columnist John Char- ? 4 ter: continues his ~ series on— local heritage... 87 s 86, 90, 92, 96. The $1,000,000 winning number in Friday's Provincial lottery drax is 3611945. The winning numbers.drawn Friday in the B.C. Keno lottery were 9, 13, 16, 21, 31, 32. 53 and 55. to Zuckerberg The causeway leading Island was washed out Friday. by high water. . A2 Sunday Vol. 43, No. ~ News CASTLEGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1990 WEATHERCAST Today: Cloudy with sunny breaks Chance of flurries. Monday: Periods of rain or snow Highs near 3. Probability of precip tiation is 30 per cent today and 80 per cent Monday 3 Sections (A, B& C) NOW THIS IS FUN . . . The kids at Valley Vista elementary school took to the school yard saa en masse for a snow . Some preferred to eat the ipturing snow rather than sculpt, but others like 5-year-old Brett Gawryletz, weren't afraid of the heavy lifting to help out their teams. CosNews Photo by Ed Mills Trustee ‘cautious’ about new policy By CLAUDETTE SANDECKI Staff Writer Castlegar school board chairman Gordon Turner says the Ministry of Education's new policy of providing school districts with block funding, based on a set amount per student times the number of students in the district, may provide stability for planning in the district but will not likely include enough money for the board to introduce new programs. “I'm cautious at this point,’ Turner said Friday following Education Minister Tony Brummet’s an- nouncement of the funding policy Wednesday. ‘‘I don’t know if (the funding) will be enough."" The second half of the minister’s new policy, removing the board’s power to tax as it sees fit and forcing the district to conduct a referendum if the board wants to spend more money than the government provides, ‘‘disturbs me,’’ Turner said “‘It's a shackle rather than an opening,”’ he said. Brummet, in a news release, said the new policies will provide tax relief for homeowners who pay for schools through the education portion of their property tax However, he said the form the relief will take will be determined by the Ministry of Finance in the spring. Turner said the homeowner grant, which is now used to lessen the education tax first and then applies to general property tax if the grant is not entirely exhausted, will likely be applied to property tax in general Turner noted that idea was a major theme of submissions to the province's property tax forum that travelled throughout B.C. last year. Block funding, recommended by the Sullivan Royal Commission on Education and ‘many groups through- out the province,"’ includes all school board expen- ditures, Brummet said. The amount the government paid out to boards for their 1989-90 budgets, based on a formula called the fiscal framework through which the province provides a large percentage of the amount the district has budgeted for and leaves the board to make up the rest through local taxation, totalled $2.4 billion or $4,954 per student, the ministry said. The 1990-91 block amount will be increased by $305 per student to $5,259 per student, the ministry said. In Castlegar, the $30S will amount to a $600,000 increase over last year’s budget, Turner said, but the board members don’t know at this point if the amount Castlegar will receive will be enough to run the district next year. The extra $600,000 ‘‘may just be keeping up with the cost of living,’ Turner said. And boards may find themselves in the position where they must weigh salary increases for teachers and staff against existing or new programs, he said “If enrolment stays stable or increases, which is the situation for most boards in B.C., then those boards should be in fairly good shape with block funding,’ he said. continued on page A3 Local man wins $476,529 By CasNews Staff Money can be a scary thing Just a.* 21-year-old Mark Palmer His mother, his plans for the money. Marci ages Johnny's Grocery, said it's nice to see somebody at that age win the of Robson who won close to a half million dollars on Lotto 6/49 Wed- nesday “I'm in shock,"’ Palmer said Thursday about an hour before leaving to pick up his prize winnings of $476,529.70 in Kamloops. Palmer, who bought his winning ticket — a single quick pick — at Johnny's Grocery and Gas Sales in Robson, was hesitant to talk about entire family is in shock and her son is just a nervous wreck. ‘*We just want him to calm down, he's only 21. We'd just like him to get out of town for a while,’ she said. Mrs. Palmer said the phone at the house was ringing all day Thurs- day with congratulatory calls and others from ‘‘some real weirdos."’ While the Palmers might not want to make a big deal out of their good fortune, Larry Koftinoff, who man- big one “And he was unemployed at the time, too, so it's nice to see (him win the money)."’ said Koftinoff. Bev Sawatzky, who sold Palmer the winning ticket and was in the store when he came in to confirm that he'd won Thursday afternoon said Palmer was as white as a ghost when he found out for sure he was holding a ticket worth half « million dollars in his hand. Celgar says chips plentiful By SIMON BIRCH S Editor There are enough wood chips and unused pulpwood in the area to supply Celgar Pulp Co.'s Castlegar mill for at least five years after its proposed expansion without turning to a pulp for which Currently, Celgar uses about 1.1 million cubic metres of chips annu- ally. When operating at capacity, the proposed expanded mill will consume about 2.4 million cubic metres of chips a year. Parker stressed that the pulpwood the Ministry of Forests is currently seeking applications, Celgar's chip buyer said. “We? @on’j, think it would be necessary in't#é short term to use the pulpwood agreement,” Fred Parker said Thursday in an interview with the Castlegar News. Parker explained later that short term to him means about fivé. fears. “We. think.» thatcies...and our assessment continues to tell us — that we need to use byproduct chips to a level of 80 per cent to 90 per cent of our requirement,” he said. “And then we would start the woodroom to utilize what we believe is some unutilized wood that is out there today “After the expansion, right now in our complete fibre area, there is enough chips to supply the mill,"” Parker added. ‘‘Our independent assessment of that situation indi- cates that's the case."” BOB MANN . .. In court in March Chief faces charge By CasNews Staff Castlegar fire chief Bob Mann has been charged with one count of sexual assault, RCMP Staff Sgt Doug Hall said Friday Mann appeared in Castlegar pro- vincial court earlier in the week for a bail hearing and is slated to reap- pear March S. No further details of the case will be released while the police investi- gation is continuing, Hall said. A ban on publication of any information that could reveal the identity of the complainant has been issued by the court. Castlegar Ald. Lawrence Cher- noff, chairman of city council's protective services committee, said Friday that Mann is currently on vacation rs and the mill expansion are two separate issues. “The thing about the pulpwood agreement is that it is in play sep- arate from whatever's going on as far as the expansion is concerned,” he said. “‘As far as I know, we haven't prejudged anything in re- continued on page A3 By CLAUDETTE SANDECKI Staff Writer The Ministry of Forests is calling for proposals from south- eastern B.C. pulp mills or indi- viduals interested in building and operating new mills for the use of the region’s excess wood chips and pulp-grade timber. One of the application re- quirements, set out under the Forestry Act, specifies the prop: osals must include plans to expand an existing pulp mill or build a new mill to accommodate the pulp material in the region, Ministry calls for proposals the province from Valemount to the U.S. border and from Lillo- cet to Invermere, according to a fibre resource study conducted last year that determined enough excess pulp . material exists in the area to allow 500,000 cubic metres per year to be harvested and collected, in the form of chips and other wood byproducts, from area sawmills for 2S years Celgar Pulp Co. in Castlegar, a mill at Skookumchuk and « mill near Kamloops are the only existing pulp mills within the d Pulp Area No. Pulpwood Area No. 9 is defin- ed as the southeastern portion of d area, Arrow forest district harvesting operations continued on page A3 Government extends By CasNews Staff A provincial government commit tee studying Celgar Pulp Co.'s plans to expand the Castlegar pulp mill has extended the deadline for public comment onethe project until Feb 16. The previous deadline was Feb 3 Jim McLaren of the Environment Ministry's regional office in Nelson said the office has received numer- ous phone calls asking the govern menf to extend the deadline Castlegar city council at a recent deadline meeting also asked that the deadline be extended “People simply need more time’’ to comment, McLaren said The Coalition for Information on the Pulp Mill Expansion said Sat urday the extension is a good move: The extension is a positive thing,"’ CIPE spokesman Craig Law- rence said Lawrence said groups and indi viduals in areas such as Nakusp and Washington state affected by the continued on poge A2 Effective Sunday. March 4 the newsstand and home deliv ery prices of the Castlegar News are going up The newsstand price is going to 75 cents from 60 cents while the home delivery price will in- crease by five cents to 45 cents from 40 cents The increase in the newsstand price is the first in nearly four years while the increase in the home delivery rate is the first in nearly 30 months CasNews publisher Burt Campbell said the increases “are almost entirely attributable to the huge increases in news print and to escalatintg labor costs. costs CASNEWS PRICES TO INCREASE The pay package for carriers is also being improved Home delivery price of the twice-weekly Castlegar News will be 90 cents a week, a saving of 60 cents off the newsstand price The special Gold Card for senior citizens aged 65 and over is being continued. Senior citi zens may apply for a discount card at the Castlegar News with proof of age. The cards are good for two years and may be re newed. They allow carriers to extend a monthly 2S-cent dis count ($3 a year), and the car riers are reimbursed by the newspaper.