Castlegar, 8.C/ 2 Sections (A & B) “a 75 Cents Clinic smoothes rough edges > mes WEATHER gman isthe ooak pprcbedthe nee wrested condone oe Sera moe mths £, peion, Govan toxomontnentend teh ° \W ~ slegarNews Fire chief's fate in hands of jurors By DONNA ZUBER Staff Writer The fate of Castlegar fire chief Bob Mann is in the hands of a jury today after a five-day tridl in B.C. Supreme Court in Nelson. Mann, 54, is charged with two counts of sexually assaulting a woman. The alleged incidents occurred bet- ween January 1983 and September 1989. The court has imposed a ban on publication of the woman’s name. Mann faces a maximum sentence of 10 years on each count. The jury remained in deliberations as the Castlegar News went to press today. A doctor testified Monday it’s ‘highly improbable’’ Mann is capable of sexual assault. Called by Mann’s lawyer, David Crossin, as an ex- pert witness, Dr. John Gossage, a New Westminster pediatrics specialist, told. a B.C. Supreme Court judge and jury in Nelson that Mann shows no evidence of traits or usually jated with “He very definitely grew up being taught the value of caring about people,’’ Gossage said. ‘‘It was a very normal family Mr. Mann experienced." Cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Whyte, Gossage it’s “a i n Murray order anywhere,’’ Glendinning said. Also testifying for the defence Monday were Mann’s oldest daughter, Bambi Rutherford of » Man., Joseph Spindor, a police officer in who appears normal could commit sexual assault. Mann testified in his own defence Monday but an- swered only a few questions about his background before pausing to put his face in his hands. Crossin said Mann had waited ‘‘a long time’’ his story. After recovering his composure, Mann denied every allegation of sexual assault and sexually inappropriate behavior. _ Crossin and Whyte each called several character witnesses Monday. to tell Among the defence’s witnesses were Castlegar aldermen Bob Pakula and Lawrence Chernoff and ig) Colin Gi ini: who told the court Mann has a good reputation and is not an sex offenders, such as a » negative sexual experiences or abuse as @ child. person. “I’ve never seen Bob in a violent mood or out of and long-ti friend of the Mann family, and Fernando Amaral, a Castlegar man who knows the alleged victim. Amaral told the court he overheard the woman tell two friends that her accusations are lies. “She said she did it for attention and now had gone too far,*’ he said, adding he knew what they were talking about because he heard words like ‘‘charges.”’ However, the Crown’s witnesses said Mann's reputation is not good and he’s considered a liar. Castlegar city clerk Betty Price told the court Mann’s general is *‘that he's di: and not to be trusted.”” Volunteer firefighter Bill Gyurkovits agreed. “He's a liar,’’ Gyurkovits testified. But Crossin, in his closing arguments, warned the jury about convicting a man based on his popularity “I am sure he (Mann) is deserving of criticism . . . but he is not deserving of this. He is not guilty of this,”’ Crossin said of the charges against Mann. Crossin argued that the alleged victim gave her testimony as if she were reading from a script, devoid of emotion when describing the assaults. He said inconsistencies in her testimony and the alleged assaults she described made her testimony un- believable. “You don’t forget the truth and you need not change details to embellish the story,”’ Crossin told the jury. But in his closing arguments, Whyte said details are not important and used the analogy of the Stanley Cup playoffs. No one remembers who scores the first goal of a series but everyone remembers who wins the Cup, he said, The alleged victim is a ‘‘young girl trying to tell * what happened and trying to forget,"’ he said. ‘Whyte aruged that cach part of the woman’s testimony made sense and that people don’t make up the details she described. The woman gave graphic accounts of the alleged assaults in her testimony last week. MAYORS IN TRAINING By ED MILLS Staff Writer Two local swer. But that’s all contractors because they weren't chosen to build student housing. at Selkirk College aren't ready to take no for an an- they’ll from the college board, which chose Advanced Building Systems of Contractors say college missed better deal Proposal was just as good, if not bet- ter than Advanced’s and would cost less. Another sticking Semienoff is that his planned to have the project com- pleted when students return to school this September, while Advanced’s facility won't be ready until January. miffed point . for likely, get meeti Vaughn watenke tote ond Sonoko Kambara pn ss Seite be be meyers te bef an eveni ing berg occasional help trom Mayor Audrey Moore. —conew eat Simon Birch ing during a Castlegar ci di peveral tems of business with Province wants $1.6M loan repaid By SIMON BIRCH Editor The provincial government wants Castlegar to begin repaying a $1.6 million loan the city used to buy land for the Industrial Park in the early 1980s. The province is proposing the city begin annual payments in 1992 of $100,000 — $10,000 to the principal and $90,000 to a reserve fund that would be used to pay the outstanding balance in the year 2005. But city council voted Monday to instruct.city staff to continue negotiations with the province aimed at minimizing interest the city has to pay and postponing payments to the reserve fund until the city’s cash flow improves. The city says it will be in a better position to pay off the debt after the Celgar pulp mill expansion project is completed. “The city cannot afford to make larger payments on the Industrial Park in the near future because of the additional costs to be incurred during the Celgar construction phase,’’ Castlegar’s director of finance, Jacquie Hamilton, says in a memo to council. ‘‘There will presumably be increased revenues af- ter construction has been completed to allow the city to finally address its debt.” The city must reach an agreement to repay the loan by 1992 The loan has interest-free since 1987. been “Kelowna over Nu-Tech Construction of Castlegar and Brilliant-bas¢d con- tractor William Berg to build the $2 million, 100-room facility. The main beef of the local con- tractors is that the college’s choice is about $300,000 more expensive than their proposals. They also questioned whether the facility chosen is of better quality than the buildings they had proposed. In a one-page letter to Berg dated April 17, college president Leo Perra outlined in detail the college's reasons for its decision “The Advanced Systems proposal was the only proposal which met all of the by the Editorial, page A4 Semenoff said Nu-Tech was willing to make adjustments to its design if it wasn't satisfactory to the college board but wasn’t given the chance. “To us, it’s really disgusting that they didn’t even approach us to negotiate, ask questions or even make adjustments. The decision was just handed down,’’ said Semenoff, who didn’t get a letter from the college. The proposals by the three non- union contractors were short-listed by the board from nine the college received. The board deliberated over college in the call for proposals,” Perra said in the letter. The letter then went on to list six specific reasons why Advanced’s proposal was chosen, which Perra also outlined in an interview with the Castlegar News. But Nu-Tech president Paal Semenoff has his own list of reasons why the board didn’t make the right decision Among them are that Nu-Tech’s a k period before making the decision earlier this month. The college’s main reasons for choosing Advanced, as stated in the letter, concerned the reinforced con- crete construction Advanced will be using which is something neither Berg nor Nu-Tech could offer “The. general appearance and lay out were considered and the lower Profile of a two-storey facility was please see COLLEGE page A2 younger watching them.” Hunting would be allowed only if the goats and for all of us to enjoy mountain goats to the area. The following is the conclusion of her two-part report. By BARBARA TANDORY Special to the Castlegar News A hunter as well as a conservation activist, Ron Milton said his ambition is to repopulate the valley with goats, but not for hunting. “The idea is to have them inhabit the whole range,”’ said Milton, a construction worker who lives in Passmore. Milton, with his friend John Braun, came up with the idea of relocating the goats to the area. Goats are already protected through the ‘limited legislation. herd that ceased to exist. . ..70 years ago," Milton The club's long-term plan for the project is to establish a ‘‘permanent viewing area” on the range. “Our main interest is to bring them back for the too much, their food supply in the area, Milton said. He said mountain goats — a species related more closely to the antelope then to the true goat — are quite numetous in parts of the Kooteriays. Exact numbers aren’t available but Milton estimated there are about 3,000 to 4,500 mountain goats in the West Kootenay. Locally, mountain goats live in the mountains northwest of the Hugh Keenleyside dam. “They're not bothered by people at all,” said, although, he added that they’re ‘‘pretty reclusive.’ Coyotes and cougars are their biggest predators, although occasionally even eagles and ravens have been known to prey on newborn goats. The Rocky Mountain goats are native to the western part of North America as far north as the Yukon. But, Milton noted, “‘We have the largest population in the world in the province of B.C."” goat ‘have only been attempted once or twice in B.C. Milton said he knew of an earlier operation undertaken some years ago in the Chilcotin area. Thus the local transplant is Valley wildlife club members get their goats Editor’s note: Castlegar News Barbara Tand. ry recently visited Passmore in the “quite an accomplishment"’ for the valley club, he said. Other local wildlife clubs and gommunity organizations have supported the SVWA project with monetary donations, said Milton, the SVWA vice- President. Milton is also vice-president of the West Kootenay Outdoorsmen Association, an umbrella group for all the wildlife local clubs from Creston to Revelstoke. Donations have been received from the Castlegar and District Wildlife Association, the Rod and Gun Club in Nelson and from the Trail Wildlife Association. Financial support has also come from Orporate sponsors, such as Celgar Pulp Co. in Castlegar, Milton said. In addition, the club received financial support from organizations as diverse as the Regional District of Central Kootenay board and sfrom the Slocan Valley Women's Institute. ‘Susan Milton, an active SVWA club member ons her husband Ron, said the club continues Woking for sponsors because it’s an project,"’ she said hope to start work on the viewing More immediately, the club is preparing for the end-of-June salt lick, by helicopter, to supply the goats with the necessary mineral supplements, mainly calcium. Earlier this spring, club members distributed salt licks by hand on the mountain's lower elevations. Milton strongly argues that the public image of hunters is at odds with their concerns for conservation. ‘People have a really bad misconception of the hunter,”” he said. ‘It is my_belief that hunters are conservationists.’’ Besides, he added, ““We generate a lot of funding for parks and habitat projects."” Milton — born in Regina, but a valley resident for the past 25 years — suggests that over-hunting wasn’t the final cause of the disappearance of mountain goats in Passmore, the established view held by conservation biologists. “*They were over-hunted but that wasn’t the final blow,"’ he said. “The final blow was that the forest succession took over their feeding area.”’ The new mountain goat habitat is on the mountainside’s west-facing slope, known as Dean's Peak, the sunny side where snow doesn’t accumulate and where the goats have plentiful winter feed, Milton said.