Up front: Grieving Stone family remembers the real Karrie Ann Leaders: Proud valley girl running away to join the circus
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Friday, May 18, 2012
Balance budget or be Äred, education minister tells SD79’s maverick trustees
Thief absconds with Olympic memories Melanie Brancato: Athlete’s 1988 Olympic ring among sentimental keepsakes stolen during Cowichan Bay break-in
5-4 vote: trustees pass deficit budget to standing ovation from many in the gallery Krista Siefken
Krista Siefken
News Leader Pictorial
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News Leader Pictorial
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er Olympic ring was stolen from her, along with a sentimentally priceless ring from her husband and children, plus her grandmother’s family ring. But what Melanie Brancato misses most is her sense of security. The Olympic athlete and Cowichan Bay resident was robbed of all these things after a thief — or thieves — broken into her home on Waldy Road. “This is a place I’ve lived pretty much my whole life, and I always thought it was a safe place, and was so happy my children had an opportunity to grow up here, too,” Brancato said. “The stuff is just stuff. What’s worse is that feeling of my bubble bursting.” Brancato, who was Melanie Slade when she played on Canada’s 1988 Olympic ¿eld hockey team, says the Cowichan Valley feels a little less safe, a little less secure, after the break-in. “We often forget to lock our doors, so I think my ¿rst reaction was, ‘Are we actually safe here? Are my children safe here?’” she said. “When I lived in the city I was broken into twice, and that was kind of par for the course. But here, I always felt safe. This took that away from me.” Brancato, who works as a registered massage therapist, said she didn’t even realize the break-in had occurred initially because she infrequently wears jewelry due to her job. North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP said the break-in was reported May 3, but the theft had occurred sometime during the 1 1/2 weeks prior. “There was no mess, no vandalism, and because I don’t wear rings very often, it took a bit for us to even clue in that anything was gone,” Brancato said. Items swiped include a change-sorter with
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Melanie Brancato’s 1988 Olympic ring was stolen from her Cowichan Bay home. money in it, costume jewelry, the two gold family rings with sentimental value, a Dell laptop computer and a 1991 silver UBC grad ring with a blue stone in the centre. The most visually unique item, though, is the 1988 gold Canadian Olympic ¿eld hockey ring, with 1988 on either side of the ring’s centre portion, and a Canadian Àag with ¿eld hockey sticks on the middle. “To be honest, I’m not holding out a lot of hope (of getting it back),” Brancato admitted. “I’ve hit the pawn shops and gone on Used Victoria and Used Cowichan hoping someone would be stupid enough to put it on there. But my cynical side is thinking it’s probably been melted down.” Brancato ¿gures the ring could probably be
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replaced by contacting Olympic of¿cials, but it wouldn’t have the same sentimental value. “It’s different — it doesn’t have the same meaning,” she said. “It was something I wanted to pass down to my kids.” And Brancato’s sense of security is just as dif¿cult to replace. “The stuff upsets me, but it’s more that sense of questioning whether we really are safe,” she said. “That’s what they stole from me, more than the things. Because things can be replaced, but that sense of security and sense of safety is gone.” Police ask anyone with information about this crime to contact the North Cowichan/Duncan RCMP detachment at 250-748-5522 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-2222-8477.
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or the ¿rst time in 27 years, Cowichan school trustees have adopted a de¿cit budget. And Education Minister George Abbott says he’s ready to remove the board because of it. “This is all pretty straightforward,” he told the News Leader Pictorial Thursday morning. “I fully expect they will balance their budget by June 30. “This is not a negotiation with the province. We are making it very clear to them what they have to do.” The School District 79 board of education voted 5-4 in favour of the de¿cit budget — an illegal move under the provincial School Act — during its regular board meeting Wednesday evening at Mount Prevost Middle School. The decision was greeted by a standing ovation from many of the dozens of observers. Haythornthwaite: The budget, termed a restoration not unaware budget by the board’s ¿ve-member majority, sees expenditures total almost $3.8-million more than revenue. Trustees supporting the de¿cit budget said they hope to work with the Ministry of Education to ¿ll that funding gap, although the ministry has said several times that’s unlikely. “I’m not unaware there are consequences,” Chairwoman Eden Haythornthwaite said during the meeting. “But I have to tell you that I believe we can talk to the minister ... I believe that if our community stands with us, the minister may listen.” So far, though, Abbott’s message is clear. “They have until June 30 to reconsider that de¿cit budget and to provide us with a balanced budget,” he said. “There are 60 school districts in this province. There is only one that is claiming they’re unable to balance their budget, and even their own superintendent and secretarytreasurer are saying very clearly and emphatically to their own board that there is a viable option to balance the budget.” Haythornthwaite emphasized that no matter what happens to the board, the district will not be left in the lurch. more on page 5
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