STORYTELLERS HEAR FROM THE FRINGES
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TIME FOR MEN TO UNTIE THE KNOT
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HEALTH GROUPS WEIGH IN ON COAL
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FRIDAY
DECEMBER 21 2012 www.newwestnewsleader.com
Is it time for a regional police force? See Page A13
Fat cut, now into bone: teachers union School district proposes ‘staffing adjustments’ to recover deficit Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
MARIO BARTEL/NEWSLEADER
Motorists discover it’s not easy to negotiate New Westminster’s hilly streets in the snow and ice as a TransLink bus gives up its descent of 12th Street.
Ice, snow keep city crews hopping Grant Granger
ggranger@newwestnewsleader.com
New Westminster was hit with a perfect storm of sorts Tuesday, and that was followed up by a winter wonderland of snow Wednesday morning. The city’s roads were gridlocked during Tuesday’s morning rush hour thanks to an ice storm hitting in the early morning hours. Engineering manager Jim Lowrie said all of the city’s equipment was deployed by 5 a.m., but the snow trucks also got caught up in the rush hour traffic. “That’s one challenge we had,”
said Lowrie Tuesday afternoon. Lowrie said an intense ice storm hit the city just before the rush hour leaving frozen ice pellets on the road with snow on top. The forecast Monday evening had prompted the city to have crews administering a salt brine to the streets but that wasn’t as effective as usual. “Freezing rain stays frozen and doesn’t melt as quickly as snow does. We did have trucks out but we didn’t have a chance to fully address that before the rush hour,” said Lowrie. In addition, he said, crews
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contracted by the province and TransLink weren’t able to clear the Queensborough and Pattullo bridges before rush hour backing up traffic on both sides of those structures. “It was a pretty extreme event. I understand it was about up to four centimetres in two hours,” said Lowrie. New Westminster also has many steep hills with commercial businesses and residential units on them making the streets busy and difficult to clean. Lowrie said portions of Cumberland Street and
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Third, Fourth and Queens avenues were closed because the steep terrain didn’t allow city trucks to safely navigate them. The crews were kept hopping again on Wednesday as another storm rolled in. Manager of engineering operations Jon McDonald said it was a busy night and a hectic day for city crews. “It’s all over the map because it’s snowing hard at some points, and at some points not,” said McDonald. “I think we’ve done well. All the streets are pretty drivable.”
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Although relieved the New Westminster school district isn’t considering layoffs to recover its $2.8 million deficit, the teachers union is leery about a proposal to cut $500,000 through “staffing adjustments.” At a board of education meeting Tuesday, district superintendent John Woudzia added the category to the list he presented last week. It was in response to a request from the board for more options. Instead of replacing staff not in the classroom on either a short-term or longterm basis, Woudzia is proposing to redeploy staff to cover for them. For example that could mean a resource teacher, teacherlibrarian, counsellor, music teacher or administrator filling in. Teachers union president Grant Osborne questioned how this would work and whether the replacements would have the skills required. Please see SELLING, A5