daily townsman
Local NEWS
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Page 3
School District hosts regional Concours The Regional Concours d’art oratoire was held at the School District #5 offices in Cranbrook this year with participating students in grades 6 to 10 from Golden, Fernie and Cranbrook. Concours is a French-language public-speaking competition supported and promoted by Canadian Parents for French and organized in conjunction with school staff. The event happens across Canada, involving close to 100,000 students. The competitions happen at the school, regional, provincial and national levels with thousands of dollars worth of prizes. The winners in their categories were as follows: School District 6 (Golden) Grade 6 1st place: Robert Caldwell 2nd place: Maeve Wilson Grade 7 1st place: Madeline Archibald 2nd place: Carrington Mitchell School District 5 (Cranbrook and Fernie) Grade 6 1st place: Maeve Murtagh Grade 7 1st place: Megan McCall 2nd place: Ethan Heavey
Barry Coulter photo
Pictured above are some of the students who participated in last week’s Concours d’art oratoire — a French public-speaking competion hosted by School District 5, Friday, April 5: Mckinley Richards (Fernie), Jodi Stemberger (Fernie), Alex Stephenson (Fernie), Megan McCall (Fernie), Cole Zimmerman (Fernie), Celeste Hart (Fernie), Ethan Heavey (Fernie), Eliza Hughes (Fernie) and Vicky Deraspe (Cranbrook). Other students from Cranbrook and Golden took part earlier in the day. Grade 8 1st place: Jodi Stemberger 2nd place: Celeste Hart Grade 9 1st place: Vicky Deraspe
Centermount suspends plans for new Elk Valley coal mine Continued from page 1 Mr. Austin advised that “the present global economy has reduced the demand for iron ore and therefore for metallurgical coal. “The advice of our financial advisors is to expect that price strengthening will take place by the summer of 2014. “Metallurgical coal producers are taking much lower prices today than in 2011 or in early 2012. The board
has therefore decided that raising the major investment funds to complete a final economic feasibility study should await a metallurgical coal price and steel industry market recovery as current financial proposals are excessively dilutive.” Centermount Coal Ltd is a private British Columbia company which has invested more than $20 million
of shareholders’ funds in its Bingay Main project. Centermount said they greatly appreciate the support they have received from the RDEK Area A Director, Mayors and Council of Elkford, Sparwood, and Fernie, the Elk Valley community in general and their Kootenay based suppliers. They also said they expect to resume the program in 2014.
Hazing application turned down Continued from page 1 He added that, at the moment, culling is the only deer management technique that the province is giving permits for. He is hopeful the province will take another look at hazing. “We think that in B.C. it is a technique that should be looked at, even though the provincial regulations are such that they prohibit that sort of activity, but there are always ways to make things happen, it’s just a
question of exploring that process,” he said. McRae said the ministry denied the application primarily because the current Wildlife Act prohibits activities like hazing. “The province did indicate that if the regulations were amended to allow a project like hazing to go forward then it would have to be done within a specific research project that would be rigorously un-
dertaken and critiqued,” he said. A deer cull is still being considered as well. “A cull was never off the table, there’s certainly the same direction from the urban deer advisory committee in terms of what the next steps might be in a deer cull,” he said, adding that communities like Kimberley need to be given every opportunity to explore techniques in deer management.
2nd place: Eliza Hughes Grade 10 1st place: Mckinley Richards The winners have the opportu-
nity to attend the provincial Concours, being held this year on May 4 in Surrey. Concours relies heavily on the support of parent and community
volunteers and CPF would like to extend a huge thank you to Anne Beurskens, Philippe Lurol and Yvette Relkoff who volunteered to judge the students’ speeches.
Getting the course before the karts Continued from page 1
“I don’t have an outrageous amount of funding to be able to purchase a property and apply for zoning changes to turn that into a recreational zoning,” he said. “My proposal is to see if we may be able to utilize a pre-existing facility within the city limits to test this out and do some market research and
studies to see if it would warrant purchasing a property in the future.” Hirn’s proposal is to lease about one acre of the Western Financial Place parking lot from May to September. The track and pits would be formed using stacked tires. A perimeter fence would enclose the facility. Hirn would repaint parking lines at the end of the season. Council liked the idea but
were concerned about noise levels. Hirn offered to provide council with research about noise from go kart tracks. City council asked Leisure Services to prepare a report on the feasibility of the proposal. Council will consider it again likely at its May 6 meeting. Hirn said it would only take about two weeks from approval to bring in the infrastructure and karts and prepare to open.