Along the Fraser Some students learn from mistakes. p6
LED street lights will have to wait. p13
THE NEWS
Gardening Lesson on types, species of edible figs. p29
www.mapleridgenews.com Friday, April 26, 2013 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢
Sudden shortfall for city
Way of Tea Rina Suzuki hosts a traditional Japanese tea ceremony called Way of Tea at the Maple Ridge Art Gallery Sunday morning. The ceremony demonstrated the preparation and presentation of Matcha, or powdered green tea, a performance that is primarily influenced by Zen Buddhism. Suzuki is using a tea whisk, carved from a piece of bamboo, to mix the tea with hot water. See slideshow @ mapleridgenews.com.
Error found in property assessment of Onni land by M on i sh a M ar ti n s staff reporter
As a deadline for passing this year’s tax increase bylaw looms, Pitt Meadows hit a speed bump Tuesday that could see the city face an operating deficit by the end of 2013. Director of finance Dean Rear advised council this week that an error in the property assessment for a parcel of land along Airport Way could mean a shortfall of $149,000. The 23-hectare parcel, owned by Onni, was previously slotted in the business class. But the owners arranged for agricultural activity to take place on it while preparing for an industrial warehouse development. Rear only stumbled on the error by chance. The city must adopt its tax rate bylaw for 2013 by May 15.
Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS
See Shortfall, p10
Trustees balance budget Avoid cutting teacher librarians to half-time by Ne i l Co r b e t t staff reporter
Education: Pitt foodies square off in first Iron Chef. See story, p3
The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board passed a balanced, $130-million operating budget for the 2013-14 school year on Wednesday. It was done so after a few adjustments, following a complaint by the district’s secondary school
teacher librarians that library services to students were being cut too drastically. The board had to trim $5.66 million in expenses to balance the budget. “It was, obviously, a very difficult process,” board chair Mike Murray said after the meeting. “We listened carefully to what the presenters presented last week.” He noted that board deliberations about how to balance the budget continued virtually right until Wednesday night’s meeting, and copies of the budget were still
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being prepared when the board meeting was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. “One of the key things was to make sure libraries are open for kids – we Murray heard that in spades,” Murray said. The most significant change from original budget proposal
is that secondary teacher librarians will not be cut to half-time. Rather, they will be cut from eight teaching blocks down to five. So the six secondary school teacherlibrarian positions will each be 0.625 full-time equivalents next year, instead of a full position. Their efforts will be augmented by clerical workers, who will handle book filing and other tasks. These clerical workers earn less than teacher librarians, and the overall savings to the board will be $140,000. See Trustees, p15
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