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The provincial riding of Port Coquitlam has long been an NDP stronghold, with incumbent MLA Mike Farnworth, winning reelection a number of times. This year, he faces a young BC Liberal employee who’s also carrying the party banner plus a Conservative first-timer. See profiles, page 3
VOTESMART PROVINCIAL ELECTION
MAY 14, 2013
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The moving sculpture and bandshell in Leigh Square, Port Coquitlam.
THE FRIDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
APRIL 26, 2013
TRI-CITY NEWS CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
Proportional rep. voting?
Smolts are ready to swim
SEE FACE TO FACE, PAGE 11
SEE THINGS-TO-DO GUIDE, PAGE 17
‘Devastating’ cuts to schools By Diane Strandberg THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Work piling up in school offices, unpainted schools and demoralized staff are part of the picture painted of the effects of proposed cuts to eliminate a $12.1-million deficit in School District 43. Dozens of teachers, support workers and other SD43 employees as well as parents attended a board of education meeting Tuesday night. They wanted to know how cutting 142 jobs throughout the district will affect them and students. Some offered alternatives, such as reductions to management and travel budgets, and one group of non-union employees even offered to reduce their own benefits if it meant saving jobs. But it’s teachers who will take the brunt of cuts: Approximately 78 teachers will be eliminated with reorganizations of staff development, international education, student services for special needs, the middle school hub program and secondary school libraries. Fewer clerical staff (12 full-time equivalent), fewer custodians and
IN QUOTES
“It is not possible to do the same with less.”
Ioco is for sale By Sarah Payne
facilities maintenance workers (17), fewer IT workers, (two) and even fewer managers and administrators (11) were itemized as the way forward for getting to a balanced budget.
THE TRI-CITY NEWS
she’s not worried enrolment will drop off when foreign students are charged $13,000 a year for tuition instead of $12,000.
A 26-page package sent to large-scale developers in B.C. is inviting them to bid on the Ioco lands, a “one-of-a-kind opportunity to create a master-planned community near a wellestablished area of Metro Vancouver.” Imperial Oil has hired Cushman and Wakefield to handle the sale of Ioco’s 232 acres; 150 acres are in Anmore and the remaining 82, including the historic Ioco Townsite, are in Port Moody. The invite states Ioco is one of the “largest remaining prime residential development sites in Metro Vancouver” and “combines the best of urban and rural living.”
see MORE INT’L., page 15
see MIX OF, page 6
DEVASTATING
see ‘THE WORK’, page 13
INSIDE
Letters/12 Tri-City Spotlight/22, 23 Books Plus/24 Sports/33
Info is sent to developers
Teresa Grandinetti, Coquitlam Teachers’ Ass’n. president
By May 7, the budget is expected to be passed but most employees who are slated to lose their jobs have already been approached or soon will be, according to SD43 superintendent Tom Grant. Fo r Coquitlam Teachers’ Association p r e s i d e n t Te r e s a Grandinetti, the cuts are devastating and the budget situation is the worst she has seen in 25 years. And she was quick to describe the impact of the reductions when school starts again in September.
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DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
School District 43 employees and parents turned out to a budget meeting Tuesday to hear what jobs would be cut.
International education money comes in handy Fees paid by foreign students are helping to bail School District 43 out of its difficult financial situation. This year, the district’s long-running international education program,
will contribute $400,000 towards $5 million in deficit reduction this year and another $2 million towards reduction of a $12.1-million deficit for the 2013/’14 school year. Raising fees, cutting
17 teachers, and reducing supplies and services, and not replacing a principal and a secretary is how the program will help out the district, said assistant principal Patricia Gartland. And