SPORTS: Sports Day
COMMUNITY: Family picnic in Houston
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Health class upsets parents By Percy N. Hébert Black Press
SUNNY Sisters
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
Sisters Cora, 8, Bailey, 7, and Naomi, 4, enjoy a picnic in the sun last Wednesday at the Houston Public Library. Houston Link to Learning and the Public Library partnered together to put on a Family Night, complete with barbeque and a magic show. The event brought over 250 people out to the Library. See page 15 for more photos.
Some parents at Twain Sullivan Elementary School in Houston are upset with the material covered by a public health nurse speaking to about 25 students in Grades 6 - 7. The boys and girls received the instruction separately. What was meant to be a discussion of puberty and healthy relationships, turned into a discussion of sexual positions and proper techniques to put a condom on, Amai Barden, a parent of two of the schoolchildren present during the classroom discussion, said. “I trusted them [teachers],” Barden said of why she decided to allow her children to take part in the presentation. Barden said it isn’t the discussion around puberty that had her and her children upset,
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“Gross and way too advanced”
but rather the material covered by the public health nurse in the last hour of a three-hour presentation. ‘Gross’ and ‘way too advanced’ is how her children described the latter part of the presentation, Barden said. The mother of another child participating in the presentation, who wished to remain anonymous, was also upset with the information transmitted by the public health nurse. The problem began following the presentation when the students were invited to ask questions. See SEX on Page 2
Bulkley Nechako Regional District considers Enbridge By Walter Strong Black Press
Two reports into the risks associated with the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline corridor between Burns Lake and Kitimat - one commissioned under the banner of the Smithersbased Bulkley Valley
Centre for Natural Resources Research and Management, and the other by the Northwest Institute for Bioregional Research will not form part of any Regional District of Bulkley Nechako (RDBN) submission to the ongoing federal Joint Review Panel (JRP) of the pipeline
proposal. In a late attempt to have the RDBN board of directors consider taking advantage of its intervener status in the JRP hearings, Stoney Stoltenberg, director of electoral area A (Houston/ Smithers) introduced the two reports, totalling over 130 pages, to
the rest of the RDBN directors by email. Unfortunately, the reports did not reach directors’ email inboxes until only two days before the May 23, 2013 monthly board meeting. Director Taylor Bachrach, also mayor of Smithers, immediately supported
Stoltenberg’s motion. “The regional district is registered as an intervener,” Bachrach said. “To my knowledge, we haven’t taken any action to intervene in the process. This is our last chance to represent our constituents on what many feel is the most important issue facing our region
right now.” A number of directors were immediately concerned that they were being asked to give RDBN approval to a lengthy, technical document without having had the opportunity either individually, or through an RDBN staff report, to determine whether or
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not the content of the reports fit with their constituents’ concerns. “My concern is that we haven’t tasked anyone to do the research on our behalf,” said Burns Lake Mayor Luke Strimbold regarding his reluctance to support Stoltenberg’s motion. See PIPE on Page 2
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