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Northern
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 58 No. 29
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
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1.30 INCLUDES TAX
$50K to carry Food Share to 2014 With no other source of money, the Kitimat Food Share turned to the District of Kitimat for more funding, following the $20,000 already given following this year’s budget process. Kitimat Community Services Society’s Executive Director Denise O’Neill said that the Food Share program — which is run under the banner of KCSS — was in dire straits before council approved the funding. “We don’t have the ability to extend ourselves anymore,” she said. What council approved was a boost of $50,000, which will carry the Food Share into 2014, when council will begin looking at their next budget. Meanwhile, councillors will lobby on KCSS’ behalf to get better support from other levels of government. Mario Feldhoff, who put forward the motion for Food Share’s extra funding, said that council will have to talk to the government on many issues, from infrastructure needs to social services. He hopes a positive response to future talks will mean Kitimat taxpayers will feel less of a pinch in coming years. “To some extent, [people] are encouraged to come here from other parts of the province and we need some provincial help,” he said. He was referring to a surge of people coming to Kitimat seeking employment, and who are not finding the path to a better life they were seeking.
“There definitely is a disconnect between the skills the unemployed people have with what the industries are looking for,” said O’Neill. “There also is...the barriers that some of the unemployed people bring to the table when they look for work.” Those barriers include attitude, life problems and history of violence and abuse, she said. The new surge of money for KCSS is immensely helpful to the organization, which doesn’t have any specific funding for the Food Share program, which is operated under the society’s literacy program. O’Neill said that the society has helped pay for the program by diverting funds from various programs. “With our other programs...we’re stealing [Food Share’s] away from those budgets, and skimming ours off those budgets to provide staffing to keep food share open.” The $20,000 the Food Share already received this year from the District went towards basic needs such as space rental and utilities. Because many of KCSS’ programs are seasonal, there were many budgets they simply couldn’t take from to keep Food Share running. The literacy program, for instance, doesn’t run in the summer so there is no money to divert. The $50,000 from the District to carry Food Share into 2014 will be drawn from the District’s $200,000 reserve set aside for ‘social issues.’ Continued on page 3
RDKS has recycling questions too Margaret Kujat, the environmental services coordinator for the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, says the recycling future in the Terrace and Kitimat area is going to be in “limbo” for a little while as everyone comes to grips with the Multi Material BC (MMBC) program. MMBC will later this year be issuing requests for proposals for collection and processing of paper and packaging material for recycling, in many places meaning a curbside pick-up of the material. The program, which is a shift that means industries will be taking on the cost burden of collecting the recycling material rather than taxpayers, has been raising questions that not many seem to have an answer for. Those questions include who will be in charge of the
material — municipalities have until September 16 to decide if they want to take on the duties — and where the material will go. While Kitimat’s KUTE recycling depot would make sense, there are concerns that they don’t have the space to take on all the new material. (See Sentinel, July 10.) Kujat said the regional district is considering a recycling pick up program for the greater Terrace area, which she said will hopefully align with programs from the City of Terrace. “People are quite keen to divert and recycle what they can, and the only thing that ends up in the landfill is the stuff that can’t be diverted, ie: sewage pumpage, or the odd bit or bob that has to go to the landfill,” she said. A regional district pick-
up program, which would be planned to go as far south as Lakelse, would coincide with the opening of a regional landfill at Forceman Ridge, when Terrace and Thornhill’s landfill close. Thornhill is slated to become a transfer station. The transfer station in Thornhill would hopefully have a recycling component built into it, she said. “That’s the plan, but we’re rolling out this integrated plan because you can’t talk about one thing without talking about the others,” she said. “If we don’t integrate recycling, what will people do with it?” She agrees with many of the concerns raised by Ken Maitland in the paper last week. A solution has to be found as to where the recycling products can go. Continued on page 7
It’s a new highrise on the Kitimat landscape, but depending on who you ask it’s either a sign of better cellular service from Telus in the area, or an eyesore. A caller told the Sentinel that the tower, across from the fire hall on Kingfisher, is an ugly addition to the neighbourhood. Telus spokesperson Liz Suavé said that the company usually attempts to put antennas on top of existing, tall buildings but no such location was available in the area, that would bring the coverage they wanted. The 45 metre tall tower is expected to be fully operational by the end of July. She notes that Telus held consultations with the District of Kitimat during planning, which included showing plans at an open council meeting, and sent information packages inviting comment to about 200 residents and businesses. The tower costs about $500,000.
PM477761
Town plan wins award ... page 3