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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2014
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HFP closure timeline By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
SUPPORTING Pillar
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
The Community Services Pillar Group met last Friday to discuss services in Houston and how to mitigate the impact of the Houston Forest Products closure. The group has met every other week since November 2013. Above are Danny Bernier, Ministry of Children and Family Development; Marie Benman, Work BC; Marion Ells, Houston Link to Learning; Sally Sullivan and Cormac Hikisch, Northern Health; Regina Saimoto, Northwest Community College. Other organizations represented on the Pillar Group are the District of Houston, School District 54, Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and West Fraser representatives.
Forests Minister Steve Thomson is coming to Houston on Friday, Feb. 28. Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad says his schedule is still being finalized but will include a meeting with Houston Mayor and Council, a Chamber of Commerce Luncheon and several meetings with various groups. Houston Mayor Bill Holmberg says council is meeting with Minister Thomson 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Friday. They have a variety of questions, specifically around the timber swap and the allotment of timber that should stay inside of the Morice River Timber Supply Area (TSA), Holmberg said, referring to the 280,000 cubic metres of timber that HFP wants to transfer to Pacific Inland
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“Forests Minister Steve Thomson in Houston on Friday.”
Resources (PIR) in Smithers. “Our goal is to keep as much of the wood that wasn’t allocated in the timber swap between Canfor and West Fraser in the Morice River TSA for the benefit of Houston, not Smithers,” he said. “I’m hopeful… cautiously optimistic, but we’ll see,” he said. Minister Thomson is coming to Houston to talk with local stakeholders about the Houston Forest Products closure. See HFP on Page 3
Repeat crime offenders move to Smithers, says RCMP By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Crime in Houston is steadily declining due to police enforcement against repeat offenders and public education. Houston RCMP Sergeant Stephen Rose reported on 2013 enforcement
and statistics to Houston council at a meeting last Tuesday. “Our call volume is up but our crime statistics in almost every category are down,” he said. “The only place we’re seeing increases are in collisions… and breach of court conditions.”
Sgt. Rose says police have dedicated a lot of effort to checking for compliance to bail and probation conditions, and they’ve had significant increases in both areas. “Both breach of probation and breach of bail have
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essentially doubled, and I think that’s because of proactive work in that area. “I truly believe, and really can’t come up with any other explanation as to why the other numbers are falling, other then that prolific offenders, the repeat offenders that we’re
dealing with are not out committing these other crimes. “There’s nothing else to explain the decrease, other then those couple of dozen people whom we repeatedly deal with are either complying or in custody or in some cases they’ve moved to another
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jurisdiction,” said Sgt. Rose. “We’ve been fairly successful in having the courts force certain individuals to reside elsewhere. If they’re not in this community contributing, we don’t need them here,” he said. He adds that it
seems these repeat offenders are moving to Smithers. “As our [crime] numbers have decreased, Smithers has increased proportionally in every crime type. As we go down, they go up,” he said. See RCMP on Page 12
Smithers, BC 1-866-844-6723
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