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Sentinel
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Northern
Years est. 1954
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 60 No. 17
Plebiscite follow-up
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
1.30 INCLUDES TAX
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Council will send feds a letter, official opposition up for debate Cameron Orr With the results of a community plebiscite firmly in hand, Kitimat Council took to the task of processing and responding to the results. That reaction took place on April 14 at a special meeting of council where councillors weighed in on their personal opinions on the pipeline, in between discussing courses of action. Council’s first decision of the night regarding the vote was to draft a letter to the federal government and cabinet, copied to the B.C. Premier as well, urging the government to consider the results of the plebiscite before making any decisions on the Northern Gateway project. The motion was made by Mario Feldhoff and carried unanimously. “The people of Kitimat have spoken. There’s not unanimity in the community...but the federal cabinet needs to be made aware of the vote,” he said. The letter, he added, needs to include specifics on how the vote was conducted locally. “The letter that we write should communicate the question that was asked, the voter eligibility criteria, send numbers of turn out,” he said. “We need to communicate this officially to senior levels of government.” There was no debate on this motion before it passed. While councillors did later each provide their perspective on the Enbridge issue and the plebiscite vote, there was no other action taken on the results, save for a notice of motion from Phil Germuth for the next council meeting, which was scheduled for last night. His proposed motion was that Kitimat formally oppose the Northern Gateway project. Motions not on the printed agenda are generally not debated by council until there’s time to formally add it to the schedule. Councillors did spend a few minutes each providing their personal perspective on the plebiscite result and their own personal opinion on pipelines. Their comments on page 3.
“We need to communicate this officially to senior levels of government.”
Kitimat City High’s building is slated to close for next school year with the program being moved into the building with Mount Elizabeth Middle Secondary School.
City High change riling parents Cameron Orr Parents of Kitimat City High students gathered at a recent Board of Education meeting in Terrace seeking answers relating to the anticipated closure and move of Kitimat City High to Mount Elizabeth Middle Secondary’s building. The surprise decision left many parents upset and looking for answers. Those parents don’t feel they found any at the last board meeting and now hope to get responses ahead of May’s board meeting. And board Chair Art Erasmus said there is a possibility a special meeting may be held earlier to have a conversation with parents and students about the change. Otherwise the next chance to speak to the board is May 21. “There’s going to be some continuing work on what’s happening with
the program relocation at Kitimat City High,” said Erasmus “We’ve had some staff down in Kitimat to talk to students and parents and that happened yesterday [April 16].” He noted that the board is not anticipating any budgetary benefit for moving the program to MEMSS and there has been no discussion on what to do with the KCH building, including any conversation to make it an employment training facility. Among the parents at the last board meeting were Karen Jonkman and Susie Abreu. Jonkman’s son is a recent graduate of KCH and she’s certain her son would never have succeeded at the mainstream high school. “He was in Mount Elizabeth and it wasn’t a good fit for him. There’s no way he would have been able to do it
without a program such as what they have [at KCH]. And that’s his words, not mine.” She said the inability to speak to board members was “frustrating.” “You expect that they would want to hear from the parents, especially in regards to making a decision like they made. But they made this decision without any consultation.” Abreu, who has an autistic son at KCH, said the news of the change of the school was “devastating” to her family. “I was so upset when I left [the meeting]. It’s hard when you have a child, it really affects them. I don’t want anything to happen to these kids.” The change applies only to location and it’s planned that KCH programming will be run physically separate from MEMSS.
SuperValu closing doors Cameron Orr Kitimat’s SuperValu grocery store will likely be closing their doors on June 14. Store manager Josh Gallant said that he received notice from his superiors late last Tuesday that an agreement could not be made on the store’s lease. Loblaws leases the space from a Vancouver-based building owner. Gallant said the decision will affect about 35 staff members and three managers. “A lot of them are full time,” he said, adding that some of the cashiers have been working there almost 30 years. “The owners of the building didn’t accept the contract from Loblaws and to make a long story short, that’s why we’re closing the doors on June 14. That’s all I know, that’s what I was told last night at seven o’clock.”
Building owner Dick Leung told the Sentinel that he hadn’t been informed the latest lease offer had been rejected but believes if store staff are being informed on the closure it is likely the case. “It’s not confirmed yet. It might be,” said Leung. “It’s not finalized yet.” He said the last lease was a five year term. “If they told the manager they’re closing it down, I think it might be final,” he said. He said there is another grocery store that may be interested in the space but he could not disclose more information than that. Gallant said the company has leased the space since 1961. Loblaws includes SuperValu, Wholesale Club and Extra Foods, among many others.
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