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VOL. 26, NO. 37
Teachers vote on tentative contract deal
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UNION RECOMMENDS members approve agreement which could see students in class next week. BY KARL YU THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Tempo of life
Marina Hempstock pauses to perform an original composition on the public piano in Diana Krall Plaza Monday. Notes from the instrument, available to anyone who wants to sit down and pick out a tune, began echoing from the plaza several weeks ago and have proven a pleasure for some downtown residents and business owners, but are an acquired taste for others.
Council considers another study on Colliery dams BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
Efforts to look at remediation proposals for the Colliery dams have been put on hold, as Nanaimo city council considers a new study. Councillors are exploring the cost for an extensive hydraulic study, which would review consultants’ findings for the Colliery dams. The move is a shift from an earlier decision to pursue requests for proposals for remediation of the dams and comes on the heels of requests from residents and the Colliery Dam
Park Preservation Society for more information on flood risk and potential for cost savings. Jeff Solomon, spokesman for the preservation society, said the group feels there are information gaps to define what’s required for the dams, and he’s pleased council is considering the study. Deciding on any other options without this step would have been premature, costly and alienated the community in terms of due process, he said. City staff presented council with options on how to move forward during an open meeting Monday in
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response to a notice of motion by Coun. Jim Kipp for a hydraulic study. The proposals included staying the course with the request for qualification and proposal process; designing and tendering an $8.1-million spillway remediation option; or commissioning a study to test how the erosion would happen in a heavy rainfall. Politicians opted 8-1 to look into doing the $150,000 to $250,000 hydraulic research, as well as explore issues like the hydrology of the design flood and the effects of flooding in both the middle and lower dams. See ‘REVIEW’ /7
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Elementary and secondary school students in Nanaimo and across the province could be back in class next week. A tentative deal between the B.C. Teachers’ Federation and the province was reached early Tuesday. The deal will require ratification by teachers and according to Mike Ball, Nanaimo District Teachers’ Association president, the vote will take place today (Sept. 18) with results available tonight around 9 p.m. The deal, which the union is recommending its members approve, would run until 2019, retroactive to July 2013. An e-mail from the union to its membership said the deal includes a salary increase of 7.25 per cent over the sixyear length of the contract. A $105-million fund will help address grievances related to class size and composition. Class size and composition language was removed from teachers’ contracts in 2002, which the union fought in court. The B.C. government is appealing two previous court decisions that sided with teachers in a case set to begin Oct. 14. “The government is going to carry on ... so if the agreement is ratified, it means that when the court case is done, that the two sides will re-open negotiations on the stripped provisions, which is basically class size and composition and the related articles, and they will start from whatever the court case says is the appropriate position, which should be the 2002 language,” said Ball. See ‘PICKETS’ /7
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