LOCAL NEWS: TOWN COUNCIL PROFILES ▼ A2 & A3
Thursday, November 6, 2014 ▼ Volume 50 No. 45 ▼ www.clearwatertimes.com ▼ $1.35 Includes GST
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First Place Best All Round Newspaper & Best Editorial Page Second Place Best Front Page All of Canada <1,250 circulation 2014
Blaze comes late in season. See page A11 inside.
First Place General Excellence B.C. and Yukon <2,000 circulation 2014
School board candidates attend two forums in one day Keith McNeill
Hallowe’en in Vavenby Zion Toscano in a skeleton costume, Nathaneal Toscano in a gold mask, and Iyannah Toscano in a purple dress wave eerily from the homecoming tire next to the Vavenby Community Hall during a Hallowe’en party put on for area youngsters. For more about the event, see page A10 inside. Photo by Keith McNeill
Last Thursday afternoon, Blue River’s Willow MacDonald and Shelley Sim of Clearwater faced off to decide who should be the next school trustee for the Clearwater-Blue River area during an election forum at Clearwater Secondary School. A few hours later they did it again when they took part in a forum at Blue River Community Hall. MacDonald then debated for a third time when she took on Max Lentz, who is challenging her to be Thompson-Nicola Regional District director for Thompson Headwaters (Area B) (for more about the MacDonald vs. Lentz debate, see page A15). The TNRD director for Blue River-Avola is not the only one seeking two seats this election. Sim is running to retain her seat on Clearwater’s town council as well as to be the new local school trustee. The CSS forum was hosted by the student council and was moderated by the student council president, Megan Sim – Shelley Sim’s daughter. Despite the relationship, there did not seem to be any obvious favouritism shown. The younger Sim helped organize the forum as part of the Democracy in Action conference she recently attended in Victoria. Incumbent school trustee John Harwood started off the forum at the high school by pointing out that the board of School District 73 handles a
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budget of about $150 million per year (Clearwater’s mayor is stepping down as school trustee for the North Thompson but is running again to be mayor), That means that whoever gets elected to represent the Clearwater-Blue River area on the school board will have a say in how $600 million of taxpayers’ dollars is spent over her four year term. Harwood acknowledged that nearly 90 per cent of the budget goes to wages and benefits, which the school board has little control over. However, trustees can affect what happens at the provincial, district and local levels, he said. “Over 15,000 young people are going to be relying on you,” he told the two candidates. Willow MacDonald led off by saying that she moved to Blue River in 2005, had a child in 2007, and was elected to the TNRD in 2011. “Why do I stay in Blue River?” she asked. “It’s because I love my job with the TNRD, I love our local school, and I want to see my daughter grow up in Blue River.” The Blue River resident felt her qualities include patience and a willingness to ask tough questions. One thing she’s learned since she got into politics is that things typically take at least five years to go from idea to fruition, MacDonald said. That means projects need to live longer than people are involved in their school’s PAC or the school board. “I’m not an island. I’m not a top-down kind of person,” the Blue River resident said.
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Rural schools have different needs from urban schools and so rural school trustees need to advocate for adequate resources for the classrooms, said Shelley Sim. Simply counting “bums in seats” is not an adequate formula for funding rural schools, she felt. “We need to ask for a little bit more,” she said. Sim said one of the toughest lessons she’s learned while on Clearwater town council was the necessity of capital reserves and careful budget planning. In Blue River, Sim made the point that her children had attended Vavenby Elementary, and so she had some feeling for the importance of small, rural schools. Youngsters from Blue River travel several hours each day by bus to attend secondary school in Clearwater but still the town produces some outstanding students, Sim said. “I want to make it so the teacher here is really well supported,” she said. Sim praised the crosscountry ski races that Blue River School hosts annually for North Thompson elementary schools. Willow MacDonald suggested that Blue River School could get more use by the community if it were divided into two parts – one for the school and the other for community use. Election forum this evening Don't forget the all candidates' forum this evening (Thursday) at the Dutch Lake Community Centre at 7 p.m.