Wednesday, July 15, 2015
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Volume 95 - No. 28
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www.ldnews.net
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$1.30 GST inc.
BURNS LAKE
LAKES DISTRICT NEWS
Regional district employee wages Nine employees earn more than $75,00 per year at Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako MICHAEL RIIS-CHRISTIANSON Nine employees of the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako (RDBN) earned more than $75,000 in 2014. According to the local government’s most recent Statement of Financial Information (SOFI), Cheryl Anderson, Hans Berndorff, Gail Chapman, Janine Dougall, Deborah Jones-Middleton, Jason Llewellyn, Rory McKenzie, Corrine Swenson, and Richard Wainwright had combined wages and overtime totaling slightly more than $1.032 million for the year ended Dec. 31, 2014. Together they also received $29,948.21 in taxable benefits, and another $64,667.73 in reimbursed expenses. The combined earnings of the nine employees in question represented nearly 41 per cent of the total remuneration of $2,541,925.48 paid to all regional district employees in 2014. The earnings of employees who received less than $75,000 from the regional district last year amounted to $1,509,576.32. Chapman, the regional district’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) was the local government’s highest paid employee last year. Chapman received $207,044.65 in wages and overtime in 2014, taxable benefits valued at $3552.80, and another $4170.26 in reimbursed expenses. Three employees – Berndorff, Dougall, and Llewellyn – all earned more ...see RDBN WAGES ▼ P3
LAURA BLACKWELL PHOTO
Monday the first day of the inquest, Lucy Charlie, sister to the late Carl Charlie drums with injured Kenny Michell and his wife Theresa. Kenny was injured the night the Babine mill exploded.
Inquest into Babine mill explosion begins
BILL PHILLIPS For some reason, the week before January 20, 2012, Maureen Luggi had trouble sleeping. She would lay awake until about 5 a.m. waiting for her husband Robert to return from his shift at the Babine Forest Products sawmill in Burns Lake. “That’s the only time I could sleep, when I knew he was safe,” she said Monday at the coroner’s inquest into his death. “I would lay my hands on him when he was sleeping and pray over him … I couldn’t understand, in those moments, why I was crying. I didn’t want to wake him up.” Later, an elder told him she was preparing him for burial.
Robert Francis Luggi, along with co-worker Carl Rodney Charlie were killed when the mill exploded and burned on Jan. 20, 2012. Maureen Luggi was first of 48 witnesses scheduled to testify at the inquest, which is expected to take three weeks. About 75 people gathered at the Island Gospel Fellowship Hall Monday for the first day of testimony that, as coroner Chico Newell explained, is to ascertain publicly the facts relating to the deaths of Luggi and Charlie and to make recommendations to hopefully prevent future loss of life in similar circumstances. With a framed picture of Robert by her side, Maureen Luggi told of how Robert Luggi was a caring, family man … stepfather to a child she had before they met and father to their two children. Originally from Fraser Lake, he
Health Care Assistant Program
moved to Burns Lake in 1989 and had worked at Babine Forest Products for 22 years. “Everyone who knew him will remember him for his sense of humour and his kindness,” Maureen said. “He was just a happy person.” However, he had been complaining to Maureen about dust at the mill. A similar explosion and fire at Lakeland Mills in Prince George was the result of combustible dust. Robert Luggi had also been wanting to move up in the sawmill and was disappointed when he was looked over for a lead hand’s position. He complained to mill management and told them that he had spoken to the B.C. Human Rights Commission about possibly filing a discrimination case against the mill as ...see INQUEST ▼ P9
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Phone: 250.692.1700 • Fax: 250.692.1750 • Toll Free: 1.866.692.1943 545 Highway 16 West • PO Box 5000, Burns Lake, BC • V0J 1E0 Email: lksdist@cnc.bc.ca • Website: www.cnc.bc.ca/lakesdistrict