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Northern
www.northernsentinel.com
Volume 61 No. 38
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
1.30 INCLUDES TAX
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Resident seeks cleaner entrance to town Cameron Orr Kitimat Council has been encouraged by a resident to make sure the highway in to Kitimat from the Snowflake sign gets cleaned up. Such work, as the presenter acknowledged, is not done by the municipality but rather is the domain of the Ministry of Transportations contractor for the highway. Even so the resident, Ted Bergen, says the town can play a role in cleaning it up, in what Bergen says is the absence of action by the contractor. Bergen said he spoke with someone from the highway contractor last year and was told garbage is picked up every three to four months. “I don’t really think this is accurate,” wrote Bergen to Kitimat Council. A representative for the highway contractor Nechako Northcoast was not immediately available to comment. Bergen said he’d be willing to work with the town to “at least try to keep our city limits looking like something we are proud of.” Bergen also referred to the work of volunteer groups who had taken to the road to clean up trash on the highway up to Cablecar, saying that such clean-up events collected almost 200 bags of garbage from the Snowflake to the town site. Kitimat Council took in the letter for information and gave staff direction to send the letter also to
the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure. The Council also did contemplate their potential role in cleaning up the highway. Mario Feldhoff recalled how the District pays for a person to help maintain cleanliness on the riverbank. “Whether or not we need to have somebody like that helping us with the entrance to town, it may be a solution there,” he said. Chief Administrative Officer Warren Waycheshen said that some communities do have regular volunteer groups doing clean up but cautioned that the town should talk to the contractor before the town looks to pursue that avenue. “The one thing I would somewhat caution with this one is we wouldn’t want to be having a downloading of provincial responsibilities, to us to be paying for that,” he said. Rob Goffinet added that the town could look at ways to cut down on garbage before it becomes litter, reacting to Mary Murphy’s recollection of an earlier attempt by council to create a bylaw on properly securing loads to the landfill. Feldhoff sided with the CAO on the matter though, saying he didn’t want council duplicating laws of other levels of government. “I for one don’t want to replicate what is already law,” he said.
Veterinarian support helps rebuild homes. /page 5 A cool snapshot of bears playing around town. /page 7 PM477761
A Kitimat resident says there’s too much trash on the way in to town and wants the council to do something to clean up the entrance from the Snowflake sign onwards. The municipality maintains the roads only from Kitamaat Village Road onwards in to town. Cameron Orr
Things need addressing in new curriculum Cameron Orr The President of the Kitimat District Teachers Association says planned changes to the provincial kindergarten to grade nine curriculum are actually mostly good, however the main concerns are over its implementation. “I think there’s some really good elements in it...but I’m actually quite concerned about the resources that are going to be put in place to support the new curriculum,” said KDTA President Kim Meyer. “Honestly, I don’t see any resources being put in place to support the curriculum.” She said without an investment in resources to put the new curriculum in to service things like classroom textbooks will suddenly find themselves out of date of the material they’re teaching. The content itself doesn’t appear to
be a problem to her though. “What I think is fabulous is there is supposed to be First Nations studies throughout the K-12, as opposed to just a smattering here and there,” she said. But again, implementation will be key. “I think that’s really, really good news. But not being a First Nations person, where am I going to get that information? I have no way of teaching that which I don’t know.” She said teachers are working with the school board to set in-service plans and find ways to get the resourcs needed. “So far our school board appears to be on board in the implementation because it’s not being implemented this year,” she said. Some school district’s in the province have pushed to put it in effect this year but the new curriculum is
planned to be phased in over three years. The Sentinel sent a media inquiry to a Kitimat school board trustee but a response was prepared instead by the school district’s superintendent, Katherine McIntosh. “The new curriculum provides engaging opportunities for students to go deeper with their learning based on their passions and interests. Our schools and district will support our teachers with their implementation during the year. We are excited about the changes coming to all levels of our system,” she wrote. In response to follow-up questions about its implementation, she only said that “Implementation plans will be determined by our District Implementation Committee which is a partnership between the CMSD82 administration and CMTF.”