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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 2016
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NWCC cutbacks By Xuyun Zeng Houston Today
SKIING Jack Rabbits
The Northwest Community College’s Houston campus is in trouble, council heard from Coun. Dawn Potvin last Tuesday at their regular meeting. Potvin noted that while cuts have been across all NWCC campuses, but Houston is suffering greatly because staffing cutbacks and loss of programs could mean the closure of the Houston campus. “I believe we’re close to crisis mode,” she said. “They have laid off some of the office staff, some of them went down to part-time, and they’re moving the workplace training from Houston to Smithers.” “For a campus our size, it could effectively close our campus, quickly.” However, NWCC spokesperson Heather Bastin noted that there are no plans to close
Submitted photo
The Jack Rabbits (pictured above) of the Morice Mountain Nordic Ski Club had their final day of lessons held on Sunday, March 13. The day was celebrated with a fun party filled with prizes, a dress-up relay, and then followed by a BBQ. It was a great season-with 37 children registered. The Jack Rabbits had 10 lessons, taking place every Sunday afternoon from January through to March. Jack Rabbits also had access to the ski library, which contains 50 pairs of skis, poles and boots.
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“I believe we’re close to crisis mode.” - Councillor Dawn Potvin
the Houston campus, and all staff in the Smithers and Houston campuses have been offered “continuing or alternative employment with the college” to mitigate layoffs. She said that the NWCC’s budget has decreased this year because of a weak resource economy, “The reason for cuts was more about downturn in the economy, so sectors around mining and natural resources and programs of that nature,” said Bastin. Bastin added that See NWCC on Page 2
$8,000 estimated for Houston to receive CBC again By Xuyun Zeng Houston Today
Houston residents will have to pony up $8,000 should they want to receive the CBC channel overthe-air again. Earlier this month, the Houston area recently lost that channel as a result
of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation shutting down analogue channels, a policy they adopted in 2012. In order to receive that channel again, the Houston-Smithers Reb ro a d c a s t i n g Society estimates that it will cost $8,000 to get the CBC’s digital
signal into the Mount Harry Davis transmitter. “What we are going to try to do, is see if we can find some money from somebody — grants, somewhere — and if we can, then we should be able to put the signals into Houston later on this year,” said Society
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spokesperson Richard Harris. Harris suggests that people can help the Society by writing to their Regional District representative. “That’s probably the best. Telling them, they’d like to see the funding of the Rebroadcasting l
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Society increased, either that or some effort made to help us find other funds,” he said. The HoustonS m i t h e r s Reb ro a d c a s t i n g Society has switched a Hudson Bay Mountain transmitter, at a cost of $8,000, to receive a digital sigl
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nal that will allow the broadcasting of four channels, including CBC Vancouver. “Some people as far as Quick and maybe a little to the east of that, actually, almost to Barrett Station Road maybe able to get it, but they’ll have to use good outside antennas for that,”
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said Harris. “But I can’t guarantee reception because it’s really outside our intended area.” Harris adds that the people all over the North are without the CBC. He notes that even larger centres such as Prince George do not currently receive the CBC.
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