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Trustees chop over 30 jobs to balance budget
Pick the flick BIA seeking input on outdoor movie
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Teens reach out
Church group brings lunch to Downtown Eastside
Young guns
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Annie coming to SDSS stage
BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
South, it would require about 5,100 signatures. Enair believes that number will be achieved very soon. Petitions will be available at Save-On-Foods in Ladner today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The
The Delta school district won’t start a hockey academy at English Bluff Elementary this fall, but that doesn’t mean another elementary school won’t have the chance for one in the future. After meeting with parents last week, acting superintendent Garnet Ayres issued a letter to English Bluff parents Tuesday advising them the idea won’t be pursued for the Tsawwassen school. He wrote it was not the intention of the district to have the school or community divided on the matter. The district would be happy to again engage parents in conversation if they brought forward another program idea, he wrote. His letter also stated the district will “continue exploring the opportunity with alternate communities of interest.” The school district has introduced several specialty academies in recent years to boost enrollment, starting with a hockey one at South Delta Secondary. That academy has a close association with the Vancouver Giants junior hockey team, which provides coaching personnel, including head coach Don Hay, who appears for some on-ice academy sessions, and Giants’ strength and conditioning coach Ian Gallagher, who’s also employed by the school district as the academy’s director of player development. Delta doesn’t have any fee-paying academies at the elementary level. Starting an elementary hockey academy, which would have also had a connection to the Giants, certainly would have been a first
See HST page 3
See ACADEMY page 3
PHOTO BY
CHUNG CHOW
Alysen Bourhill plays the title role in South Delta Secondary’s upcoming production of Annie. The musical will be staged at SDSS’ Equinox Theatre from May 11 to 15. See story on Page 23.
HST canvassers ‘overwhelmed’ South Deltans eager to sign petition against provincial government’s harmonized sales tax BY
SANDOR GYARMATI
sgyarmati@delta-optimist.com
The demand in South Delta to sign the Fight HST petition has been overwhelming, according to organizers who are still working on setting up a permanent sign-up location. Volunteers in Ladner and
Tsawwassen have been doing some door-to-door signature collecting and appeared at several retail outlets, but hope to soon have a central location as well, said regional organizer Patricia Enair. “Ladner and Tsawwassen last week did 2,347 signatures. Without any advertising, they had
some door-to-door, they were in the Save-On (Foods) parking lot last week and were overwhelmed. That’s a pretty high number without a central location and without any advertising,” she said. Fight HST hopes to collect at least 15 per cent of registered voters in every constituency province-wide. To do so in Delta
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