LOCAL REPS IMPRESSED BY MINNESOTA MILLS — A5 REC Lahde Cob yea PSU 2 Gung Fad vr! my oe ded 2° ty Wy ATT tyes WEDNESDAY, September 4, 1991 Vol. 7, Issue No, 36 Phone 635-7840 Fax 635-7269 Serving the communities of Terrace, Thornhill, Usk, Cedarvale, Kitwanga, Meziadin, Stewart and the Nass Valley 75 cents plus GST POWER PULLERS. six teams of hard-working horses entertained the crowds and competed with one another over the weekend at the Skeena Valley Fall Fair in the heavy horse pull event. This pair walked away casually with the starting weight of 2,000 pounds, For complete results from this and other events at the fair, see next week's Terrace Review. Vandalism threatens to close forest service recreation site The Exstew River forest recre- ation site west of Terrace will be closed unless vandalism to the site is somehow stopped. The Exstew site was built and is maintained by the Kalum District Forest office. Recreation resource officer Bob Childs said last week that $8,000 in damage has been inflicted on the site since May of ihis year, half that taking place in the past two weeks. The site had been completely refurbished in October 1990. Childs’s entire budget, excluding wages, for maintenance and im- provements of four sites in the district is $14,000. "If the vandal- ism continues we will be forced to close the site and pull all facil- ities," he said. The forest service recreation sites are rustic, natural areas provided with picnic tables, toilets, trash receptacles and, usually, networks of trails. At the Exstew site, Childs reports, three toilets were over- turned and smashed, eight picnic tables were destroyed, seven signs were damaged, two trash cans were destroyed, and barricades and a registration and comment box were damaged. . In a written statement Childs said, "In order to preserve the remaining site facilities, site access and servicing objectives will be foot access and user-maintain Status respectively. "I apologize to the concemed and responsible residents who cher- ished the Exstew Recreation Site as a little oasis in "Super-Natural British Columbia’, while at the same time laying the blame squarely on the shoulders of those morons who so blatantly and cal- lously defiled the public’s recre- ational resource." Childs believes the only way to restore the site to its intended level of usage and enjoyment is for the general public in the area to "adopt a concern" by reporting all inci- dents of vandalism they witness, along with any information that would identify the vandats. Strike looming for federal civil service A number of federal services, including the airport and the Canada Employment Centre, could be shut down or slowed down if members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada decide to strike, The union, which represents Canadian government employees across the country, was in a legal strike position as of midnight Monday. Terrace resident John MacCormac, designated spokesperson for PSAC members in this region, says there are about 120 members in the Terrace-Kitimat area. They include - employees of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Transport. Canada, the Department of Indian Affairs, National Health and Welfare, the Coast Guard, Environment Canada and civilian members of the RCMP. Linda. Giddings, another PSAC representative in the region, said she has no doubt that there will be a strike. Giddings. noted that some PSAC members, among them health — - ‘and’ welfare workers, RCMP detachment clerks and some Canada Employment Centre clerks, will probably be designated to remain on the job to keep essential services from coming to a standstill if a strike is called. — Continued on page A2 Good news report for hospital, board says by Tod Strachan Health care consultant Malcolm Walker has completed his investi- gation of Mills Memoria! Hospital services, and according to Terrace Regional Health Care’ Society chairman David Lane his findings are favourable. Walker has acknowledged that Mills Memorial does provide a regional service with 13 on-staff specialists. He has recommended some internal cost cutting pro- cedures as well as a higher level of funding from Victoria. Exact num- bers are not being released yet; Walker won't be formally present- ing his report to the society and the Ministry of Health until later this week. Lane has received a verbal report and he says he is pleased with the result. "He offered good guidance that will help to make all levels of Management more effective and efficient," says Lane. "He laid to rest the historic statistical compari- son of Mills Memorial Hospital to others within their peer group. In other words, the level of services provided at Mills is significantly larger (han one would expect to find in an 89-bed hospital.” Walker also told Lane that none of the services offered at Mills Memorial could be provided more economically elsewhere and for that reason funding should be based on the range of available services rather than simply on the number of beds. As far as staffing is concerned, Walker was generally pleased and singled out the hard-working yet silent middle management group. Lane says Walker concluded at the end of his investigation: "Mills Memorial Hospital is an outstand- ing facility and the middle man- agement group are all outstanding and above average people who have a sincere concern for Mills Memorial Hospital." The push for regional recognition and additional funding has been active for a number of years, but the situation came to a head in July when the saciety identified a $270,000 budgetary shortfall in maintaining the existing level of services. Because a health care facility is not permitted to operate on deficit funding, the board of directors found it necessary to — Continued on page A2 Last gasp for fish management, anglers say — page A4