Distinct advantage Experience counts for two net minders returning to the ice this season\SPORTS B4 We’re right here A local woman says the north is a forgotten area when it comes to kidney dialysis\NEWS A10 i remember A Terrace man describes S what the war years . were like for his a4 familyWCOMMUNITY BL $1.00 plus 7¢ GST ($1.10 plus 8¢ GST outside of the Terrace area) STANDARD. City in on SCI purchase proposal Gov't picks Mercer, seeks 90 days more By JEFF NAGEL NORTHWEST towns, unions and businesses are trying to raise up to $20 million to help clinch a deal to sell Skeena Cellulose to Mercer In- ternational, The Terrace Standard has learned. The proposition is seen as a last ditch effort to improve the chances of selling SCI. It may also boost the chances of a judge agreeing tomorrow to shield the company from bankruptcy for 90 more days. The idea is evolving and is far from certain, potential participants say. But if it happens it could mean a referendum this winter for Terrace vo- ters who could be asked to bankroll Terrace’s share of up to $20 million northwest communities are Irying to raise. An affidavit filed j in court Friday by Terrace mayor Jack. Talsira indicates the community of Terrace would raise $5 million for a°share purchase of SCI subject to.a successful sale and appro” val in a referendum. Unianized Skeena Cellulose saw- mill workers here voted Oct, 28 to contribute a maximum of 2.5 per cent of their wages for three vears lo form part of the Terrace package, IWA rep Surinder Malhotra said. That would be worth $150,000 to $180,000 per year, he said, and would trim the amount of anaual debt pay- ments city taxpayers would have to shoulder. Logging contractors have also been asked to cantribute a share of their re- venues that could be worth a further $400,000-t0 $600,000 per year, North- west Loggers Association vice-presi- dent Ken Houlden said. He cautioned contractors have given only a “definite maybe” to the idea so far. “It's an idea thal is in no way soli- dified or committed to by anybody,” he said. “When things are desperate you reach a long ways.” Mayors, including Talstra, are to urge the courts to approve Victoria's request for a further extension of credi- ior protection for SCI — this time for a longer 90-day period, The government request would give it until Dec. 19 to hammer out a defi- nilive agreement with Mercer and unt! Feb. 15 to complete the sale, court documents show. The extension is expected to be op- posed again by the TD bank, which wants the court to declare Skeena bankrupt and hegin-a piecemeal liqui- dation of its assets. Government reps have chosen Swiss-based Mercer as their preferred buyer, court documents filed Friday also reveal. NWBC Timber and Pulp Co. Ltd., a group of Montreal-based forestry exec- utives — including former Repap owner George Petty — was rejected because ils propesal was subject to financing. A third bidder, described only as a B.C. company, dropped out earlier. Mercer indicated it had money in place to buy the company for the value of its working capital. expected to be Jess than $20 million. Mercer, which has put up a $1 mil- lion deposit for Skeena, also promises to inject $35 million into the company and that the revived SCI would em- bark on capital spending of not less than $90 million over the next five years, court records show. “This agreement will permit conti- nuation of Skeena‘s mills’ operalions in a modified form.” says an affidavit. Word of the effort of northwest communities to band together began to leak oul last week, prompling city Cont'd Page A2 Kidney dialysis freeze order leads to a call for direct action LOCAL HEALTH care advocates are calling for a re- gion-wide lobbying effort to develop a kidney dialysis unit at Mills Memorial Hospital. The $3 million project is frozen by the provincial government’s core review of capital projects and there’s no indication of when that will be done or how the pro- ject will fare as a result. Ida Mohler of the Terrace Health Watch group-said she was shocked and disappointed upon hearing the news, especially after receiving encouraging reports from the Northern Interior Regional Health Board in Prince George, which is responsible for kidney dialysis in the north, that the unit was scheduled for opening next spring. “They say it’s under core review. Another review. More study of a situation we already know about,” said Mohler. “The need has already been established.” Mohler said the freezing of the project is particularly difficult to understand given the pre-election statements: of the B.C. Liberal government. ““All British Columbians must be able to access timely, effective public health care services, wherever they live,’” quoted Mohler from a Liberal party docu- ment called * ‘Restoring public health care” issued a year Plug pulled on LOCAL WOMEN will have to go aut of tawn for mam- mography services now that the Mills Memorial Hospital machine was ordered shut down last week. At 12 years old, it was the oldest one still operating in the province, said Dieter Kuntz of the Terrace and Area Health Council. “A physicist came a year ago and reviewed it and he basically put us on notice for one more year,” said Kuntz. “And when he came this year he felt it could no long: er be in service.” “T don’t want to imply it was dangerous. It was a MAP HELD by Ruth Mangnus has circles 3 everywhere there is a kidney dialysis unit - everywhere that is, except for ihe northwest. Her husband needs dialysis and has been in Prince George tor six months. Their story, Page A10. question of reliability of the results. It wasn’t reliable,” Kuntz added. The health council has put a replacement machine on ihe top of its equipment replacement list sent to the pro- Track cut from school plan By JENNIFER LANG TERRACE is getting a new junior high, but the community’s only athletic track will be lost in the bargain. And that has former Skeena Junior parents advisory council president Bob Park fuming. “Do you think Vancouver would put up with that?” Park said, reacting to news the track has been cut from the construction contract for the Skeena ceplacement school. “We have to have a track in this town,” Park said in vowing to launch a community drive to build a new track. “Hf they've axed il, lel’s volunteer, Let's build the track,” Park said. He and his wife Debbie helped galvanize parents into raising the necessary money — and building ~ a new playground at Uplands Ele- mentary in the mid-‘90s, “I tell you one thing _ I’m not going to let it die.” The school district's call for tender had asked for bids that included replacing the track’ along with constructing a 650-seat school. But when even the lowest bidder came in higher than the $11.8 million budget approved by the province, the track was scrapped. The education ministry never agreed to re- place the track along with the aging junior high school because it says the existing track isn’t worth anything. “The existing track, in the eyes of the mini- stry, was not what they wauld consider a ‘running’ track,” school district maintenance superintendent Robert Gilfillan said. “It’s the only track in Terrace,” he added. “They just don’! accept that.” Gilfillan said many school tracks in B.C. are considered joint-use tracks in their com- munities. As expected, Abbotsford, B.C.’s Swagger Construction Lid., the lowest bidder, was awarded the contract to build the new junior high - subject to ministry of finance approval — at a special schoo) board meeting Oct. 30. Swagger, the project management team, and the architects, trimmed $250,000 from the project to bring the bid in line. The plan to replace the school’s track, a job worth about $200,000, was shaved off the bid, along with ‘another $50,000 in work. Once excavation and pre-foundation work begins, the track will be out of commission immediately. “The new school is guing to sit half-way on top of the track,” Gilfillan said. Wark could begin as early as this fall, leav- ing Terrace’s track and field athletes without a irack — indefinitely. “The city doesn’t have a plan to build or re- place a track anywhere, so it will be unfortu- nate,” Terrace’s Parks and Recreation Super- intendent said. Steve Scott said the city might consider getting involved in replacing the track if it “were part of a partnership. “We're not going to do it alone.” Youth and adult sport teams using Skeena’s field will also have to play somewhere else when work begins. The city of Terrace anticipated losing a play field when consiruction began on the new junior high. Scott said that’s partly why the city is building two new soccer fields on the bench at Bailey Street — right next door to a new elementary school, There’s also room there for two more soccer fields. “There’s a net gain in the city for. greenspace,” said Scolt. The Coast Mountains School District says the contract includes the demolition of Skeena Junior. In addition to Swagger, bids came from Country West Construction in Abbotsford, DGS Construction in Surrey, and D&T Deve- lopment in Kamloops. A fifth company, Mal- oney construction, was forced to withdraw from the bidding process becatse of a compu- ter virus. There were no bids from companies in the north. She said there can be no better example of that then to have a kidney dialysis unit opened as planned at Mills Memorial. ' “For people on dialysis there is no alternative or an option. It is crucial to them,” Mohler continued. “I'm concetned I'm receiving mixed messages. Pa- tients needs need to be first and it seems right now theyre nat.” .'There’s no target date for this core review, It could be months or years," Mohler added. “People in the northwest need to take action. North- west residents should get ahold of their MLAs now.” “Our vaices should be loud and clear. No more review or studies. It’s time to take action.” Terrace and Area Health Council chief executive of- ficer Dieter Kuntz said he received the bad news early last week by way of a phone call from Prince George health care officials. “They got a call from the Ministry of Health thal it was reviewing all of the requests,” he said. “Pm sure the people who were waiting for news that this will proceed are disappointed,” Kuntz added. The northwest is the only peographic area of the pro- vince not 10 have a hospital or clinic based kidney dia- lysis service. Cont’d Page A10 mammograms vince eatlier this year. But it has now been told the replacement approval has been frozen by the provincial government because of its core review of capital expenditures. The shut down order followed by news of the freeze came at the end of October, a cruel irony given that Oc- tober was national breast cancer awareness month. A mammogram is considered the best method of de- tecling tumours while they are small, allowing easier treatment and increased chances of survival. Women are advised to get a mammogram every year between the ages of 40 and 50 and at least every second year after the age of 50. Kuntz said the shut down wiil affect women beyond Terrace and immediate area. Cont'd Page A12 School strike rules set down TEACHERS won't have to prepare report cards and a range of other non-teaching duties if they take job action, the Labour Relations Board (LRB) said Friday, in a ruling the teachers’ federation de- scribed as satisfactory. B.C, Teachers’ Federation President David Chudnovsky said the ruling upholds most of phase one a job action plan thal would see teachers with- draw administrative and other duties. Mote than 91 per cent of B.C.’s teachers support taking job action. The province then asked the LRB to determine which parts of the teachers’ job action plan is permitted under new essential ser- vices legislation. The Nov. 2 ruling also says teachers won’t have to attend staff or school district meetings, collect money of help fundraise, do inventory, organize textbooks, or answer school phones. The board also ruled school principals and ad- ministrators should supervise students before and after class, and during lunch and recess, “to the best extent possible.” The LRB-has not ruled on the next phase of the job action plan, which calls for rotating and full- scale strikes. The BCTF executive met Salurday to decide if teachers will issue 72-hour strike notice.