The Citizen continues its retrospective of 2010 newsmakers with briefs from teh months of July to September.
JULY
Prince George school board trustees approved a $126.5-million budget that will see 79 fewer positions on the school district's payroll for 2010-11 in an effort to balance the budget in the face of declining enrolment. The total represents a $2.8-million decrease from 2009-10, roughly equal to the savings the district will see in salaries and benefits as a result of the decline in school district jobs.
Former University of Northern British Columbia professor and chancellor Alex Michalos was named to the Order of Canada for "his contributions to the social sciences, notably in research that has helped to measure quality-of-life in Canada and abroad," the Governor General's office stated. Michalos has also published 24 books, more than 100 refereed articles, and founded or co-founded seven scholarly journals.
A Prince George businessman's fight against the federal government's tax collector cleared a major hurdle. A B.C. Supreme Court Justice has ruled Irvin Leroux can continue his lawsuit against Canada Revenue Agency over an audit that cost him almost $1 million, even though the agency allegedly lost or accidentally shredded most of his business records.
Leroux, 65, figures it will still take another one to two years to get a settlement in what, so far, has been a 15-year battle. He was in an upbeat mood following the ruling.
A University of Northern British Columbia professor was named the winner of an award for his research on the mountain pine beetle. Dezene Huber was to be awarded the C. Gordon Hewitt Award at the annual Entomological Society of Canada meeting in Vancouver at the end of October. Huber's research area includes DNA sequencing efforts to tease out the genes related to the insect's ability to withstand extreme winter temperatures.
A 39-year-old Fort St. James man died from stab wounds suffered in an early morning fight in front of the 7-11 convenience store on 20th Avenue near Victoria Street.
The victim was identified as Tyrone Myles Thomas, who had a record of petty thefts committed in Vancouver. RCMP arrested a suspect who was later released without charges.
A man accused of trying to snatch a four-month baby girl from her parents, while high on drugs, was taken into custody. David Michael Lucas, 27, faces a charge of abduction of a person under age 14, three counts of assault, two counts of willfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer, and one count of assault with intent to commit arrest.
Prince George RCMP were called to Eighth Avenue and Victoria Street where they were told by witnesses a man approached the couple from behind, pushed between them, mumbling that the baby was in danger, and tried to grab the child from its stroller. The suspect then assaulted the mother and father as they tried to fight him off. Lucas, who is well known to police, was arrested a short time later and his case remains before the court.
Gamblers spent a five-year low of $50.6 million on the slot machines, bingo games and poker tables at Treasure Cove Casino during the 2009-10 fiscal year, according to a B.C. Lottery Corporation annual report.
It's the lowest total since 2004-05 when $47 million was generated and it was the third straight year of declining revenue after a peak of $66.3 million in 2005-06. It also represents a $6.5-million decline from 2008-09.
A man found guilty of setting a fire in Prince George Regional Correctional Centre was ordered to pay nearly $210,000 in restitution. Jorden Christian Reno was also sentenced in Prince George provincial court to three years probation and one day in jail - he had credit for 17 months time served prior to sentencing - for the Dec. 20, 2009 incident.
The fire was contained to one cell in a specialized unit at PGRCC and no serious injuries were reported, but several staff members and inmates did seek medical attention for smoke inhalation.
Canfor Corp. inks a deal to sell its Howe Sound Pulp and Paper Limited Partnership to Paper Excellence B.V. Netherlands-based Paper Excellence is a subsidiary of Asian-giant Sinarmas, which recently purchased the shuttered Mackenzie pulp mill.
The Central 1 Credit Union analysis - a 19-page detailed report - concludes that compared to the pre-beetle infestation period, more than 11,000 jobs will be lost in 20 years when the timber supply falls by as much as 40 per cent.
Premier Gordon Campbell says he has confidence in a federal review of Enbridge's proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline to reduce the safety risks in northern B.C.
The Enbridge oil leak in Michigan has spread downstream 55 kilometres on the Kalamazoo River, coating birds and wildlife with oil, killing fish and causing the evacuation of some residents over concerns of toxic benzene fumes.
Well known building designer Paul Zanette died at age 52.
The biggest metal concert in Prince George history came together to commemorate one of the city's biggest personalities in the local music scene. Anthony Chalise "Ace" Redpath Rossetti, 26, known by most as Chalise, was the frontman for the local metal band Assassin Nation. He was the sole victim of a motor vehicle incident, dying from his injuries after striking a utility pole on Miworth Road on July 1.
A large group of assailants involved in a violent home invasion caused serious harm to Prince George residents of Pine Street. The six or seven assailants slashed one victim with a sword, beat another with a skateboard, and did other various acts of mental and physical harm to others in the residence.
A mass of garbage has been illegally discarded during the past four years down the side of the city's main geographic feature, the cutbanks. The problem has gotten so bad, a planned cleanup using the local cadets had to be scuttled since it is no longer safe for the youths.
A gasification plant looking for a home became a burning topic among local social leaders. The plant's main proponent, Aboriginal Cogeneration Corporation (ACC) president Kim Sigurdson, was in the city to see the lay of the land and liked what he saw. It proposed burning discarded railroad ties and converting the emissions to safe, useful energy.
A local landmark was given distinction by the federal government, through an honour bestowed on its namesake. Sir John Buchan, first Baron Tweedsmuir of Elsfield, was declared a person of national historical significance. Buchan was the 15th Governor General in Canadian history and was also the man for whom nearby Tweedsmuir Park is named.
A vehicle occupied by a 56-year-old male driver and a 25-year-old female passenger struck a house in the 3000 block of Frontage Road at about 11:30 a.m. The residence, a double-wide trailer home, sustained about $75,000 in damage. At least one home occupant was shaken up by the impact, which jarred the building off its foundation.
The second annual Nechako River floater flotilla made its way from Wilkins Park to Cottonwood Island under blazing blue skies. Police put extra enforcement efforts towards the event to curb public danger. All ended well and safely.
Five cottages were donated to the Baldy Hughes therapeutic community. The addictions recovery centre was in need of private meeting spaces where small groups could gather for therapy sessions.
The doors of the Innovation Resource Centre closed, probably for good. The agency used to fund development programs and education initiatives that promoted technology as a business. Those close to the not-for-profit organization said that work is likely finished.
The main building got under construction that will house the Northern Cancer Clinic. The project's parkade was built in January, while July was the groundbreaking on the primary structure.
AUGUST
The sale of the former ACS building netted about a half-million dollars for owners Initiatives Prince George. IPG officials gave some of the earnings to the endowment fund for a future Performing Arts Centre ($100,000), paid the bill for a downtown marketing prospectus ($50,000), while the rest was directed to upgrades to their aged building.
The Canada Winter Games evaluation committee came to Prince George to visit the city and check out the bid features offered by P.G. to host the 2015 edition of the Games. Masses of public supporters came out to give the visitors a good impression.
Bullets flew in the hot afternoon on Oak Street, killing Darren Allen Munch, 25. The Prince George resident, with Fort St. John roots, was felled in a gang-related dispute. The investigation is still underway. The incident was also the stimulus for a community forum held later in the summer on the subject of gang crime in our city.
Rain and cooler temperatures returned to the area after a parching period, putting a damper on several wildfires burning out of control that were getting close to communities. Smoke caused prolonged periods of harsh air and poor visibility, and flames threatened homes and other assets in a number of rural neighbourhoods across the region.
Property owners will soon have to pay all the bills for dealing with illicit drug production sites when they are found by authorities. City council approved a new set of rules that will put the onus on the homeowner for all costs associated with grow-operations and clandestine drug labs.
A B.C. Nurses' Union contingent came to Prince George to meet with local nurses. Foremost on their minds were all the professional responsibility forms they have filed in the past two years - safety and quality of care complaints at the hospital - that have been ignored. They peg the number at 250 still outstanding. Northern Health officials said they were inflating the issue.
A group of skateboard and bicycle trick riders in the Hart want a skatepark built in their neighbourhood similar to the one downtown because right now the best pavement they've got for street-riding also happens to land on the busy highway. They have the support of a number of businesses and families in the Hart area, but so far city hall has not directly responded to their request.
Valemount's Yellowhead Helicopters chopper pilot Dale Brady earned his second Governor General's Medal for Bravery. He and rescue technician Steve Blake of Jasper responded to a distress call on June 8, 2008 when two climbers near Mount Robson's summit were in need of rescue, after three weeks stuck on the mountain due to nasty weather.
The Prince George Gang Crime Summit was held with guest speakers ranging from specialist police to academic experts, to a former gang member and public input sessions. A report detailing the symposium's recommendations is still in the process of being written.
After a sometimes heated discussion, city council voted 7-1 in favour of dispersing funds from the sale of a Second Avenue call centre exactly as Initiatives Prince George had asked. The $477,757 proceeds from the sale of the Second Avenue building will be used to create a $327,757 building reserve fund for Initiatives Prince George's home on First Avenue. It was all to be used to create a $50,000 downtown marketing plan and a $100,000-fund to create a business plan for the proposed Performing Arts Centre, which has a price tag as high as $51 million, depending on the plan.
The McLeod Lake Indian Band will share in provincial mineral tax revenue from Thompson Creek Metals' proposed $900-million Mount Milligan mine, located about 155 kilometres northwest of Prince George. The McLeod Lake Indian Band, 100 kilometres north of Prince George, is one of two First Nations that have claimed the mine area as their traditional territory. Over the 15-year life of the mine, the province estimates the band will collect $35 million to $40 million from the revenue-sharing agreement.
The city's organized criminals endured a weekend they would like to forget as a joint effort between the Lower Mainland-based Uniform Gang Task Force and local police yielded a number of seizures and arrests. As a number of people known to police were escorted out of the residence, nearby residents gave police the "thumbs up," Prince George RCMP Cst. Lesley Smith said, to show their appreciation.
The Prince George conservation office's live trap was put to effective use as two black bears were nabbed over a less-than 24-hour period.
It caught one bruin during an evening in Wilson Park, which was taken north of the city for relocation, and then deployed to apprehend another seen wandering in the Lyon and Moffat Street area of the Quinson neighbourhood the next morning.
Conservation officer Gary Van Spengen said that bear will be relocated as well, adding Quinson is actually a common spot for bear sightings. "It was on the north side of Moffat and Lyon, which is not far from the drop down to the Nechako," he said.
SEPTEMBER
Prince George became the home of education first when an aboriginal choice school - the only one of its kind in the province - began classes in the former Carney Hill elementary school.
As many as 160 students passed through the school's doors, launching a bold experiment to deliver education in a way more in tune with Aboriginal culture and sensibilities and improve graduation rates in the process.
Completion of the $7-million upgrade to River Road was celebrated when dignitaries ventured onto the pavement to cut a ribbon to officially open the 3.6-kilometre stretch. The project included addition of two left-turn lanes at the terminal to make access easier. The work was carried out over two years starting with a 1.6-kilometre stretch, from Cameron Street Bridge to Foley Crescent, finished in 2009, followed by two kilometres, from Foley Crescent to the CN overpass at First Avenue, completed in late August.
Other features include cycling lanes, street lighting, grass seeding, and access driveways into all existing properties.
The city spent $250,000 in a campaign against Kamloops and Kelowna to win the 2015 Canada Winter Games bid and is now on the hook for as much as $20 million of the event's $50-million cost, with most of the money going into either a new fourth ice sheet or a possible renovation of Kin 3. The economic benefit has been pegged at $70 million to $90 million. Including athletes, coaches and officials, as well as fans, the city will see an influx of 120,000 visits over the course of the Games, or about 7,000 people each day.
Roo, a three-month-old mastiff, was the centre of attention when a celebration was held to mark a milestone at the SPCA's spay and neuter clinic. The well-behaved canine was the 15,000th animal to be sterilized at the clinic, which opened five years ago.
Now owned by Jennifer Thibault, Roo was part of an unwanted litter of pups which were dropped off at the SPCA's North Cariboo branch on Lansdowne Road.
A high-ranking member of the Game Tight Soldiers criminal gang was arrested.
Eric James Fike, 30, whose case remains before the court, faces 25 charges, the result of a three-day investigation that also led to the seizure of firearms and drugs.
Police arrested Fike and a female, whose name was not released, after they attempted to retrieve a bag that had contained two loaded handguns, a Mac 10 sub machine gun with ammunition, and eight ounces of cocaine from a wooded area near the Lower Mud River Bridge. Police subsequently obtained and executed a search warrant at a residence on Gauthier Road, where they seized roughly two more ounces of cocaine, 159 flaps of heroin, about three pounds of marijuana and other related drug trafficking paraphernalia.
Pinnacle Pellet announced construction of a $30-million wood pellet plant in Burns Lake, the company's sixth plant, which will more than double its annual production.
The company, which has corporate offices in Prince George, already operates plants at Strathnaver south of Prince George, and in Quesnel, Williams Lake, Houston and Armstrong. Construction of the plant in Burns Lake, 225 kilometres west of Prince George, is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The United Steelworkers has reached a four-year deal with Conifex Timber Inc.'s newly-acquired sawmill in Mackenzie, which is expected to pave the way for the resumption of operations in early November.
B.C.-based forest company West Fraser has announced capital spending of $125 million in the next 18 months to expand and upgrade its solid wood plants in the B.C. Interior, Alberta and U.S. South. West Fraser has extensive operations in northern B.C., including Houston, Fraser Lake, Chetwynd and Quesnel, which is its operational headquarters.
The company had held its capital spending to a minimum during an extended forestry downturn, which was led by a collapse in U.S. housing. In the first half of 2009, the company lost $122 million, however, it has had a profit of $83 million in the first half of this year.
The city is considering introducing a new policy that would require all development proposals that involve a change in zoning or a subdivision, or amendment to a plan, to undergo an air quality environmental assessment. The assessment is meant to consider the best management practice guidelines available from the provincial and federal government.
The change is being considered as part of the city's deliberations over an updated Official Community Plan (OCP), which sets high-level land-use and planning objectives.
Clear Lake sawmill will be closing permanently, the latest victim in northern B.C. in a prolonged forestry downturn. The closure, set for January, will Impact about 165 hourly-paid workers and another 20 management and staff. The company says the mill is being closed because of timber-supply issues, high costs and the continuing challenges in the U.S. lumber market.
A contingent of First Nations speakers tell B.C. Justice Bruce Cohen to use traditional First Nations knowledge to help rebuild sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River.
There must be an effort to determine that salmon are returning to spawning grounds before allowing commercial fisheries on the lower Fraser River, Nak'azdli councillor Peter Erickson told the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River.
British Columbia continues to ramp up the volume of lumber it ships to China, hitting the 1.2 billion mark by the end of July. That's up nearly 50 per cent over the same period last year, but off the pace needed to double production as hoped by the provincial government. Just six years ago, lumber shipments to China were below 60 million board feet, and accounted for less than one per cent of B.C.'s exports by volume. In 2009, shipments to China accounted for 11.5 per cent of B.C.'s exports, according to B.C. Statistics.
Dr. Robert Olson, the first radiation oncologist for the new cancer centre, is hired.
B.C. drivers face the toughest drinking and driving, and speeding laws in Canada.
Conservation officers report a total of 1,500 bear reports received and a total of 60 bears destroyed over the summer.
Pine Centre Mall opened a large display of local art - photos depicting the area - by photographer Bob Michek. Mall manager Sonya Hunt considered it a way to demonstrate private sector support for public art and give a facelift to a less engaging area of the shopping centre.
Tim McEwan of Initiatives Prince George was one of the featured speakers at a trade event in China. McEwan was part of a 50-person delegation to China to advance trade between the two regions. Several Prince George interests were part of the provincial delegation.
Prince George's Racheal Bagnall, 25, and her boyfriend Jonathan Jette, 34, went into the backcountry around Cirque Peak on Sept. 4 but the experienced hikers/climbers did not return. An exhaustive search turned up no sign of them and they are still considered missing persons.
A new trail network connecting UNBC with the Pinewood neighbourhood at the bottom of University Hill was finished. A groomed trail now runs from UNBC down to the residential neighbourhood beside CN Centre.
The Citizen was the first to report that a women's addiction recovery facility is in the works modelled on (but in no way connected to) the Baldy Hughes residential therapeutic community for men. Baldy Hughes, situated far down Blackwater Road, is the only one of its kind in Canada and open only to men.
Canada Post awarded Rebecca Beuschel of Quesnel with a literacy award to celebrate her efforts to strengthen and improve literacy in her community. The national mail carrier announced Monday that she is one of 11 winners in the educator and individual categories from across Canada and the only winner in British Columbia.
The Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit - Uniformed Gang Task Force rode shotgun with local RCMP doing their anti-gang business about town. Twice the gang specialists came to P.G. and helped do ramped-up enforcement on a number of crack shacks and other gang hotbeds. More such visits are planned, but police said they would not give any warning to the criminal element about when they would take action.
Ranchers Mark Grafton, Roland Baumann and Larry Garrett went on a trade mission to China and Japan, estimating that our Pacific Rim neighbours are poised to be a large importer of beef, but face-to-face meetings were needed. They were joined there by provincial and federal agriculture officials, and they came back optimistic about the future of trade with the Orient. Baumann then continued on and did more lobbying in Europe.
Prince George Search and Rescue spent most of a night searching Ness Lake for a body in the water that was never there. Four people were in a boat on Ness Lake when they struck an island and got stranded there, according to authorities. They indicated there was a fifth person who swam to shore. Mounties and Search and Rescue engaged in an intensive search of the water and shoreline. "It was a hoax. After two hours of searching is when they admitted to police there was no fifth person," said PG-SAR president Jeff Smedley.
The Gateway Business Improvement Association talked about the worst kept secret in town, the steel sculpture Commotion the merchants' group erected at the corner of Victoria Street and 20th Avenue. It was designed by artist Roman Muntener and installed using all-local companies and resources.
The process to finance a new RCMP building got underway, with a target price of $26 million for the construction. The current police station is reaching a state of structural failure and the force needs a new base of operations. The City of Prince George studied the needs of the building and arrived at a design. The amount of money has irked some, and a movement is underway to block the project. An alternate approval process is currently underway by which opponents can sign up against the proposal, which would trigger a referendum on the issue.
