News Leader News
COUNCIL OKAYS STUDENT PLAN TO CLEAN VIEW
Nicole Thomas and Jana McKenzie, two Princeton Secondary students, intend to beautify the view from Highway 40, which leads past the landfill to Princeton fairgrounds and a number of rural tourist locations.
On May 16, the students, accompanied by Nadine McEwen, placed their proposal on Council's table. The proposal calls for planting carigana bushes along the slope between Highway 40 and the dump.
The students had done their homework. They had talked to Don & Anna's Greenhouses to find the kind of bushes that would survive without much care and create a visual barrier. Carigana blooms in spring, which adds a bonus. The hedge will stop the plastic bags from flying as well as hide the view of the dump.
McKenzie and Thomas had spoken to businesses along Highway 40 and received support for the proposal.
They will look for support from the community for the purchase of enough carigana bushes to do the job. Each bush would cost between seven and 10 dollars.
The two girls are prepared to do all of the work themselves, if necessary, but hope others will turn out to help on planting day. There will be about 200 carigana bushes to plant.
If you are interested in helping the students, leave your name and phone number at 295-7222 or, if you would like to donate a bush, leave an envelope at Town Hall labeled "Landfill Beautification Project".
LALI ELECTED IN YALE-LILLOOET
Voters in Yale-Lillooet made it clear at the polls who they wanted to represent them in the next four years.Shortly after polls closed at 8:00 PM on May 17th for the 38th Provincial General Election and polling stations began reporting their figures it was becoming obvious that the NDP's Harry Lali was taking a short lead over Liberal Lloyd Forman.
The final figures show Harry Lali won the Yale-Lillooet MLA seat with a total of 8,181 votes or 48.62% of the popular vote.
Liberal Lloyd George Forman was second with 6,806 votes (40.45%), with Princeton's Green Party entry, Mike McLean, gathering 1,542 votes (9.16%0.
The other two candidates in the election were Arne Jensen Zabell of Democratic Reform Party of BC with 181 votes (1.08%) and Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell of the People's Front with 116 votes (0.69%).
A total of 16,826 votes were cast in the district.
As for the Referendum on Electoral Reform, popularly referred to as the STV-BC Referendum, Yale-Lillooet voted in favour of the program with 8,341 Yes votes cast, or 52.65% of the popular vote.
A total of 7,502 voters cast No votes or 47.35%. The total number of ballots cast on the Referendum numbered 15,843 in Yale-Lillooet.
In Princeton, a total of 1,062 voters cast ballots for the NDP's Harry Lali with 906 voting for Liberal Lloyd Forman.
Princeton supported local Green Party candidate Mike McLean with a total of 330 votes. Arne Zabell of DRBC took 16 votes and People's Front candidate Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell was supported by 10 local voters.
A total of 2,535 voters cast ballots in Princeton.
In Hedley there were a total of 214 ballots cast.
A total of 109 went to the NDP's Harry Lali with 66 supporting Liberal Lloyd Forman. The Green Party's Mike McLean took 36 votes with Arne Zabell of DRBC collecting 3 votes. No one in Hedley voted for People's Front candidate Dorothy-Jean O'Donnell.
BEA TAKES SELF EXAMINATION
At the May 19th meeting of the Princeton Area Business Enhancement Association (PABEA) the ³Defining the PABEA² Committee released its final report.The committee was formed in March of this year with the mandate of identifying the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the association, and to then survey the membership for their feedback.
From the results the committee was to make formal conclusions and recommendations to the PABEA membership.
These results were to enable the PABEA to better serve the members and define its future direction.
The report was well received and commented on. The committee was given praise for being so bold as to point out the organization's flaws.
Basically it was time to take a good hard, critical look at ourselves in the mirror and see what changes were needed as we go forward.
This is an exercise performed by many organizations. The committee identified a number of areas where improvements are needed which will help the PABEA better serve the membership.
Some of the recommendations go directly to improving the internal structure of the organization and its communications to its members.
After the report was accepted and voted on, the PABEA appointed a Committee to revisit the original Mission Statement and make any changes that may be needed to ensure the association's mandate is current for 2005.
This was step one of the committee's recommendations. One of the other main items the committee identified was the perception that the PABEA works at odds with the local Chamber of Commerce.
The PABEA's intent is to work with the Chamber and not against it. A proposal was set forth to contact the Chamber and see if the two groups could form a committee to have better communications between each other and to identify where each other has an opportunity that can jointly benefit the business community in Princeton and area.
Basically identifying where each other can fill the gaps by ensuring we are not duplicating each others work. As we go forward then we need to ensure that the work the PABEA is doing is filling a different need to the local business community.
Much like other communities have a Downtown Business Association or Mall Association that works with their local Chambers of Commerce.
More positive changes will be happening in the future with the PABEA. We will keep the members and the public informed as they happen.
The PABEA can be contacted at pabea@cablerocket.com.
