Terrace River Kings looking at bid for 2016 Coy Cup

Hockey fans in the Northwest may not have to make plans for a lengthy road trip to take in this season's Coy Cup championship, that if the Terrace River Kings are successful in their bid to host the AA Senior Men's Championship next March.

The River Kings have presented a request for a letter of support from the City of Terrace towards their efforts, a request that the Terrace council will consider as part of their regular Council session this evening.

Ray Hallock of the River Kings will expand on the request and answer any questions from Council members when he makes a presentation to Terrace Council during this evening's session.

Should the River Kings find success with their quest to those the tournament, 4 teams from across the province would take part in the tournament, along with the River Kings who would be the host five team event over a week in March.

Last years tournament was held in Fort Nelson, with the River Kings, the CIHL champs, coming up a bit short, as the Coy Cup championship was eventually won by the Fort St. John Flyers

The River Kings are ready to hit the ice at full stride in their efforts to secure the Coy Cup for next year, with a committee already in place to begin tournament preparation should Terrace be selected as host community.

It's expected that BC Hockey will announce its host city for the 2016 Coy Cup sometime in early October.

The Prince Rupert Rampage will be starting their quest this weekend to become one of the teams to be playing on the ice at the Coy Cup wherever it is held in March.

The Rampage launch the 2015-16 CIHL season this weekend, with a Saturday match up with Williams Lake in town on Saturday night with a puck drop at 7 PM.

Sunday the Quesnel Kangaroos are in town for a 1 PM start with the Rampage.

You can follow the Rampage through the season from our archive page found here.

Legislature returns to work today as Fall Session is set to open

North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice will be back in Victoria today, as the fall session of the British Columbia Legislature prepares to get to work on the fall agenda for the government of Premier Christy Clark.

Something we imagine will focus on some of the delivery points at the recent UBCM convention in Vancouver where the Premier outlined five areas where the province plans to lend assistance to communities across British Columbia.

A couple of which perhaps caught the attention of the Prince Rupert delegation, a group which had a front row seat to the Premier's speech. Mayor Brain and his council might have found much to be interested in when it came to her plans to lend assistance towards infrastructure issues, expansion of high speed Internet service and a promise of 75 million dollar dividend for smaller communities.

North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice
will be back in the Legislature
this week as the fall session starts

Prince Rupert Council members most likely had their own list of items for the province to consider during their meetings with cabinet officials over the last week, perhaps focusing on infrastructure and housing concerns to name a few.

Themes that they hopefully have also updated Ms. Rice on, providing her with the opportunity to reinforce the Prince Rupert focused concerns during her Question Period time of the Legislature proceedings.

Another item that the North Coast MLA may be following up on is her request for more information on the province's airshed study into the Prince Rupert area, a report that is apparently complete but has as of yet been delivered to the public.

The Legislature resumes its work at 10 AM

You can review some of Ms. Rice's past efforts through the year from our archive page here.

Community Musical, Rock of Ages Auditions coming in October

Prince Rupert's Music and theatre community are tackling an interesting concept for their annual presentation set for April in 2016, with their inner Rock Star personnas ready to burst through with next year's production of Rock of Ages.

Auditions for the Community Musical production will be taking place on Sunday, October 4th and Monday the 5th, with both session taking place at the Lester Centre for the Arts.

The October 4th auditions are scheduled for 1 to 4 PM, while the Monday sessions will take place from 7 to 9 PM.

The Musical Comedy has been featured in both theatre and movie versions, the latter featuring Tom Cruise and Russell Brand.  At the moment the theatre production is making news, thanks to an extended run in Las Vegas.

The local version, which is being presented through a special arrangement with Samuel French, will see some five months of rehearsal and set development ahead before the project takes to the Lester Centre Stage from April 7th to 9th.

Ages for audition are from 14 years and up, those interested in making their presentation can contact Crystal Lorette at the Lester Centre to book an audition, you can call 250-627-8888 or contact Ms. Lorette at CrystalL@lestercentre.ca

Call backs will be made on October 6th at 7 PM

Real Estate Tracker, week ending September 27, 2015

Our weekly review of the listings of the local real estate agents, tracking those properties which appear to be driving the local price structure for the North Coast.

Every Monday, we look over the listing prices of the past seven days and outline the Top 10 asking prices in the area, providing a snap shot as to where the Real Estate market may be trending on a week to week basis.

The listings below are purely for information purposes, for further background on the properties recorded, see our links page for access to the individual real estate listings.

The Archive for our weekly review can be found here.

Our list of the top ten priced homes for the week ending September 27 is below:

Prince Rupert Real Estate
East Side September 27 2015

Prince Rupert Real Estate
West Side September 27 2015

There was no shift in the placements of the ten properties atop our listings of the last seven  days, with last week's notes getting a replay for another week.

As it was last Monday, the east side still trails the west, when it comes to the bulk of the entries from collection of the high end properties across the region.

With the majority of the listings found west of McBride Street, the majority of those centred around the Graham Avenue area.  On the east side of the city's main North/South artery road, three properties crack their way into the list of ten.

The high end overall remains marked by a 2nd Avenue West Avenue entry, with a property on Summit continuing to hold the tenth position on the week


Below find our findings as of the Week ending September 27, 2015

1942-46 2nd Avenue W                 $659,000  --  Royal Lepage
527 4th Avenue East                      $650,000  --  Remax
160 Van Arsdol Street--                 $649,900   -- Remax
2040 Graham Avenue --                 $595,000  -- Royal Lepage
2126 Graham Avenue --                 $595,000  -- Royal Lepage
2025 Graham Avenue --                 $559,000 -- Remax
1724 Graham Avenue                    $558,000  --  Royal Lepage
1229 Conrad Street --                     $525,000 -- Royal Lepage
896 Prince Rupert Boulevard --     $489,000 --  Remax
1125 Summit Avenue --                 $469,000 -- Remax

For more items related to Real Estate see our archive page here.

For background on Housing issues in the region see our past items here.

Blog Watching, week ending September 27, 2015

Lelu Island continued to be the focus of much of the news for the last seven days, with two items from the blog highlighting some of fractures between member Tsimshian communities in the region.

Also capturing the attention on the week for our readers, events related to the UBCM convention in Vancouver, with a pair of our UBCM items gaining notice and holding a spot in the top five articles for the week just finished.

Federal politics managed to elbow its way into the discussion as well, with our article  noting the arrival of Jeannie Parnell into the election campaign finding a wide audience. As the deadline for the final list of candidates was getting closer, Ms. Parnell was introduced by the Green Party as their candidate for the October 19th vote.

However, when it comes to the most read item of the week, it was our look at the recent developments on Lelu Island which attracted the most readers of the last seven days.

This time through news of some success for the Gitga'at First Nation as they continue on with their plans to seek a judicial review over issues of consultation when it comes to LNG proposals for Prince Rupert harbour.

Metlakatla and Lax Kw'alaams denied respondent status in Gitga'at petition for judicial review   -- A court decision in Victoria at the start of September, will keep the focus of a judicial review on the  theme of the Environmental review process and consultation over Lelu Island (posted September 24, 2015)

That article was followed by:

Photo days at UBCM  --  Municipal leaders from around the Northwest had time for some discussion and a photo with Premier Christy Clark at the UBCM convention this week. (posted September 24, 2015)

Gitxaala First Nation joins Metlakatla with response to Lax Kw'alaams -- Comments by the Lax Kw'alaams First Nation related to the topic of Lelu Island continue to gain attention from some of their other Tsimshian neighbours (posted  September 23, 2015)

Jeannie Parnell to seek House of Commons seat for Green Party in October election  -- The Green Party finally announce their candidate for the October 19th federal election. More on the campaign can be found on our archive page  (posted September 21, 2015)

UBCM convention makes for five days of discussion on municipal issues -- The annual convention for British Columbia's municipal leaders featured a number of items up for discussion, our preview of the event was a popular stop for the week of blogging, as was our archive of the UBCM Talking points through the week (posted September 22, 2015 )

You can find our Blog watching featured posted every Sunday morning by 9AM, a handy way to catch up to the week that was, at a leisurely weekend pace.

You can also review the full listings of the week just past from our Blog Archive index page found on the right hand side of the page.

For those looking for updates to items as they are posted to the blog, don't forget about our email alert access.

A daily review of the latest items on the blog can be delivered to your email in box, simply by entering your email address into the information bar, items posted to the blog will be delivered to your e-mail account each day.

You can find the link to that feature on the upper, right hand side of the blog. Underneath the Follow the North Coast Review by Email indicator.

Our archive of weekly Blog Watching  can be found here.

School replacement plans on the mind of SD52 this year

The prospect of a pair of new schools for the District and a review of a recent Hold and Secure incident at Charles Hays Secondary School provided for a fair bit of the attention of the School District 52 Board at their most recent meeting of September 15th

The aging nature of two of the schools in the city was one item of interest presented at the first meeting of the new school year, a topic which will see School District 52 officials forwarding some school replacement cost estimates to the provincial government in the near future. 

The notes on potential school replacement were part of School District 52's listing of capital budget projections that were approved at their September 15th Board Meeting.

In total, four items made up the Capital budget notices for the Ministry of Education's reviews, among them:

A 24 million dollar estimate for the replacement of Prince Rupert Middle School.

An 11 million dollar estimate for the replacement of Conrad School.

Three million, eight hundred thousand dollars is the estimate for the School District's Board Office consolidation plan.

While the cost of replacing the School bus fleet for the city has been estimated at one hundred thousand dollars.

Prince Rupert Middle School

Conrad Street Elementary School

On other business, the School District also addressed the recent Hold and Secure situation at Charles Hays Secondary, noting some of their observations related to the September 11th incident.

Noting that the Hold and Secure protocol was implemented owing to a threat from outside of the school, with a student having approached a school counsellor about a person outside of the school environment. The Hold and Secure process was implemented while the RCMP located the person  of interest, with the School District noting that at no time were any students in the school considered in any danger.

The School and district staff will review their implementation of the protocol to allow for staff to identify any areas for improvement that could be put in place for future events.

School District officials also reviewed some of the new curriculum timeline for SD52 with Superintendent Sandra Jones providing some background on the process ahead for staff, students and parents.

As well, the School District Board approved 4 draft policies to be reviewed by partner groups for further comment, those policy reviews included:

Field Trip policy, Emergency Preparedness Policy, Volunteers Policy, Whistleblower Policy

The Board also approved 3 policies to replace existing guidelines for the District, among those changes are the Conflict of Interest policy, Trustee Remuneration and Expense Allowance Policy and Travel and Subsistence Allowance Policy.

The School District Board also removed one policy, the School Planning Councils Policy which is no longer a requirement of the School Act.

The Board also was provided a review of events at Camp Jupiter this summer, as the district's Occupational Therapist Sue Neilson outlined the nature of the program and the reception of it from students, parents and sponsors in the community.

The overview of the September 15th meeting can be found here.

For more items related to education on the North Coast see our archive page here.

Mayor's vision and Prince Rupert's future noted in Premier Clark's UBCM address Friday

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark made special note of the
potential for economic development in Prince Rupert during her
closing address to the UBCM convention on Friday
(photo from BC Gov't website)

Prince Rupert Mayor Lee Brain got a one minute shout out during Premier Clark's keynote address to the UBCM convention on Friday morning, as the Premier noted the enthusiasm that Prince Rupert is feeling with the prospect of future growth on the horizon.

Calling on the history of Charles Hays and his vision for the port city of 100 years ago, Ms. Clark noted that like Hays, Mayor Brain is focused on the future for the community, with a vision that emphasized how the community can achieve success.

"Lee Brain in Prince Rupert, Lee has an incredible vision.  Charles Hays who died on the Titanic in 1912, had a vision too.  And he wasn't able to complete it, his vision was to make Prince Rupert a port for the world, to open up the Northwest. 

Well Lee has taken on that vision, with gusto, so that he can make sure that  he realizes that future for Prince Rupert, that so many, so long ago may have already given up on. 

Because he knows, that when he sees his Chamber of Commerce grow by 46 per cent, it means that small businesses are coming and that small businesses are growing.  

And that is his vision and a vision of many leaders in the Northwest, a part of our province that has sat out economic growth for far too long"

Prince Rupert's delegation 
to the UBCM convention,
(right hand side)
 snared front row seats
for Premier Clark's 
closing address Friday
(photo from BC Gov't website)

The Premier's comments for Prince Rupert reflected much of her talking points of the full address, one of  looking to continue to see economic growth for the province and the opportunity to bring back former residents who are now returning home to take advantage of the possibilities being considered for their former home towns.

Towards that theme, the Premier announced the creation of what is called the Rural Dividend, a 75 million dollar project to be delivered over the course of three years.

Other items of note from her address included a focus on crime, with a re-dedication towards getting tough on criminals, with a focus on gang related activity.

Those themes and other notes for the UBCM delegates can be reviewed below:

Wildfire prevention funding increased, new approaches to forest enhancement
$90 million available for infrastructure in October
Communities to benefit from expanded high-speed Internet service
Up to $75-million Rural Dividend will help smaller communities
B. C. invests $5 million to further tackle crime

The speech which lasted a bit over a half hour, delivered a stream of points for delegates to take home with them.  You can review the full presentation from the Province's You Tube video feed.



For those looking for the Premier's comments on the North Coast, her notes directed towards Mayor Brain and on the prospects for the  future for the North Coast arrive at the 17 minute mark.

For a review of some of the talking points from the UBCM convention this year see our archive page here.