Wednesday, November 28, 2018 | Your community newspaper since 1916
Players hurt in team bus crash Citizen staff
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ive players were taken to hospital in Kamloops for treatment and one was airlifted with a serious but apparently non-life-threatening injury after a bus carrying the College Heights Secondary School senior girls volleyball team went off Highway 97 just north of Cache Creek early Tuesday afternoon. “Our thoughts are with those involved, their families and their friends,” College Heights principal Randy Halpape said in a letter posted on the school’s website. Team memIt’s under bers are Emily investigation Motley, Reeyse Desmarais, Emby police, ily MacDonald, so we really can’t Morgan Johnson, Rachel Kidd, comment on it. Justine Guillet, — Head coach Natasha Kozlowski, Melissa Bell, Jason Olexyn Brooke Eberherr, Ashlee Hick, Alysha Madsen and Sydney Bazinet. Jason Olexyn is the head coach and the assistants are Jay Guillet, Laura Wagner and Griffin Olexyn. B.C. RCMP traffic services Cpl. Mike Halskov said two adults and 10 students were in the bus when it crashed at about 12:10 p.m. The team was heading to the B.C. high school triple-A championships in Powell River. Other than to say the incident is under investigation, head coach Olexyn declined to comment when reached by phone. “It’s under investigation by police, so we really can’t comment on it,” he said. The highway was reopened at 1:15 p.m.
CITIZEN PHOTO BY BRENT BRAATEN
Away in a manger Emily Albertson looks at one of the nativity scenes at Faces of the Nativity, organized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are 563 nativities from around the world on display. The display will be open to the public starting today. The hours for today and Thursday are 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. while on Friday, Saturday and Sunday it will be open to the public from noon until 8 p.m. The church is located at 4180 Fifth Ave. Admission is free.
Councillors speak in favour Zimmer part of pressure play of changes to intersection on Facebook founder Citizen news service Prince George-Peace River-Northern Rockies MP Bob Zimmer and a cohort of international lawmakers turned up the pressure on Facebook Tuesday, grilling one of its executives and making a show of founder Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to explain to them why his company failed to protect users’ data privacy. The rare “international grand committee” of lawmakers from nine countries gathered in London to get answers about Facebook’s handling of personal data and made a point of leaving a seat with Zuckerberg’s name tag. Zimmer was at the meeting in his role as chair of the House of Commons committee on information, privacy and ethics. Richard Allan, the company’s vice-president for policy solutions, said he volunteered to attend because Zuckerberg had already appeared before other committees this year, including in Washington and, briefly, Brussels. Lawmakers from Canada, Ireland, Brazil, Argentina, Singapore, Belgium, France and Latvia joined their British counterparts at the parliamentary select committee hearing – the first such cross-border event in London since 1933. They want to scrutinize Facebook over its handling of data privacy, most notably involving consultancy Cambridge Analytica’s improper use of information from more than 87 million Facebook accounts to manipulate elections. British select committees are used to investigate major issues and have the powerful – from CEOs to government officials – explain their decisions in a public forum. They don’t have the power to make laws but the government takes their recommendations into account when formulating new policies. — see SOCIAL MEDIA, page 2
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Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca Support in general was expressed Monday when Prince George city council members commented on major changes in store for the vicinity of Highway 97 and 22nd Avenue in answer to the death of a College of New Caledonia student this past summer. Timing of the lights for traffic and pedestrians will be adjusted to reduce the potential for conflicts but perhaps the most significant move will be closure of the northbound lane along Westwood Avenue. To begin in January, it will reduce congestion at the intersection but will also mean drivers trying to get onto Highway 97 North will have to turn east onto Massey and then turn right onto the on-ramp just past the overpass. About 1,800 vehicles each day pass through the area to be closed, peaking at about 180 per hour in the afternoon and 130 per hour in the morning, while the on-ramp is under-used, city engineering and public works general manager Dave Dyer told council. The changes have been a source of controversy on social media with posters complaining they’re being penalized for the acts of jaywalkers crossing the highway and saying it will add time to their commutes. Coun. Brian Skakun echoed those comments on Monday night but the rest of council generally endorsed the plan when given a chance to comment following an update from Dyer.
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Changes are coming for Westwood Drive at 22nd Avenue and how traffic gets onto the highway. The changes to the traffic lights is a Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure project while Westwood is a city road. Council had no say on whether the work can go ahead and the update was provided for information. “There is no doubt we have to do some
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improvements there but I don’t think we necessarily have to make such a major disruption to our traffic,” Skakun said and added an underpass or an overpass paid for by the province would have been a better option. — see DRIVERS, page 3
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