New Westminster Record June 10 2015

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NEWS 8

Feeling the love in NewWest ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT 11

Massey’s glorious years PEOPLE 37

THINGS TO DO THIS WEEKEND

Anita Hagen leaves a legacy WEDNESDAY JUNE 10, 2015

There’s more online at

YO UR

SEE PAGE 15

NewWestRecord.ca

LOCAL NEWS – LOCAL MATTERS

HOMETOW N

NEWSPAPER

A neon nod to Sappers By Theresa McManus

tmcmanus@newwestrecord.ca

The Sappers’ role in the Royal City’s history will be emblazoned in neon for all to see – and it will be hard to miss. The Brewery District has erected a neon public art sign along the wooden wall on the Brunette Avenue side of the site that faces the Fraser River. Inspired by one of the oldest graffiti tags – “Emily/Jack/Peter was here” – and the popular culture expression “Kilroy was here” from the Second World War, the 133-foot-long neon sign reads “The Sappers Were Here.” “Holy mackerel,” said retired Sapper Jim Harris. “You’ll be able to see that from the space station.” Harris, a retired sergeant major who spent 34 years as a Sapper, is over the moon about the public art that was unveiled on June 6. “It’s a marvellous idea,” he said. “The history is not that well known.The sign is really going to improve that.” Harris said the British Royal Engineers arrived in Sapperton in 1858, and left an enormous legacy that includes constructing roads in austere conditions, building bridges and transporting gold, not only in New Westminster and the Lower Mainland, but in the Cariboo as well. For more on the sign and Sappers’ history, go to newwestrecord.ca.

SAPPERS’ STORY: A new 133-foot-long neon sign at the Brewery District draws attention to the history of the Sappers in New Westminster. ‘They put blood, sweat and tears into this land, and we’re reaping the benefits of it,’ says retired Sapper Jim Harris, shown above. PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER

Trustees’ pay gets bumped off agenda By Cornelia Naylor

cnaylor@newwestrecord.ca

New Westminster’s superintendent of schools has admitted to circumventing a school board bylaw at the inaugural meeting of the current school board in December – and he says he would do it again. When the new board was sworn in six months ago, one of its first items of business, according to an existing bylaw, should have been to decide how much it would pay itself for the next four years.

But that item wasn’t on the agenda because superintendent John Gaiptman intentionally left it out. “This is a total mea culpa on my part,” he told the Record, “but having that discussion about (the trustee stipend), when we haven’t had any preliminary discussions, to me didn’t make any sense.” Gaiptman, a retired Victoria superintendent who was hired in February 2014 and has helped the board change and update 17 of its policies, said figuring out fair pay for trustees is complicated.

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New West’s school district is comparable in size to Fort St. John’s, he said as an example, but the cost of living in each community is very different. And he said linking trustee remuneration to school district size might not be fair anyway because larger districts could offer more staff support to make a board’s job easier. Even something as straightforward as regular, automatic cost-of-living increases can get a board in trouble, Gaiptman said, if teachers or support staff go on strike, for

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example, and trustees still collect their regular raise. Then there’s the matter of timing. Given the current freeze on management salaries and the fact that School District No. 40 has only recently finalized a plan to pay down its $4.86 million debt, Gaiptman said trustees need as much information as they can get before voting on their own pay. “On the other hand, if you don’t talk continued on page 4

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