FRIDAY January 12, 19 Ormes ‘B Christmas rose still blooming: 13 B Weekly Real . Estate listings: 29-56 auto # Test drive the Subaru SVX: & New and used car listings: i Bright Lights Crossword B inside Stories....... a InsiQhts........0. cen BRN. Shore Alert Sports............ we AB @ Talking Personais....25 i Vide Charts................24 @ TV Listingge................... On the news front: NV mom reacts to sentence for daughter's murder. NEWS photo Mike Waketiold A WELDER works on the roof of Queen Mary elementary school in North Vancouver. The school is being renovated to bring it up to earthquake standards. Weather Saturday: Periods of rain High 39°C, flow 5°C. U.S. millionaire to buy Seaspan DENNIS WASHINGTON’S tenta- tive purchase of North Vancouver- based Seaspan International on Wednesday could spell the end of competition in the Vancouver waterfront tug boat industry. By Robert Galster Contributing Writer Washington, a Montana businessman who is worth US$800 million, purchased Seaspan’s only competitor, North Vancouver-based C.H. Cates and Sons Ltd. in 1992. The latest deal, the actuai amount of which remains undisclosed, has yet to receive the blessing of Investment Canada, the nation’s competition bureau. Toronto-based Genstar Capital Corporation agreed in principle to sel] its ownership interest in Seaspan. Genstar picked up Seaspan for $125 raillion two years ago. Seaspan, operator of 45 tugs and 240 barges. and its subsidiaries employ more than 1,100 people. Founded in 1898 us Vancouver Tug Boat Company, it. has evolved into Canada’s largest tug bout operator. : If approved, the Seaspan purchase See Seaspan page 4 oard drops debt bombshells SAYING THEY are out of options, embattled Noriii Vancouver School District 44 trustees dropped two fiscal bombshells at Tuesday night's meeting. By lan Noble News Reporter Trustees announced they will defy provincial regulations by submitting an unbalanced final operating budget and they expect their school dis- trict to be nearly $5 million in the hole by June 30, 1996. Last fall, Education Minister An Charbonneau gave the board permission to run an accunnilated $2.6 million deficit for the 1994-95 fiscal year on condition that the board pay down $500,000 of the debt in the 1995-96 fiscal year, Not only will the board not pay down the $500,000, it expects to increase the debt by a fur- ther $2.213 million in this fiscal year, which nuns to the end of June. District 44 board c . . to defy Victoria, woe as t deficit to hit $5m Newly crowned board chairman Guy Heywood said District 44 had no choice but to boost the deficit. He said the school district does not receive enough money from Victoria to meet obligations in existing employment contracts and collective agreements, which account for approximately 90% of the district’s $100 million operating bud- get. But that, he said. is not the fault of an ineffi- cient school board that spends too much money. but of a provincial government that does not pro- vide enough. In answer to critics that say teaching and administrative contracts signed by the district's trustees are too lucrative, Heywood said district administration costs of 2.8% of the budget are among the lowest in the province, whilz teachers pull in the provincial average in salaries. According to preliminary budget figures obtained by the News from the Education Ministry last year, District 44 spends less on administration, maintenance and transportation, but $167 more per student on instruction than the average per-student instruction cost of five simi- Jar-sized B.C. school districts. Heywood said the district reccives the third lowest per-capita allocation from Victoria of the province's 75 school districts. He also noted that a government appointed committee determined North Vancouver had been underfunded by $1.5 million a year — a total of $10 million over seven years, Submitting a final operating budget to Charbonneau that will be out approximately $2.7 million should precipitate action from the gov ernment “sooner rather than later.” Heywood told the News, See Board page 2