The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 5

iwuueti 5 The Vro inec Friday, Jan. 6, 1984 Jllllliritllf IIIIIIIIIIIIMMItllllMIJIIIIIIIII )lllllllllllllllltllllllllllMlllllltIMIIIIMIIIIIMf 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 I tt II 1 1 1J I (sl (stalls "Hopefully the provincial government would pick up the costs of moving the houses." City planning officials say, alternatively, homeowners could accept a cash settlement from Victoria and move to co-op units, apartments or town-houses that might be built on the boggy city property. But initial response from a few of the homeowners who would be turfed out by a new connector was skeptical. "Skunk Hollow? Who would want to live in that marsh?" said Gwen Rambo of 706 Cassiar. And her husband, Vern, a laid-off logger, said the couple has no desire to move anywhere even a few blocks.

"1 like to putter in the garden. We're not ready for an apartment. "We thought we'd be in this house until the day we die. I was going to give the house to my son." And Paul Szostak, 48, across the street, said that, if he doesn't get a fair price from the government, he and his teenage grandson will have to be tossed out of their home by the bulldozers. "The assessed value is $87,000.

If I don't get at least that, I don't go," said Bobich. There was no immediate response from provincial government officials to the scheme, which will be aired at a special night meeting of city council's transportation committee Jan. 12 at the Hastings community centre. By HOLLY HORWOOD Staff Reporter Like turtles, Cassiar residents may be able to take their homes with them when they're displaced by a freeway connector. But homeowners in the East Vancouver neighborhood appear to want to dig in their heels and stay put.

The idea of transplanting Cassiar homes to city- owned land at Childs and Adanac is part of a city report, not yet released, calling for a partially-covered freeway connector to ease the traffic bottleneck at Cassiar and Hastings. That latest preliminary proposal is figured to cost some $65 million and would eliminate the Rupert Diversion as well as all neighborhood connectors south of Hastings. For the Hastings community it would mean less commuter traffic streaming through their residential streets, and possibly a new parkplayground on the upslope north of Hastings. And for the 75 to 80 homeowners and renters who would be displaced, it attempts to answer the question: Where do we go? "The plan is the city would service and sell its lots at Adanac and Childs to the homeowners who want them," said Patricia Coutts, head of the Hastings Sunrise citizens' committee, which endorsed the report last night. UPI photo I Schoolboy strikes pay dirt 1 The last thing William Derby, 1 3, expected to find while digging a trench in London was a $1 4,000 gold egg and a note saying it was his.

The egg, watched over here by a policewoman, was one of 12 buried for a chocolate company's promotional treas- ure hunt. William found it two weeks before the contest started. fillllllllllllllllllllllllllilMIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIillllllllllllllllllllMIIIWIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIMIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIi; Flood bill $5m for highways alone Big fines hit casino chiefs By MALCOLM TURNBULL B.C. Editor It will be several weeks before communities from southwestern B.C. to northern Oregon are fully recovered from flooding that has caused millions of dollars' worth of damage to property.

Emergency crews struggled yesterday to clear major rail lines and highways damaged by swelling rivers and mudslides. Transport Minister Alex Fraser estimated it would cost about $5 million just to clear provincial roads and repair bridges. Skies cleared in the Fraser Valley, giving residents a reprieve from flooding that forced the evacuation of scores of families in the Hope, Chilliwack, Mission and Princeton areas. Environment Canada, which had forecast as much as five centimetres (two inches) of rain for today, now says only about 2 cm will fall in the next 24 hours. Earl Coatta of the Vancouver weather office said 1.4 cm of rain fell at Hope, adding that "the statistical probability of that much rain falling in a 24-hour period is about once in every 50 years." In the Vancouver area, 9.7 cm of rain fell during the first four days of January.

"That's about 60 to 70 per cent of the average total rainfall for the entire month," Coatta said. The Trans-Canada Highway west of Hope remained closed indefinitely and east-west traffic was confined to Highway 7 on the north side of the Fraser River. The Hope-Princeton Highway was open to single-lane traffic. News Services LAS VEGAS Owners of the Stardust Hotel have been hit with $3 million in fines for skimming revenues. Allan Sachs and Herb Tobman have agreed to pay the fines and give up their licences to the Stardust and two other casinos the Fremont and Sundance resorts as a result of the alleged skimming operation.

But they haven't admitted any guilt. The two men agreed to the penalties rather than have a string of charges aired at a state Gaming Control Board hearing Jan. 16. The Gaming Control Board hit the Stardust with an 19-count complaint last month after a search of the casino cage. The complaint, which sought $3.9 million in fines along with the licence revocations, listed 222 alleged violations of state law.

The board alleged $1.5 million had been skimmed, or taken out without reporting or paying taxes. The licence revocations will be stayed for 130 days to give Sachs and Tobman a chance to sell the resorts. During the 130-day period, a court-appointed management team will continue to run the Stardust, and the state also has the right to appoint supervisors for the Fremont and Sundance resorts. In agreeing to the penalties without a hearing. Sachs and Tobman gave up their rights to any 3Vf'''i 111 Ml' til UPC photo Louis Blondin checks mailbox at Popkum in Fraser Valley..