The economy, iS hevelling off ont pane. NEWS. VIEWPOINT ither waterfront? WORESHORE FORESIGHT has pre- Vaited i in North Vancouver District. On Monday. night, district council “deferred a proposal to build 210 apartments On industrial Jand west of Cates Park and ‘also voted unanimousiy to support Coun. Ernie Crist’s‘metion to create a much-need- ed waterfront task force in the district. : Public‘access to North Vancouver. District ‘waterfront needs protection now before it i is -. lost forever.: .As residential and development pressures ‘on district, waterfront increase, so too, the need for a. guarantee that public access to . that resource will be preserved. '. The proposed residential development on . ithe McKenzie Baige and Marine Ways site would displace the 35 shipyard workers ‘employed at the site and remove yet another vital piece of the North Shore’s once-thriving . ship repair and construction industry. _ But-it would also erect another exclusive residential wall separating area residents from waterfront access. Crist has pushed repeatedly for some kind of municipal plan for district waterfront resources, His motion to council in F ebruary aimed ai establishing a community, task force to consider district pians for its foreshore lands was ‘soundly defeated in a 6-1 council vote. But the rest of council i is now apparently conceding the wisdom of waterfront plan- ning, because the issue of waterfront access in the district will not go away until all remaining waterfront lands have been lest to developers or a firm policy has been estab- lished permanently guaranteeing public access to those lands. ‘LETTER O1 OF THE DAY — Column was insensitive and abusive _ Dear Editor: Doug Collins’ use of the Nazi ’ verbal salute in his April 13 column was gratuitous and showed gross “insensitivity, even for him, I don’t . see the “F” word in the News. Whether a term is an obscenity is judged by the sensibilities of the community. Why not altempt to ascertain whether you have the sup- port of the majority of the commu- nity on this issue? You certainly don’t have my support or that of anyone I’ve spoken with about Doug Collins. This issue is not about free speech. It’s about abuse, Kathi Cinnamon North Vancouver Publisher Managing Edito! Associate Ediltor.. Saias & Marketing Olrector Comptrolter..ccssscsesssesees North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedula 141, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canactiin Publications Mai! Sales Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request, Submissions are welcome but we cannot accepi responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be acceinpanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. i {Peter Speck imothy Renshaw Newsroom V7M 2H4 Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions Classified Advertising Fax North Shore Managed 980-0514 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 Distribution 986-6222 985-2(31 this newspaper veajeed fore i Administration MEMBER Gon SN ees Memento Rawr vangouvan arus 1438 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver B.C. SDA oo , 61,582 (average citculation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday} Entire contents ® 1994 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. FIRST THE great news: West Vancouver's 1994 bud- get will, as advertised, rise (or, you might equally say, fall) by 0%, Now, what might have been the better news: An attempt to stake it down — so that it can’t silently creep upward inthe nightlime of real-world exigencies — was frus- trated at Monday night's council meeting. But not to diminish the real accontplishment of council, led by our muscular young mayor, Mark Sager, and municipal staff, headed by Doug Allan and doubtless with the sharp pencitwork of director of finance George Horwood. Coun. Ron Wood read a budget speech on Monday night that con- firmed recent remarks by Mayor Sager: no auinicipal tax increase + for taxpayers for 1994, after allow- ing for a 1.7% rise in assessed val- ues for 1994 (but watch out for ©. provincially levied school taxes on your. tax bill; they’ve rocketed from $6 million to $16.5 million just in the years 1991 to 1993), , Meanwhile the city of ‘ Vancouver has been going through agonies of budget bitterness and partisan feuding. 66 Most people ask “ us to spend on. them, and s save on someone else, 99 ~Coun. Andy Danyliu haf of course we expect better in sublime West Vancouver. And we get it — though, as the critical Fiscal Five citizens’ group quoted recently in this column have argued, ata price. Wood’s overview of our town (drop “municipality” from the lan- guage, someone) portrayed a com- munity that would be the envy of others. Excellent recreation and library facilities. Police held in affection and respect. A high approval rating by citizens. More soberly, some commercial . taxpayers have been bleeding, and the $98 million budget will shift 3% of the tax bill from commercial to residential. Capital expenditures have also been held back in recent years and, for good instance, many West Van roads are.30 years old and due for repair, Wood said. ° Enter Andy Danyliu. Danyliu is council’s wittiest member — the ginger man of a just-a-shade-too-cosy group, I’d say, and a sometime foil for the wise-ow! skepticisn of Coun. Allan Williams, who was absent Monday. (Or is Danyliu, and indeed columinists like me who convey the critics’ messuges, merely making +: futile gestures against the inevitable?) Anyway, Danyliu called the restraint budget “a first step” that didn’t go as far as many citizens GARD JEN OF BIASES “ would have liked, » He stressed that certain costs could slither away from projec- * tions, such as the overtime bill — maverick item that clearly troubles other councillors — and new costs * for requests under the freedom of: | . information legislation. ~ He reflected on a Great Human “Truth that all governments would © “ wearily endorse: “Most people ask us to spend on them, and save on oe . someone else.” But Danyliu most irked his cal a leagues when he noted that there» was a perception, “accurate or not,” that council worked mostly behind” closed doors. Sager suavely denied that. : Coun. Pat Boname, not given | to rowdiness, staunchly said that she’ d. heard that sort of talk in West Vancouver for 28 years: “Not t Nothing goes on (behind closed doors) but a lot of hard work:” More’concretely, Danyliu pr ' posed four budget amendments including a new budgeting process that would broaden public partici- pation, notably bringing in a ‘coup! of the informal Fiscal Five, and an immediate hiring freeze, excepting « only jobs deemed essential by.» Mayor Sager and municipal miana- ; ger Allan. : When the debate shit down for the evening, Danyliu wryly pro-. duced the box score for his own |. performance: “T think I'm batting _ one hit, two passed balls, andone strikeout.” an (To extend his metaphor: only 16 “fans” were in the public seats when the all- -important- budget. debate began, in a town of 40,000. (Does that reflect sublime confi- dence in council? Indifference? . Cynicism? (Or maybe the faith that all the © important stuff will be revealed in - the stories by North Shore News © reporter Maureen Curtis?) — But not to forget who’s in charge here. - Mayor Sager showed his politi- : cal resourcefulness and great charm at their best when he did the smart democratic thing: he invited the Fiscal Five critics to meet with hin, along with councillors Wood, Boname and Diane Hutchinson and ‘senior staff and advisers. That meeting was held Tuesday. - More on it in my next column, if you can stand the suspense. (eee | Write outa hundred times and memorize: Clive Bird, Clive Bird, Clive Bird. | keep calling the West Vancouver school trustee “Chris.” My apologies.