6 - Wednesday, November 7, 1990 - North Snore News BA tye sense cHamBER, renee PATISON RNAIRIGS FREQUENTLY ail INTO RIGHTEOUS COVER THERE 1S ONE PLACE WHERE BY TRADITION, SENGTIRS CON GATHER, WHERE all | DIFFERENCES aR? INSIGHTS aN ee! G Leah ee shen Ops gua NEWS VIEWPOINT For the record HE PUBLICATION in the Nov. 4 News of a story chronicling the past professions] misconduct of a West Vancouver aldermanic candidate has come under heavy fire from certain quarters. The story revealed that environmental activist Panl Hundal, who has led opposi- tion to the Cypress Ridge golf course de- velopment, was investigated in 1984 by the Law Society of B.C. for a range of misconduct charges, including a number of breaches of trust of accounting rules. In the story, Hundal plainly explained that his problems with alcohol. now resolved, adversely affected his perfor- mance as a lawyer during that time. Since then, the News has been criticized for running the story. Some have expressed surprise and anger that the newspaper, which has provided the Friends of Cypress with extensive coverage of their fight against the proposed Cypress Ridge golf course, would publish potentially damning information about Hundal, who has spearheaded battles against both develop- ment of the golf course and development in the Lynn Canyon area. But the role of any newspaper is to in- form people of what is occurring in their community and to present all sides of any issue as a neutral observer. As for Hundal, anyone who runs for public office should expect the scrutiny of the media and the public. Issues should be the focus of any elec- tion campaign, and once a person makes 2 pitch for the public’s trust in running for public office, personality and past record rightly become issues, OF THE DAY Stop watershed logging Dear Editor: When John Morse stated in his Oct. 17 letier that Greater Van- couver’s drinking water is the same now as it has always been, he failed to mention certain im- portant facts. For example, the main logging road in the Capilano Watershed cuts through beds of water quali- ty-reducing silt that regularly gets washed into the Capilano Reser- voir during rainstorms. Prior to the building of the log- ging road, these same silt beds were largely covered, and they therefore would have had little or no impact on water quality. Things are not as they always have been. The Western Canada Wilderness Publisher .... Associate Editor _. ..... Peter Speck Managing Editor Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Advertising Director Linda Stewart Committee has documentation of several other instances where logg- ing roads and clearcuts in the wa- tersheds have caused water quali- ty-reducing soil and organic mat- ter to enter watercourses. More problems can be expected as the logging continues. We have no doubt that a major reason that we may have to be taxed half a billion dollars for a water filtration system is that water quality-reducing soil erosion has been accelerated by logging road construction and by clearcut logging. Dr. Colin O'Loughlin in his 1972 UBC Forestry Department PhD thesis corroborated this when he found that logging in the Seymour and Capilano Watershed FHL VOICE OF MONTH AND WEST WARCOUVLE + FeNDAY Nerth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualited under Schedule 111, Paragraph fi of the Excise Tax Act, ts published each Wednesauy, Fiday and Sunday by North Shore Five Press Ltd and distnbuted to every door on the Narth Mail Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions North and West Vancouver. $25 per year Mailing rates avaiable on request Submussions are accept responsibility tor Shore. Second Crass welcome tut we cannot unsokcited maternal including Manuscripts and pictures 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2li4 §9,170 (average, Wednesday Friday & Sunday) which should be accompanied by 4 Stamped. uddtessed envelope SDA DIVISION Entire contents © 1990 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved Display Acvertising Classitied Advertising Newsroom Distribution Subscriptions was resulting in AT LEAST a 113 per cent increase in soil erosion. Since 1972, over 14 square kilometres have been clearcut in Greater Vancouver’s watersheds, producing an unknown boost to the damage documented by Dr. O'Loughlin. When is the GVRD going to come to its senses and stop the logging and roadbuilding pro- grams that are increasing the degradation of our water supply? Why not try suspending logging and roadbuilding for five years to see if the horrendous expense of water filtration can be avoided? Mark Warcing Director Western Canada Wilderness Committee Vancouver 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 MEMBER North Shore owned and managed as . W hnat’s-his-name cart count on too many votes! WHAT'S IN a name for civic election candidates? Bad news, it seems, for first-timers whose names don’t start with one of the first nine letters. So says a longtime expert on local government. His theory is based on the alphabetical listing on the voting slip where you mark your Xs. “When voters don’t know can- didates, they begin from the top and then run out of names,” declares Derrick Humphreys — who maybe got going that way himself but didn’t have to depend on his ‘*H’’ for long. After 13 years as a North Van and later West Van alderman, he won eight more years as West Van's mayor. Much as this name theory may shock champions of our demo- cratic system, recent North Shore election results lend it more than a little support. Last time (1987) in North Van City the four out of six elected aidermen who topped the poll all had names beginning with ‘*B’’ or “D,”* two of them incumbents and two outside challengers. The other couple (‘*M"’ and ‘‘S’’) were both quite widely known — one an earlier candidate, the second a senior municipal manager. The 1988 North Van District and West Van elections brought even more striking evidence. In the District, five out of the six poll-topping aldermanic names started with ‘*B” to ‘'G,”’ the sixth ((‘R’’) being a sitting council member. Hardly surprisingly the West Van poll was headed by Mark Sager, already a 10-year civic of- fice veteran and this year the front-runner for mayor. Aside from that, the five next highest aldermanic vote-scorers on elec- tion night were all in the ‘‘B’’ to ““D" range — although the low man, Barrie Clark, was !ater bumped by Carol Ann Stevcolds on a recount. Meanwhile, a “C,”’ two ‘‘Fs”’ and an ‘“*H”’ made up four of the five elected West Van school trustees in 1988. North Van’s trustees were all returned by ac- clamation last time, though even here it may be worth noting that six of the sever were in the “B"’ to “‘M’’ bracket. The nictto? if widely enough known in the community, even a Zygowski can win. Otherwise, Js to Zs must go flat out just to make their monikers memorable. If they’re respected too, all the better. But good deeds alone won’t save you on polling day if only your mother recognizes you on the ballot form! ON THE HUSTINGS: Ladies tike Pam Clark, Jean Ferguson and Barbara Howard never give the finger — but congrats anyway to NVD challenger Pau! Turner ... E-word custing the D-word. a HITHER AND YON those three West Van school trustees for joining aldermanic candidate Lilian Thiersch in politely telling the self-serving kingmakers called Citizens for Good Government to get lost. Refusing to be sponsored by that flawed body, the four will cam- paign on their own merits, which are impressive ... Even the CGG couldn’t avoid picking SOME sound West Van candidates last week but their process, made even worse this time by withholding the vote counts, insults the REAL, Nov. 17 voters ... The D-word is out, the E-word IN. Fighting de- velopers over golf courses, monster houses, Lynn Canyon Park and polluted city streams puts the environment out front among the big election issues from Horseshoe Bay to Deep Cove ... And from two readers last week, a new badge-of-honor. ‘‘Don’t call some candidates MAVERICKS,” they urged. ‘‘It makes people vote for them.”” SIGN-OFF: North Van Chamber of Commerce holds its ‘‘Business After Business’’ networking social Thursday, Nov. 8, 5-7:30 p.m. at the North Shore Winter Club ... Afterwards, drop by North Van City Hall for the 7:30-9 p.m. wine-’n-snacks opening of nature artist Gunter Wissmeyer's re- markable show ... And have fun noon to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10, at West Van Library’s 40th birthday party — with singers, refreshments, cake-cutting, awards, readings and kids’ pup- pets. eoe WRIGHT OR WRONG: Discus- sion is light without heat — argu- ing the exact reverse. WV Trustee Jean Ferguson ... to the CGG, a polite ‘‘get lost!”