e " AS, 7 . “ = —
ew planning cut

threatens councils

Dear Editor:

The highlight of this year’ s
UBCM convention, which I
attended as a delegate was
the introduction of the
proposed new planning act
by the Minister of Municipal
Affairs, Bill Vander Zalm.
The proposals contained in
the white paper have two
specific and separate

One of them is goad, at
least on the surface, and the
other is exceedingly bad and
reactionary.

According to the minister,
the purpose of the act is
based on the need to put
land to the best possible use.
To do this, the minister
proposes to break up the
province into 8 planning
regions, all of which have to
have a long term plas.
Municipalities, being part of
such regions, must also
come up with long term and
official community plans.

The District of North
Vancouver, for instance,
where the majority of
council members have
balked at such a plan, will
now have to produce a long
term comarunity plan

- whole

whether they like it or not.
This is a good idea, of
course, and one which I
have supported for a long
time.

The other side of the coin,
however, is that the new act
mainly benefits the
developers at the cost of
civic democracy. For one
thing, under the new act,

only people directly affected

will be allowed to speak at
public hearings. For
another, if the municipalities
do something which the
developers don’t like, the
developers can appeal to a
special’ provincial appeal
board to be appointed by the
cabinet. Although this
appeal board will not have
final powers, the minister
will have the power to
overturn any previous
decision make by municipal
councils. On top of that,
municipal plans will have to
be subordinated to the
bigger plan approved by “big
brother” in Victoria.

What makes Mr. Vander
Zalm’s new planning act
even more suspect is that it
comes on the heels of a
string of actions,

including the notorious
financial act, each and every

one of: which suggests that.

Mr. Vander Zalm’s motives
are not so much to imsure
that resources are put to the
best use but to tighten the
noose around civic
democracy even further.

If Victoria is successful is
getting away with this,
municipal democracy and
municipal councils as
democratic bodies  an-
swerable to the people will
be a thing of the past.

They will be replaced with
a few bureaucrats an-
swerable to Victoria only,
not to the people in the
community. If people have
complaints, they will be
shoved from one bureaucrat
to another with predictable
results. All of this will be
done in the name of
“husbanding our resources
and better and more ef-
ficient government”.

All in all, it is a bad deal
for the people in the com-
munity.

Ernie Crist
North Vancouver

Student worried by spill

Dear Editor:

I am a Grade 7 student at
Maplewood School. Last
Wednesday at about 12:30 I
was playing tetherball when
I smelled this strong scent of
chlorine. I wondered if it
was from the Hooker
Chemicals plant. Later that
night I learned from my
mom that there had been a
spill. Nothing was in the
papers about it.

Our school is _ located
about a block away and if
there was a serious spill we
would have no Way out.

We would not be able to
cross the bridge because
Hooker is located almost
under it. | am very worried
and I wish someone would
do something about it.

Sara Rainford
North Vancouver

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‘Bring back the lash’

Dear Editor:

We are experiencing
dreadful times when the
West Van Police Chief
admits that rioting youths
who terrorize a community
and virtually destroy a

Maybe it’s time that the
Bleeding Hearts and Do
Gooders of 10 to 20 years
ago admitted that
elimination of the paddle
and lash to these wild youths
and the like was a step
backward.

These kids know how to
push law enforcement of-
ficers to the point where it

them. Let's stop fooling
around — bring back the
paddle and lash; in the
meantime, maybe people
should arm themselves to
protect what is theirs, the
police apparently have their
hands tied to do it for you.

To hell with the
psychological effect it will
have on these G6ffenders.
Look what it will do for the
terrorized neighbours. I am
not convinced that there
wouldn't be great deterrent
effect on other would-be
offenders.

“Redneck” >
West Vancouver
(Name withheld “for fear of

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