-eonsidering and which NEWS VIEWPOINT Political postures DD POLITICAL. high jinks are accompanying the annual debate over local council salary increases this year. Last month, North Vancouver City - councillors Bill: Bell and Barbara Sharp unleashed a superb political smokescreen by calling for a 25% cut in council salaries instead of the 3% increase council was the two had previously supported. ‘The proposed cut had as much chance of winning council approval 2s a call for all. council -members to meet: seven: times Ly per week instead of once. . ' But it had the noble ring of cost-cutting to it. 6. ‘ “., Council eventually got down to the real’ business. at hand, and the original motion for 2-3% increase was back on the table. -On Monday ‘night, North ‘Vancouver District. Council disregards ed ‘its formula for figuring council salary increases and approved a minimal 2% pay hike. The formula, which had been determin- ed in 1988 after much work involving citi- zens, ratepayers groups and district staff, had suggested a 2.7% increase. While disregarding the formula shaved a. further 0.7% {from council salary increases, ; ix also raised the issue of the formula’s, value and the value of the work invested in’ determining it. The ever-cantankerous Coun. Ernie Crist also complained that it was hypocritical for councillors to be call- ing for restraint while endorsing a ccn- ference attendance policy for council members that he maintains is $2,500 more than it needs to be. Discussions of money never fail to, bring out the most interesting posturing / from politicians at all levels. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK occasionally.’’ “t's one thing to go into - the community’ and. get money. It’s quite: another thing to organize Maplewood Farm. Local comic book-seller Big Pete (Peter Turcotte) of Big Pete’s and manage a project of this size. The last thisg you want is a Jot of well-meaning community volun- ‘vteers«have half.a bars fall on them.” ! A senior North § Vancouver District manager} on a proposed volunteer barn-raising project at North Vancouver District’s “Today's alternative is tomor- row’s contemporary.” Brian Watson, North Van- couver resident and vice-president of sales, marketing, promotion and publicity for Vancouver- based London Smith Discs, on alternative music. “You have to do something mean Collectibles and Comics in North Vancouver, on what might be a valuable addition to the demeanor of the new Superman. “The man who wrote ‘life begins at 40’ was 35 years wrong!’’ News Associate Editor Noel Wright, on getting married at 75. threat to free market ussia SO APRIL brings to Vancouver the summit between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Time to check the Russian scoreboard, somewhat neglected in recent months. And maybe refresh one’s mem- ory about the free world’s 1988- 199t Russian hero, Mikhail Gor- bachev (remember him?) Boris, you'll recall, is the man of action — determined to drag his country at top speed, by the scruff of its neck, into the free— market world. Mikhail, the cautious one, figured you simply can't go that fast after 70 years of tigid communist control over every last kopeck earned and spent by 280 million former Soviet citizens. Step by wary step, was the Gorbachev plan — don’t take the lid off all at once. Wrong, retorted Yeltsin. Take the lid of f immediately and throw it away. Which is how he’s been running the show for two years — after banishing Mikhail to speech- making on the western rubber- chicken circuit. And also why Boris today is in deep trouble. Ina poll last week (yes, they now have polls, too) almost 60% of Russians said life was better under communism. Moreover, one-third expected a dictatorship to return to Russiu within a year. ! Since 1991 they've been sub- jected to skyrocketing prices, soaring unemployment, vicious in- flation and rampant black- marketcering. In the West we've _ managed to tame at feast the ‘worst effects of these free-market aches and pains, dut it took us 200 years to learn. In two short ' years the Russians have had no chance to learn. They're hurting badly and last week’s message is brutally clear: “We were better fed when red.”’ Meanwhile, this coming week promises a major clash on the issue between Yeltsin and his put-the-brakes-on rival, Russian Congress Speaker Rusian Khasbulatoy. Mikhail must be wearing a sad little told-you-so smile. But the problem is far bigger than a pure- ly Russian one. The last thing the free world — itself battling a stubborn global recession and vio- lent chaos in the Balkans -— needs ° is a second October Revolution, bringing a neo-communist dic-. tatorship from Poland to the Ber- ing Sea. Especially with the new dic- tators laying the guilt for all the suffering of the masses they had ‘liberated’? squarely on the West’s ‘“‘decadent”’ free enterprise system. Next in sight, a Cold War re-run? HITHER AND YON in Vancouver, the world’s newest Summit City, Bill and Boris will have a ful! agenda. Freedom, like everything else worthwhile, has its price. And Boris, haunted by the nightmare of a rcturn to the past, is learning : the hard way how high it can be. oee : REMEMBRANCE DAYS: Granted long weekend passes, they were wedded after Sunday morning service in a Sussex, England, church and fioneymoon- ed for all of 24 hours. Early Tuesday she returned to duty as an ATS radar operator on a Lon- don anti-aircraft gunsite, while her grcom, a Royal Navy telegraphist, reported back to |. base. Days later he was at sea — not to be reunited with his bride for nine long months. So half a century later —- this Sunday,. March 7 — wish North Van’s Ron and Joan Smith, members of West Yan Legion Branch 60, happy 50th anniversary and countless | more Golden: Years to come! ... Meanwhile, many happy returns M of today to West Van’s Tom. - Wardell, at the prime of life after being born on Ron and Joan’s | wedding day ... More of the same today to West Van Alderman An- dy Danyliu ... And tomorrow, _ . March 8, happy 60th birthday to Mt. Seymour Lion Colin Pew. - WRIGHT OR WRONG: The knowledge that really counts is what you learn after you know it all. ; Distribution 986-1337 64 Subscriptions 986-1337 Ete Fax 985-3227 Administration 985-2131 4 ' MEMBER o Printed on HH 10% recycled newsprint North Shore managed Peter Speck Managing Editor . . . Timothy Renshaw Associate Editor Noel Wright Sales & Marketing Director. Linda Stewart Comptrolier Doug Foot North Shore News, founded .in 1969 as an ' independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedule 111, Paragraph Ul of the Exc.se Tax Act. is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales ‘Product Agreement No, 0087238. Mailing ‘rates available on tequest. Submissions ave welcome but we cannot accept responsibility. for unsolicitec material inctuding manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Publisher TMK VORCS GF OMT AMC Wh AT WARCOUVER: Senet eee Se : 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, aC North Vancouver, B.C. ‘ V7M 2H4 Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Ltd: All rights reserved: 1, Photo submitted THE WAY we were... bride and groom Joan and Ron Smith on Sunday, March 7, 1943. 61,562 (average circulation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday)