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News Viewpoint.

Worthwhile trip

Pe Bill Bennett rates at least a B-plus

grade for his sales visit last week to
= California, even though the short term
results are not very tangible.

He left with iittle hope of winning Toyota’s
new. Canadian automobile plant for B.C.,
though he gave ft his best shot. It’s unlikely that
'}| ANYBODY could ture that project away from

the dominant Ontario-Quebec market area
where it will almost certainly be located.

He made definite progress towards long term
hydro-electric sales, predicated on the building
of the Site C dam on the Peace and a deal with
the Bonneville Power Administration for
transmission facilities.

True, this project would create few long term
jebs, once the dam was constructed. But its
potential as a major new source of export ear-
nings for the province shouldn’t be discounted

_ in light of the uncertainties clouding the future
of B.C.’s lumber exports.

OF more immediate value was the eye-opener
the Premier got about the average Californian’s
ignorance of Expo’ 86 — which is depending
on the Golden State fora major contribution
to the world fair’s hoped-for 15 million visitors.

For that purpose a California Pavilion at Ex-

° ‘po is seen as vital and he won support from
~" a number of business leaders for funding one.
’ This week, none too soon, he’ be pressing Ex-
- po boss Jimmy Pattison to shift publicity and

promotion in the Californian market into top
’ gear without delay.

Overail, Mr. Bennett seems to have made a

. good personal i impression everywhere he went.

That alone should rub off favorably on B.C.
: in our present tricky trade relationship with the
U.S. It was-a worthwhile trip.

Job wanted

wo obvious results of the firing of.
. Fisheries Minister John Fraser over the

tainted tuna scandal are that Ottawa

needs a new fiskeries minister and B.C. needs

’ @ replacement cabinet minister. The North

Shore has a couple of worthy applicants for the

job, Mr. Mulroney, and you can rest assured

_ that neither veteran Chuck Cook nor whiz-girl

Mary Collins would ever be caught peddling
stinking fish!

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North Shore News, founded ir 1969 as an independent suburban
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Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday. Friday and Sunday by
North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the Norih
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Member of the B.C. Press Council

56,245 (average, Wednesday

SDA OWVISION Friday & Sunday)

6 - Wednesday, September 25, 1985 - Norih Shore News

time

ONLY SEVEN MORE WEEKS before half our
local politicians and those who yearn to replace

them face ithe moment of truth again at.

November’s council elections.

This year the spotlight is
focused firmly on North Van
City where’ Mayor Jack
Loucks and his entire six-
alderman team end_ their
current two-year term.

In theory, dependent on

_ how many of them run for

re-election against how many
outside challengers, City
voters could wind up with
seven completely new faces

in charge of their affairs un- |

til November 1987,

In practice, such a
scenario is highly unlikely.
There’s no evidence that the
incumbents, as a group, are
THAT unpopular, though
individual upsets are possi-
ble.

By comparison, West Van
will be a sedate place on
polling night, with just three
one-year aldermanic seats up
for grabs. And in North Van
District, which changed in
1984 to the two-year system,
there’s no council election at
all.

_In most municipal contests
the big problem for
challengers is a lack of burn-

ing issues affecting the whole
community, as opposed to
neighborhood issues impor-
tant only to minorities.

In general, North Shore
voters tend to be reasonably
content with city hall’s per-
formance. Water flows.
Drains work. Garbage is col-
lected. Potholes get mended.
Firefighters and police are
alert. And nobody knows,
anyway, how to cut taxes
without cutting services.

Nevertheless, hope springs
eternal among the outsiders
looking in. Hence, a brand
new North Van City ‘‘op-
position party’’ called the
Community Electors
Association, launched last
week,

Its membership (numbers
unstated) is ‘‘concerned over
the performance of the pre-
sent council’, It promises the
community ‘‘a real choice’
by supporting ‘‘progressive
candidates’? and plans a
public endorsation meeting
next month.

While typically vague for
the moment on specifics, the

or servants.

y
Noel Wright
a

CEA at least scores full
marks for political honesty.
It makes no bones about its
“moral’’ kinship with the
NDP — with the left-leaning
Citizens Association for

Responsible Education’

(CARE) which swept last
year’s school board election.

In West Van the three up-
coming aldermanic terms are

. for one year only because, in

1986, the municipality swit-
ches to biennial elections.

Me The. defending . incumbents

— Dave Finlay, Diana Hut-
chinson- and Gordon
Rowntree. -~ have already
been retu: ied at one or more
earlier elections. And this
time they won’t even have to
_worry about the West Van
Electors Association.

That well-meaning but
boneheaded handful of
self-appointed candidate-
crowners, which muddied

West Van’s electoral ‘waters

for over a decade, seems to
have finally self-destructed.
It held no annual meeting
this year and: 1984 president.
Fred Van Aggelen, privately
unhappy with the group's
direction from the start, in=
timates that it’s now dead in
the water. ;

Meanwhile, West Van;
one of the only two Lower.
Mainland communities that
still bans Sunday shopping,
also holds its second refer-
endum on the issue. this
November — watched by
white-knuckled Park Royal
executives.

So get your eyes, ears and
ballpcints ready in the City
and in Tiddlycove.. tt’s hir-

ing time once more for your:

public servants!

LETTER OF THE DAY

Don’t risk P&T ‘Nanaimo’

Dear Editor:

Your September 15
editorial entitled ‘‘Not their
job’? misses the point | made
at council. The factor you
seem to neglect in the debate
over a Park & Tilford shop-
ping mall complex is namely
that the land is now zoned
**M3 Industrial use’? but the
developer would have this
changed to ‘‘Commercial
use’’ to accommodate
360,060 sq.ft. of new and
additional shopping 1iall

space.

I believe this presents two
negative fuctors. On one
hand a significant add't'+p
to our recently mushrooming
commercial base, on the
other a significant 30%
red n in our light in-
duswsal land base.

Surely logic dictates the
impact of such a_ proposal
must be judged in the con-
text of what space is current-
ly available in our commer-
cial core already and ‘what ..
currenly pproved and
coming on stream. Within
six mo.:tths — Capilano Mall

expansion, Public Market at
Lonsdale Quay and
Capilano Village for
openers.

I stated that I felt the
market study submitted by
the developers of P & T was
faulty in that I saw no
evidence they had addressed
this state of affairs. To ig-
nore these questions is to
‘“‘wander down the ‘vad to
Nanzimo’’ — a glaring ex-
ample of excess commercial
zoning, now buckling under
the weight of its too big, too
profuse shopping areas.

Council will continue to
review the broad implica-
tions of the P & T proposal.
I see no “curious logic’* in
taking a long term view for
the good of the total com-
munity in which we live.

An open and fair assess-
ment of all of the impacts
such a major change
generates — that is Council’s
“Sob’’ in this or any other
rezoning application.

Rod Clark
Alderman
North Van City