aay la oa By (eta RS NVC residents to City adopts new licence plate registry program RESIDENTS exempt from city parking restrictions on their block will have to pay to register their vehicles under a new North Van- couver City parking en- forcement policy adopted Monday night by council. The city’s bylaw enfercement clerks will now set up a licence plate registry to register resident vehicles. The plan was roundly criticized by residents at a May 13 meeting because of what the residents complained were the high fees proposed for registering their licence plates. But rates under the new plan will be lower than thase proposed at the May 13 policy com.iitee meeting. Bylaw enforcement officer Bar- bara Warrick had recommended a $20 annual fee, but council adopted her revised fee schedule of a $20 initial set-up charge and a $10 annual renewal fee for vehi- cles that have no ownership in- formation changes during the year. Residents objected to the fees at the committee meeting. Many junk mail. And Canada Post has now launched an investigation into the incident. “Pye never seen a panel left open before. I was in shock when I saw it,” said Doug Robertshaw, who found his mail box panel open on May 15. “If I called Canada Post everytime I was upset, they’d sive me a pat on the back because they don’t want any- body to know what’s going on." He added that he _ has become increasingly frustrated with receiving a constant flood DOUG ROBERTSHAW holds up the day’s delivery of ad mail which filled up his apartment mail box. He also found the mail By Pamela Lang Contributing Writer argued that they shouldn't have to pay anything to be allowed to park on their own street. Only vehicles with registered licence plates will be permitted to ignore parking regulations, but only if they are parked on their own Street, and only if that street has been designated us a resi- dent-exempt block. But, while the licence plate reg- istry guarantees that tickets issued to exempt residents will be cancelled, there remains no guar- aniee that residents will be able to find parking spaces on their own street. The system currently used re- quires bylaw enforcement staff to check licence plates against ICBC files, but Warrick said the in- surance corporation’s entry system leads to many errors. Of 2,358 tickets cancelled from December 1989 to November 1990, 972 were cancelled manually after residents called to complain about their parking ticket, she said. Some of the cancellations, she pay for parking NORTH VANCOUVER CITY COUNCIL added. came only after a sum- mons had been issued for a court appearance on the ticket. “City staff are frequently sub- ject to a great deal of abuse ... from resident-exempt citizens who refuse to co-operate and supply proof of their address,’” she said. “This is causing frustration for residents and stress on staff.” “*Extensive research’’ on a variety of registration methods convinced bylaw enforcement staff that the licence plate registry will be the most effective, Warrick said. The new resident-exempt park- ing policy adopted by city council Monday states that any city block can be declared resident-exempt if: eit has a shortfall of on-street parking spaces; ethere is insufficient parking; two-thirds of the street’s resi- dences agree; e and city staff approves the resi- dent-exempt designation. The original policy endorsed by the city’s policy committee called for approval by two-thirds of the residents, but the policy was reworded to require the approve! of two-thirds of the residences, with one vote allotted each resi- off-street _ dence. Friday, May 31, 1991 ~ North Shore News - 3 NEWS photo Terry Peters A MAY 24 fire resulted in an estimated $120,000 worth of damage to a home located at 1007 West Keith Rd. North Van- couver City firefighters were called in just after 10 a.m. Ac- cording to a fire investigator, the fire started atter an aerosol can containing flammable material was inadvertently punc- tured by a nail protruding from a wall. The contents spilled in- to a laundry room and were ignited by the gas -ilot light of a clothes dryer. A minor explosion caused fire damage to the basement of the home and smoke and heat damage to the rest of the structure. Quick action by firefighters saved the house from tota! destruction. Junk mail deluge outrages man A NORTH Vancouver man has taken aim at the Canada Post Corp. after he found the panel to his apartment mail box left wide open and plugged with By Michael Becker and Surj Rattan Robertson said there were at least nine pieces of ad mail stuffed into his mail box the day he found the panel left open. And he said he is afraid he will lose his personal mail in the junk mail deluge. “*That’s the worst I’ve seen yet. I don’t like to lose an im- portant letter because of this weal i NEWS photo Terry aters Dox left wide open. Canada Post Corp. is investigating. of advertising flyers through the mail. stuff going in there,’’ Robert- shaw said. ‘It’s (his mail box) not that big, it’s like a glorified large pencil box or a2 kid’s lunch box. How the hell can you put all that bloody junk mail in there and then look after our personal mail too?”’ Robertshaw said the only mail that should go into his mail box should be items that have his name on them. Canada Post spokesman Il- ona Beiks said that she has no idea why the mail box panel was left open. The only person who would have a key to the panel, she said, would be the apartment’s letter carrier. She added that an investiga- tion into the incident has been launched and the zone manager of the North Vancouver post office will be questioned. “Is sounds like it was an un- fortunate incident. If the panel was left open then it could have been left open by the let- ter carrier or the tenant,”’ said Beiks. ‘‘The letter carriers have strict requirements to lock the panel.’’ She also dismissed Robert- shaw’s fears that his personal mail would be lost in the vol- umes of ad mail. But she con- ceded that Canada Post receives regular ad mail com- plaints. ‘‘& lot of people do com- plain about it, but a lot of people also want it to do com- parison shopping. It’s like the flyers that are stuffed into newspapers,’’ Beiks said. ‘We deliver ad mail, but we will also certainly deliver personal mail.’’ In a recent News telephone survey, 67.2% of respondents said they preferred to receive flyers in the News; only 4.3% said they preferred to receive flyers in the mail. 2B or not 2B: Census takers tackle N. Shore 2B OR not 2B, that is the question on June 4. By Michael Becker News Reporter For on that day — Census Day —- more than 150,000 North Shore residents will mail to Statistics Canada personal information about themselves contained in ei- ther the nine-question 2A ques- tionnaire or the 53-question 2B form, One in five households will receive the longer questionnaire. Where do you live? How much do you earn? What is your religion? As many as 150 federal census representatives and commissioners are now at work in North and West Vancouver gathering the an- swers needed for a statistical look at the economic, social and demographic fibre of the com- munity. Nationally, more than 10 mil- lion households and over 250,000 farms located in an area of more than 9.4 million square miles will be surveyed for the population and agriculture census, a Cana- dian exercise undertaken every five years. How many babies have you had? What is your schooling? Are you a registered Indian? North Vancouver census area manager Jack Hawkins said it is important that loca! residents fill out their census forms. “We want to really encourage everyone to fill in a form, because everyone benefits if they do,’’ he said. ‘lf you don’t get everyone counted, then the municipality itself or the city won't get the money in transfer payments they would like to get. For each person counted it amounts to $600 that the municipality would get in transfer payment from the senior government.”’ But with the carrot comes the stick, The Statistics Act stipulates that every Canadian household must participate in the census. One North Vancouver woman received the longer census form earlier this week. The woman who delivered it is a neighbor. Their husbands work together. The recipient of the questionnaire feit uncomfortable with the fact that her neighbor would read a detail- ed personal account of her fi- nances. The distressed census partici- pant called the Telephone Assistance Service (666-1991) and resolved her dilemma. The census forms require the naming of names. But said Hawkins, ‘‘After forms are dropped in the mail they go back to the census repre- sentative who then will do an edit of them to see that all the man- datory questions have been an- swered. Ari if there is any clarification necessary, they would then get back to the individual. That’s really the only reason we take the individual’s name at the time that we drop them off. *‘When the data is fed into the data bank, the only thing that goes in is numbers. There’s no address, no name at all,’’ he add- ed. A census representative is re- quired to carry an identification card featuring the ‘‘rising maple leaf?’ census logo as well as the signatures of the chief statistician of Canada and a census commis- sioner. Revenue Canada, the Supreme Court and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service do not have access to individual census infor- mation, according to Statistics Canada.