I'M NoT SO SURE ABOUT THIS “HORSE SHIP,” JOUN SON WOMAN ALDERMAN — COUNCILLOR FISHERMAN ~ FISHER REPAIRMAN - REPAIR SALESMAN ~ SALER | LINEMAN - LINER. | dare >i if Ag -AAGudn , JAatua / POSTMAN - POSTER GUNMAN ~ GUNNER MANUFACTURE - FACTURE MANITOBA ~ TOBA MANY — LOTS MANURE - Covig S| MANNEQey 1 wn NEWS | VIEWPOINT Cleared air HE 'PAIL of cold legislative water tossed on outdoor burning this week by West Vancouver District Council ' / is a positive move in helping clear the air 7 all over the North Shore. Following years of. wrangling, studying, assessing and waffling, council took to third reading Monday night a bylaw that will .ban .ouidoor burning in the municipality in all but the most extreme cases. Those cases would jachide properties in such areas as Eagle Island, where the disposal, of. garden wastes by any other means is virtually impossible. The pending bylaw rightly disregards overtures from such groups as Residents for.:Impreved Air Quality of West Van- couver which advocated continuing what some West Vancouverites consider to be an inherent West Vancouver right (to burn garden clippings and other yard waste rather than having jit trucked to com- posting or waste transfer facilities. Arguments against banning West .Van- couver outdoor burning ranged from the difficulty of access to local terrain to rot- ting yard waste poliuting the air neaily as much as burning | yard waste. But the real issue came down to whet has convinced most other Lower Mainland municipalities to ban outdoor burning: smoke dégrades the already abused focal urban atmosphere and degrades the en- vironment for humans and other living creatures. West Vancouver Council made the right nove in finally deciding to get rid of that smoke. NEWS QUOTES OF THE WEEK “with this. direction (we) will be reduced to living in holes in the grounds like rabbits in a warren, popping out now and again to look at our viev's.”” North Shore. resident Peter de Liefde, in debate over North Van- couver District’s recently aban- doned proposals to limit new housing, height in established ‘ neighborhoods. “You can have your lock picked in the privacy of your own home,” 1 Publisher Managing Editor . . Associate Editor Sales & Marketing Director . Comptroller Peter Speck . Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Linda Stewart Doug Foot North Vancouver” City resident Karen Ireland, on a restriction to the city’s proposed secondary suite bylaw that would require an in- ternal staircase between the two suites in a house. ‘“There are also places like this dump that used to be a restau- rant” (at 3rd and Lonsdale) and “everybody in the neighborhood would give a badge to be the first person that balldozes that, and puts anything livable on it.’’ Display Advertising 980-0511 Real Estate Advertising 985-8982 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Distribution Subscriptions 986-1337 Fax : Administration 985-2131 North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA David Schreck, on Lower Lonsdale. “We encourage people to join and participate. These guys have to walk in or drive in ¢o their neigh- borhoods. They don’t beam ix and beam out.” . North Vancouver RCMP Const. Marty Blais, on thieves and the imporiance of Block Watch pro- grams in fighting crime. 9 Printed on 10% recycied newsprint North Shore managed 986-1337 MEMBER North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualitied under Schedule 111, Paragraph I! of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and distributed to every door on the Notih Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mait Sales Product Agreement No. GO87238. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. V7M 2H4 1139 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver, B.C. ’ 61,582 (average citculation, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1993 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. ®@@o ‘“SEVERYONE TALKS about it but nobody does anything about it,’? wrote Mark Twain, referring to the weather. Today his comment could apply equally to the national debt that threatens to ruin us all. Not that quite a few patriotic folk aren’t at least TRYING. Three years ago a gung-ho On- tario realtor, Rick Arlt, set about promoting an ambitious program to pay off Canada’s debt (now nudging half a trillion dollars) and have fun doing so. | Its cornerstone was a 6/49-type lottery with 510 million jackpots and all proceeds going to deficit reduction. But there were lots of community-based fundraising projects too — everything from benefit concerts by big-name rock bands to giant community garage sales. I’ve heard no more from Rick since 1991, so one suspects his grand scheme got bogged down in bureaucratic sand, Meanwhile, below the border, people are also attempting to do their bit about Uncle Sam's $4.2 trillion sea of red ink. A recent news item reports that bake sales and similar fundraising projects to help the U.S. treasury are now being orga- nized in communities around America. . - A North Dakota teen chipped in $1,000 he earned selling a gizmo to water trees: Some Ohio elemen- tary students sent Washington $278.50 raised peddling Bill Brownies and Oval Office Oatmeal. In North Carolina 523 Quakers gave a buck each toward federal deficit reduction. Eskimo Pie Corp. is sending the govern- ment five cents for every box of ice-cream snacks sold between March 8 and April 4. But as heartwarming as all this sounds, the bad news is that it would take countless milleniums for voluntary donors alone to dig us out of the glue. In Washington they set up a special account for such gifts back in 1961. Over 32 years it has netted just $24.4 mil- -. lion. With that average annual dona- tion of $762,500 it would take , some 5.5 million years to pay off the currei.t U.S. debt and about the same for Canada. Our own debt is onJy one-tenth the size but so is our population — so Ottawa might be lucky to receive $76,250 a year.” The United Way of Greater Vancouver raises around 160 times that amount every fall. Mean- while, everyone agrees that debt reduction is now the nation’s No. | priority. So why the reluc- tance to tackle it in the same way every major charity tackles its fi- nancial needs? One reason, of course, is that HITHER AND YON we have a problem thinking of government as a deserving ‘‘chari- ty.”’ To us it’s simply a spend- thrift bum that squanders and wastes the billions we already give it. ps Secondly, you protest, the extra |. - donations needed are impossible. Just to stop Canada's haif- 7 trillion-dollar debt from growing — any bigger — without paying, ‘off: one cent — would require $1, 250, : EACH YEAR from every man, ; ’ woman, child and newborn babe’ in the land, Get real! But get real we may soon:have. to in quite another sense; More and more of our national debt i is now owed to foreigners. Ifour. credit rating drops — causing this source of cash to dry up <= our,” sick, aged, jobless and destitute will be in deep trouble immediate- ly. fo That’s the reality of living far * beyond our means for 22 years, a reality with which bake sales and benefit concerts are quite unable’ to cope. Only tough tiew taxes, harsh cuts in services or some nas- ty mix of both now have any chance of dealing : with it... So why not just keep on bor- ; rowing and hope for the best? . ‘Because, as Gordon Gibson Jr. ™ warns: ‘If you don’t deal with reality, reality evertuaily deals with you.’’ Enjoy the rest of the weekend! | SCRATCHPAD: “‘Of the North Shore’? was added to the official title of the Coho Festival Society at its March 4 a.g.m. which saw president Bill Soprovich re-elected for a second term, together with past-president Bil! Chapman, honorary president Mike Nicell, veepee Roger Cayford, secretary - Per Danielsen and new treasurer Art Beck. Coho Festival Sunday this year is set for Sept. 11... Treasure-hunters may still be in time to catch today’s (Sunday) Variety Sale 11:30 a.m. to 2:30. p.m. at- West Van Rec Centre ... Congrats to North Van’s Mansur Lalani, recipient of the Life Un- derwrilers Association’s National Quality Award for the 12th year ... And happy 40th birthday Tuesday, March 23, to Mount — Seymour Lion Ken Poon. ‘ | / WRIGHT OK WRONG: Almost BILL SOPROVICH... president re-elected. Cohofest’ all our faults are more pardonable than the ways we dream up to hide them.