IF SUDDENLY, unexpectedly, asked to name three good
places to live — as just happened — I would not name
London or Paris, which I have seen nor the Vale of

Kashmir, which I have not.

The choices which fling
themselves out of memory are the
Cawston Bench, just outside the _
little village of Keremeos in the
Okanagan; Morelia, capital of the
state of Michoacan in Mexico and
a patch of farmland and creek near
Chilliwack, B.C., called Rosedale.

Why these three?

Because they come to mind.
That’s why. Because for reasons
that may be unfathomable, they
have elbowed aside other places on
this earth in the memory and in the
heart.

The Cawston Bench | first saw
30 or maybe 40 years ago when I
visited an artist who had turned an
old grist mill into a studio. His
name escapes memory, which may
tell you something about the value
of the old saying that life is short
but art is long.

He was a quiet, reasonable man,
not puffed up with his own impor-
tance nor stricken with that
monstrous ailment called the ar-
tistic temperament.

One reason he lived in the old
mill was economic. He could af-
ford it. There were other reasons.

From his window he could see
the Similkameen, then as now, one
of the cleanest of British Colum-
bia’s southern rivers.

He talked about things that I
had seen but, before he spoke, had
not appreciated enough. The high,
blue sky. The grey green of
sagebrush on the dry hills and the
scree of rockslides with their
agates.

Beneath the sage, at the irriga-
tion ditch which so neatly divided
the desert from the sewn, the state-
ly orchards marched rank on rank
across the valley floor to the feet
of the mountains which held, on
their. crests, the lovely Cathedral

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I'm sorry } didn’t buy that valley
the first day I saw it. | should have
bought the nearby Okanagan
Valley too, but if I had, today I
would sell the Okanagan to ail the
Albertans who holiday there and I
would make my home beside the
Simiikameen on the Cawston
Bench.

The city of Morelia is very dif-
ferent. It is placed on a portion of
Mexico’s plateau country where
once existed a wealthy and happy
nation of Indians known to for-
eigners as Tarascans.

When the Spanish conquerors
arrived they tortured and killed
most of the Tarascans, for the
glory of God. Christians have a
tradition of doing this with people
whose ideas are not precisely the
same as theis own.

In this case, Christianity sup-
plied its own remedy, Bishop
Vasco de Quiroga. Four full cen-
turies after this extraordinary man
came here, he is still referred to as
Daddy Vasco.

He built 92 hospitals. He set
every surrounding village to work
on a different craft, so that to this
day in Michoacan you drive
through a village of lacquer ware,
then another of stone carving,
another of copper work and
another of silver.

Like Edinburgh, Morelia is a ci-
ty of stone. Solid. Enduring.

Today’s descendents of the
Tarascans are similar to the Scots.
Direct. Forceful. Companiable,
unless you affect fancy airs and

graces with them.

But Morelia enjoys what Edin-
burgh cannot — clean mountain
air, the warmth of the tropic sun
and singing instead of the
bagpipes.

Rosedale, again, is different. No
bishops, no Spanish Inquisition,
no bagpipes. It is farmland spread
beside the Hope Slough where
grow filberts, pears, cherries,
quinces, chestnuts and mulberries.

You find it by driving the old
Fraser Valley highway out of
Chilliwack and you will know
when you find it because it will be
spring. In Rosedale, it is forever
springtime.

It has special memories. Proba-
bly all places we love do.

In the late ’40s, a group of Van-
couver newspaper people formed a
work bee to erect a house on the
banks of the slough for someone
they liked. It was small, but mod-
ern for its time with electricity,
plumbing and a picture window in
the living room.

The total cash outlay was two
thousand dollars and that included
the price of the land. Nobody ever
told us how rich we were in the
days before debt and the ruination
of our currency.

A recent history book on
Rosedale by Rosedale residents
warns strangers against criticizing
anybody in their community
because the people have been there
for one century and everybody is
related to everybody else.

The book also reports that the
Rosedale Athletic Club, founded
in 1910, is now devoted exclusively
to a weekiy bingo game.

Who could fail to love such a
corner of God's earth?

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9 - Friday, May 11, 1990 ~ North Shore News

N. Van District taxpayers
to pay 7.6 per cent more

NORTH VANCOUVER District
unveiled an $80 million 1990
operating budget Monday night
that will result in an average 7.6
per cent tax increase for the
municipality's taxpayers.

By MARTIN MILLERCHIP
Contributing Writer

The operating budget will see a
9.4 per cent increase over 1989
with a tax levy increase of 10.2 per
cent.

But, because of a 2.6 per cent
increase in the municipality’s tax
base from new construction in the
district, the average increase to
district taxpayers will be 7.6 per
cent, with residential property
owners paying an average tax in-
crease of 4.4 per cent, business and
light industria! owners 10 per cent,
and major industrial properties
absorbing a 30 per cent increase.

NORTH VANCOUVER
DISTRICT-COUNCIL.

Highlights of the $36,341,000
capital budget, also released on
Monday, include the first stage of
the expansion of the municipal hall
budgeted at $4.9 million, $2 mil-
lion for the reconstruction of
Marine Drive from Capilano Road
to MacKay Avenue and for con-
Struction work on Panorama
Drive, a new $3 million computer
system for the district, extension of
a water main to the Woodlands
area at $2.1 million and Cates
Park improvements budgeted at
$362,000.

Apart from $3.3 million in grant
requests from the province, the
major source of funds for the ex-

NORTH VANCOUVER CITY BUDGET: SEE STORY, PAGE 11

According to district director of
financial services Mike Hoskins,
applying the residential tax rate of
$5.79511 per $1,000 of assessed
value. to a home assessed at
$150,000 will produce a municipal
tax bill of $869, a $37 increase over
last year.

Ald. Joan Gadsby described the
budget as ‘‘responsible and
responsive.””

And Ald. Bill Rodgers said, ‘‘If
all levels of government could con-
trol their spending to the same
level that this council has, then I
suggest that the economy of our
country would be in far better
shape.”’

The district’s operating budget
will climb $3,732,600 to
$43,462,000, of which $2,632,000
will maintain the 1989 service level
while 1, 100,000 will provide a 2.8
per cent increase in services.

The one new big-ticket item in
the operating budget is waste
recycling at a cost of $288,600.
The next largest items are the Cen-
tennial Advisory Commitiee at a
cost of $124,000 and fire, police
and bylaw enforcement at $68,000.

penditures is the cash generated by
development in the district and the
sale of district land.

It is anticipated that land sales in
i290 alone will provide $15.1 mil-
lion.

Mayor Marilyn Baker paid trib-
ute to the hard work of council
and staff in shaping ike budget.

She also had accolades for the
province.

Said Baker, ‘‘We are pleased
that the unconditional grant al-
lowance towards this municipality
has increased by 18 per cent.”

But Baker was less happy with
provisions in the recent provincial
budget for residential tax relief.

‘The super home owner grant as
it has been introduced and will ap-
ply to school taxes,’’ she said,
“will have virtually no effect in
this municipality because our
school taxes are the highest in the
province due to the, in my estima-
tion, flawed formula.’*

Ald. Ernie Crist described the 30
per cent tax increase to utilities and
major industrial properties as ‘‘a
step in the right direction.”

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