G - Sunday, April 5, 1987 - North Shore News

THE VOICE O28 MONTH ANT WEST VANCE VE
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north shore...

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1139 Lonsdale Avo.

North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4

Pater Speck

Noet Wright
Barrett Fisher
Linda Stewart

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1967 North Shore
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he Ambleside Park bandshell project, which comes

before West Van council Monday (April 6), is

being strongly opposed by the Ambleside & Dun-
darave Ratepayers Association. Unfortunately, the inac-
curacy of some of their claims has generated more heat
than light.

In particular, their claim that the park would be in-
vaded by ‘74,000 sq.ft. of commercial development” is
plain nonsense. The two proposed new buildings (stage
complex and teahduse) total 5,800 sq.ft, All the rest of
the 74,000 sq.ft..area would be landscaped.

The sole ‘commercial’ item is the teabouse, which
might well be operated by the present snackbar conces-
sionaire. The bandshell, with free seating for 200 (NOT |
400), is clearly non-commercial.

The project is on municipal property, unaffected by
indian rights to other areas of the park. No extra park-
ing is deemed necessary. Estimated cost is $680,000 —
part of which is expected to be available as a provincial
grant.

The claim that the nature of the park would be totally
changed also seems exaggerated, since the new buildings
would occupy Jess than 8 per cent of the relatively small
area involved. In any case, it’s not known how many park-
users might actually WELCOME more free entertainment
there. :

The full-scale arts centre planned eventually for the Rec
Cenire complex is a quite separate issue. Its $5 million
price tag needs a referendum to find out if or when West
Van taxpayers are ready to foot that bill. That appears

5B.287 Caverage Medea day Py

Criday 4% Seana
Le a 2 ETT

unlikely tc happen in the immediate future.
Meanwhile, the bandshell should be debated purely on

its merits — free. from emotion and

information.

inaccurate

Noel Wright

SUSAN HEWITT...engineering

beats home ec. !
i

T

@ Sunday brunch ®

NEED CASH FAST for a good
cause? West Van’s Ron Stokes is the
man to talk to about how to.

He’s the Seastrand apartment resi-
dent introduced in this column last
Sunday who, with his strata council
colleagues, threw a tea-’n-sherry par-
ty Wednesday to launch their

_ Japanese garden project for beauti-
fying the 24th St. entrance to the
Scawalk. It worked. Magnificently.

The plentiful refreshments lived

_up to their billing. Nearly 100
authentic West Van types plus
former parks boss Heinz Berger and
a brace of aldermen (Alex Broken-
shire and Pat Boname) showed up to
sip, munch and socialize. A little
later Mayor Don Lanskail arrived
and said lots of nice things about
Seastrand dwellers. Then irrepressi-
ble Ron took over, mounting a chair
and getting straight to the point. Still
needed to complete the project (into
which Seastranders had already put
some $900) was a further $670 in
cash or kind for plants, topsoil, labor
and truck hire. Who’ll donate wha‘?

LETTER OF THE DAY

Foul language
is sole tool

of Doug-haters

. sioners Association,

NEWS photo Mike Wake

WORLD'S BIGGEST T-SHIRT — and with a’ donation for Rick Hansen you got to sign it, too...fundraisers
Wednesday at Park Royal were West Van ambulance paramedics Gordon Marshall (holding ‘‘Medic Mouse”’

mascot) and Lance Bright.

. /
RON STOKES IN ACTION...bringing in the cash at 10-second intervals. )

t
Raise your hands, please!

Mining engineer Ron could have i
been Christie’s greatest-ever auc-'
tioneer. Hands shot up at 10-second
intervals. Community spirit positive-
ly oozed. We left him happily grasp-
ing a thick wad of bills and cheques,
the $670-worth of vegetation and ser-
vices assured within 10 minutes.

Only in Tiddlycove, you say?

wee

“OVERWHELMED” with en-
quiries is the word from Ron Davie,
North Van rep of the British Pen-
since we
reported earlier this year on the
BPA’s campaign to ensure ex-Brits .
in Canada get their U.K. pension en-
titlements — of which many are ap-
parently unaware. Now, Ron urges
all BPs to write pronto to their
friends, relatives and former MPs in
Britain asking them to boost a mo-

Dear Editor:

Doug Collins seems to be upset-
ting a number of your readers with
articles on South Africa, to judge
from the mail you have been
publishing.

Unfortunately, none of the writers
who rail at his views seem to be able
to say anything that detracts from
the points he makes. The best they
can do is call him names, From two
anti-Collins letters on February 27,
I’ve taken the following: ‘‘senseless,
hate mongering trash’; ‘‘straight
from his toilet bowl’’; ‘pickling his
brains’; ‘‘bigot foaming at the
mouth’’“‘racist filth he excretes’’;
“diseased mentality’; ‘ignorance,
insecurity and inferiority’; “Hitler

‘ tion currently before the U.K. House

of Commons which seeks indexing
of pensions for eligible Canadian
residents (such pensions now being
frozen at the date of emigrating to
Canada). For help in going about it
call Ron at 929-3930 after 6 p.m.

ok he

SCRATCHPAD: Wednesday
brought a special anniversary for the
dean of public relations in B.C.,
West Van’s Dean Miller. He
celebrated his 40th year as a PR con-
sultant and still has his very first
client, the B.C. & Yukon Communi-
ty Newspapers Association — now
One among a good many others ...
Argyle grad Susan Hewitt, who
hated being pushed into home ec. in
Grade 8 while the boys went to in-
dustrial ed. classes, has made her
point. The SFU engineering science
student placed third in her category

railing and gibbering’’; ‘‘racism’’;
“revulsion’’; ‘‘promotion of hatred
and prejudice’; ‘‘deport Collins’;
and so on. Colorful perhaps, but
hardly reasoned responses.

All Collins does is point out the
hypocrisy of our government’s posi-
tion on South Africa. He asks why
Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney con-
tinue to support a communist back-
ed terrorist organization that is kill-
ing thousands of blacks (anyone who
disagrees with them). At the same
time they fail to listen to moderates
like Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who
speaks for the largest tribal group in
the country.

Collins also emphasizes the point
that most of the blacks (85 per cent

be

NEWS Photos Noe! Wright

last month in the nationwide Cana-
dian Engineering Competition held
in Edmonton ... Belated birthday
greetings to the North Shore Multi-
ple Sclerosis Support Group which
recently celebrated its seventh an-
niversary with a lunch hour party
and birthday cake at Highland
United Church ~ where they meet
every fourth Wednesday at 12 noon
(call Ron Briggs, 987-3446, for info.)
And Bonnie Murray, 985-0832, can
tell you about the evening support
group which gets together every third
Tuesday at 7 in L.G. ... Meanwhile,
the Red Door is being slammed shut.
Pat McLain (255-8514) asks any
North Shore renters or former
renters who feel indebted to the Van-
couver Rental Aid Society for past
help in finding accommodation to
protest the cutting off of all further
funding for the agency by calling
Vancouver City Mayor Gordon
Campbell at 873-7621.

of those asked) oppose sanctions,
recognizing that they are the ones
who will get hurt. If the so-called
‘anti-apartheid’? people over here
were really interested in the blacks,
and the views of the majority, they
should find something else to pro-
test. Obviously, they are either in-
capable of understanding the situa-
tion, or they are anxious to see South
Africa become another Uganda or
Tanzania.

Collins’ critics obviously cannot
respond reasonably and logically to
his views, so they resort to hate and
foul language. Surely they can do
better than that?

Stephen A. Hynes
West Vancouver