6 — Friday, April 9, 1999 — North Shore News Tax toll @s sometimes almost reassuring to hear that more public money will be spent on this or that — that is, when one hears that another level of government will, for example, be helping to pay a “grant” from the federal government that is matched by a “grant” from the provincial gov- ernment that flows down to the local level. It’s almost reassuring. Bvc it’s insane to be reassured. The slop of tax money back and forth in the bucket of various govern- mental ministries disguises one indis- putable fact: it’s your money, no mat- ter what level of government is dis- pensing it. There is only cne taxpayer, and it’s you. And you are getting a royal hos- ing at every level. Income taxes, profit taxes, sales north shore news VIEWPOINT taxes, permits, licences, photo radar — you name it, there is a hand out to grab much of what you make and spend. And, of course, there is the corporate capital tax, in case you are neither earning nor spending. All the talk about federal-provin- cial cost-sharing, grants from this level of government or that, conces- sions by one level of government to another — it’s all flim flam. There are generations of bureaucrats operating at all levels of government — munici- pal, regional (GVRD), provincial and federal — and thousands of bodies on each government payroll. You the taxpayer are paying for that, at every level. As King Claudius observed in Hamlet: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battal- ions.” mailbox Golf course costs need to be reduced Dear Editor: Last Monday I presented a proposal for a $42 green fee for Northlands Municipal Golf Course to district council. This fee is 14% higher then Burnaby’s Riverway Municipal Course and 38% higher then Vancouver's three refurbished courses. In order to reach this fee, the North Shore Public Golf Course Society has presented a number of ways (some endorsed by the separate Northlands Golf Course Advisory Committee) to reduce expenses to ensure the course reflects the society’s constitution that the course break even and provide affordable golf. At the council meeting some councillors called our ideas “repulsive” and unbelievable.” hese ideas came from a society who identified Northlands as a pol course site, worked 15 years in count- less mectings to help plan the course and the neighborhood and helped choose the golf course and clubhouse architect: all culminating in an award last year to Northlands as the second best new course in Canada as well as recognition by the North Shore News. How can anyone suggest the society after a 15-year struggle would present any proposal that would reduce the quality of the golf course? In fact, the district is not prepared to reduce its course expenses, consider the Heritage fund repayment as a loan rather then an investment or look at other less expensive ways of administrating the course. Instead, they are considering implementing a green fee that is 40% higher than Vancouver’s municipal courses. The society is committed to maintaining a quality course that provides a small surplus to the district treasury and is affordable, : "We hope the district is also so committed. Richard Simpson, President . North Shore Public Golf Course Society _ Horth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an KOSOVO CRISIS: — Sa 1 re ee Vase lag gee GROUND TROOPS INAL PHASE ———— oivice’s Police actions need explanation HOLD everything: I trust Mayor Patricia Boname, in her role as head of the West Vancouver Police Commission, Jost no time burning up the paone line to Police Chief Grant Churchill following News reporter Anna Marie D’Angelo’s lurid cops-and-unlikely- “robbers” story last Sunday. On the face of it, this is a fantastic and inexcus- able case of police abuse of power. Yes, they had a call from a neighbor who saw two teenage boys trying to get into an apartment, where in fact one of them lived and had been locked out. But after that? The mother of one of them picks them up. Next thing, police surround her Land Rover. Draw guns. Shout the classic “Get your hands up!” Roust out everyone, including mom and another son, aged fire. By then, didn’t their cop smarts tell thera that this was a highly unlikely bunch of crooks? Nope, when mom asks what it's all about, one cop allegedly points his gun at her. Orders: “Don’t move.” The five-year- old is terrified, crying. Mom daren’t com- fort him. The teenagers are handcuffed. When the police are apparently satisfied that the one youth was trying to get in to his own home, mom tells D'Angelo that “not one of them would look at me.” The straight-faced police explanation later: “We have a serious problem with criminals of all ages breaking into homes and brutally assaulting people in the Lower Mainland.” Yeah. Around 4 p.m., broad daylight, with a mom cast as the driver of the get- away car in an up-market vehicle costing a gazillion dollars, accompanied by a five- year-old doubtless learning the tricks of the criminal trade at mom’s knee. Quick, Watson, the needle. As of this writing, the mom, Beverley Matishak, who is 39, has made a formal com- plaint and still. hasn’r received an apology. If the police come up with a valid explanation, I won’t hesitate to with- draw the foregoing. Otherwise, Boname and Churchill better “solve” this case, pronto, and visibly, if the WV police — who have good reason to have Icarned something by now about excessive force and community relations — are to maintain respect and public confidence. Meanwhile, in Ottawa, the government is going along with an actual undeclared war, unsanctioned by Parliament, and — I predict —- unsupported by citizens if the days and wecks turn into months, and/or if it takes a turn for the worse. The previously esteemed organization, NATO, which played such a decisive role in the collapse of Moscow’s Warsaw Pact Communist bloc, seems to have totally lost its senses and its moral compass in its assault on Yugoslavia. It is playing with fire. Its bombs are almost certainly sowing the seeds cf enduring bitterness. It is running a mili- tary strategy that is likely to be ineffective if it keeps to the air, and disastrous if it goes to the ground. Its political goal — somehow, to give. Yugoslavia’s ethnic Albanians their own space in a semi- autonomous Kosovo province but not actual independence — would test the wis- dom of a Solomon. The very idea of this enormous gamblc being largely in the hands of Bill Clinton, a personal military wimp whose only expe- rience of war was to dodge it and protest it, is cnough to freeze the blood. Not much better can be said of our men in Ottawa who hitched themselves to the Clinton-Tony Blair-NATO chariot. Lloyd Axworthy, our Nobel Peace Prize-courting dove, has obediently glued on the feathers of 2 hawk — crippling his credibility as both. In Art Eggleton we have yet another who-can-we-give-this-low-status-job-to defence minister. He’s firmly in the decades-old Liberal traditisn — neither experienced in, nor sympathetic toward, military matters. . At least Canauz has a potential front- line soldier in the person ofthe prime min- - ister. Based on_ his civiliari experience, Commando Chretien could go over the top and quietly throttle the enemy with the best of WWII soldiers. Now we have Axworthy opening Canada’s doors to 5,000 Albanian refugees. One hand bombs. The other hand heals, This is loony-cunes stuff. Q00Q Have no fear, John Clark, West Vancouver Chamber of Commerce — I'll deal with your March 31 letter to the edi- tor next week. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR independem suburban newspaper and qualttied undet Schedule 111, Paragraph 11% of the Estise Tan Act. is published each Wednesday, Feiday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributed to every door on the North ‘Sates Product Agreement Ho. 0087238. Mading rates available on request, Letters must include your name, full address & telephone quniver. . 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