6 - North Shore News ~ Friday, September 1, 2G00

Her

UST when you think that civi-

lized behaviour is a thing of the

distant past along come the
croes.

On Tuesday a 15-year-old West
Vancouver girl was struck by a car
while attempting to walk across
Marine Drive at Pemberton. Some
employees at Subaru Specialty Motor
Cars acted fast.

Lot manager Chris de Beaupre wit-
nessed the accident and called 9-1-1.
Mechanic Steve Ronan and salesman
Thi Heng brought a jack to the scene
and lifted the car.

Their action mitigated the degree
of the teen’s injuries according to
Noth Vanccuver RCMP.

_ , On Wednesday, a man witnessed a
robbery at the Lynn Valley
Scotiabank. He followed the escaping

ic actic

an accurate description of the suspect
to police via cellphone.

On Aug. 1, 12-year-old Andrea
Francis was taking a sailing lesson at
West Vancouver Yacht Club (WVYC)
when her Laser I] boat turned upside
down, trapping her beneath the hull.
Her instructor, 22-year-old Jennifer
Walker, who was following in a staff
boat, dove into the water and pulled
her from the rigging. Walker saved a
young life.

The essence of heroism is an alle-
giance to the good in the face of any
possible opposition.

The hero is a doer. Heroism
requires application of knowledge
and it also requires practical steps
taken in pursuit of one’s values.

We are proud to know that great
people —heroes — are walking.
among us. '

* QNE OF THE ONES
THAT DION'T oe Awat

UP: through

robber in his car and was able to give

peate TP tetepe

New fee structure
counterproductive

Open . letter to Ms.. Ostevik, North Vancouver
Recreation Commission:

Your New Fitness Membership Fee Chart, which forms
‘part of a newsletter available at the various recreation cen-
tres, and the headlines in the Worth Shore News this past
Sunday (August 13), just “blow me away.” You indicate
the newsletter that “we are very excited about the
= improvements that are the results of your findings.” Well,

“Tm excited too: ’m down right angry concerning the
restructuring of the program. packages and the horrendous
ost increases. It’s nothing but slick marketing with 3 smil-
ing face on the front of it looking for more money. A tech-
nique an old time car salesman might employ. Well, l, if not a

car salesman maybe Rogers Cable.

I don’t want nor need The Works, for example access to
-all facilities or activities. [ can’t use the facilities at any other
time, but: “non- prime’ time.” And I can’t afford the new
‘rates. ;

You've really put the breaks on 1 my ability to have access
to community facilities; ones already supplemented with my
tax dollars I might add. "You even have the courage or audac-
ity, 1 don’t know which, to justify the rates by comparing
them with other private enterprises. Ones which you don’t
have a hope of competing with and which most can’t afford.
:.. You promote “community wellness” but put serious con-
straints on it for a great number of people with this “cash
raising, marketing ploy.” You ask inside the front leafcover
of Leisure Guide 2000, “How can the NVRC help to build
‘a healthy, livable and spirited community?” Further, you ask
-us to “Please take a moment to share your thoughts and
dreams.” I’m here to say that you've done something about
the “spiriting” part all right but are doing great injury to the
health and living part. I want to encourage you to restore
the non-prime time discounted packages with maybe a mod-
est rate increase if necessary and to let those who want, or
need ‘The Works pay for it. But don’t t eliminate the other
options. .
Sandra Webb | ;
North Vancouver,

WV creek vision fi

BILL Soprovich doesn’t look like

‘a poetic sort of bloke.

Au contraire, he is the uncontested
claimant to the title of West Vancouver's
Most Nearly Common
Man on Couxcil.

Soprovich doggedly
does his homework,
doggedly carries out on-
site inspections, dogged-
ly talks to the aggrieved,
doggedly speaks at coun-
cil — sometimes getting .
under the skin of the
more stylish Coun.
Victor Durman and vice-
versa.

Dogged, rather than
a gay old dog — here I restore “gay” to its
onginal meaning — unless the perkier
Soprovich is revealed in his role as a fairly
recent groom with a very attractive wife.

But he waxes nearly poetic in describ-
ing a recent cxpedition along the course
of, and above, Larson Creek — above,
because part of the creek travels under the
Horseshoe Bay overflow parking lot across
from Gleneagles Golf Course.

“We stumbled upon a surprisingly
untouched wilderness area, and a small
pond ... and a waterfall ~ and you could
smell the freshness of the water,” he mar-
velled.

And quite a marvel that is. The parking
lot, the Upper Levels Highway, the nearby
hydro substation, and the BC Rail line
hardly contribute to the idyllic scene
Soprovich describes.

He's enthusiastic about preserving and
enhancing the creek, one of the many on
the North Shore where salmon once
thrived. Alas, the thoughtless rechannel-
ing, culverization and pollution of the last

“Peter Speck’.
ar f

Sasa News, founded in 1969 as an independent

: * suburban Newspaper and. qualified under Scheduie .

: 311, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, ts published

each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by HCN
~ Publications Company and distributed to every door
on” the North. Shore. Canada’ Post Canadian

Publications Mait Sales Product Agreement No.
i G85-2101 (218)

By Michael Becker

im Newsroom Editor
985-2131 (116)
mbecksransnews com  °

Teeainen

3) RPromolons Manager |"

Parsee
orang
feces fore

Terry Peters
Editorial Manager
985-2131 (160)

MURATAICAN ONG

MY RMAG FIShE:

sy

=

al sence AT THE DEPARTMENT.
OF FISHERIES AND OCEANS...

half-century or more have all but fatally
injured most such creeks, and efforts to
rehabilitate them are slow, frustrating and
simply lacking flat-out political SUppOrt. -

Soprovich also mulled the question of
whether the proposed
expansion of the BC
Ferries terminal —
already as popular as a
cancer scare — might
compromise the creek’s
watershed.

He’s tired up to run

with the idea of preserv-
ing Larson Creek. Good
for him. This council
would leave no finer her-
itage than if it did like-
wise for all its damaged
crecks and waterways.

go00

Tha nibly bow my head before readers’
criticisn:. We learn best from our enemies
and all tiiat. Also £m reluctant to barge
around having the last word.

Sd, | note that two readers, Sandra
Bauer, president of the West Vancouver-
Garibaldi New Democratic Party con-
stituency association, and Paul Russell,
coincidentaly complain about media‘con-
centration, the lack of diverse views and
specifically from the left, and, Ms. Bauer
says, my person: rsistent” denigration

ofeNDE

I forebear to say much. But I beg to
remind them that this column has — to
take only a few examples — also persis-
tently attacked:

The West Van school board, from the
hockey ticket scandal to the paid (two: .
tiered) kindergarten decision, and in’
between ‘its questionable sale of Hillside;
its stonewalling of a largely ethnic group
protesting the McCreary study; its stealthy,

Timothy Renshaw
Executive Editor
985-2131 (758)

ows clearly

'self-bestowed trustee pay raise of some

‘40%; its equally secretive, costly retreat;

but, above all, and apart from one or two)
trustees” principled objections, its evasive, :
misleading, and/or amnesiac derelictions °:

: from the public’s right to know — its fla.”

grant we-know-best arrogance.

West Van council, including the myste-
rious “numbered” ‘company’s $1,000°
donations to two mayoral candidates in
1996 (the company was unregistered and
thus untraceable); the des; spicable attempt
to smear a mayoral candidate in 1999; the:

“neutral” who slithered his way inte chair.
ing all-candidates’ meetings and the power.
to choose the questions asked — an
maifed out his personal recommendati ns
to every voter while carrying out that rol
and the clubby silence of councillors who
should have forthrightly tald us what they
thought of such matters. ©

North Van District’s mayoral election

_ in which’a candidate caught flat-footed’

man destroying his campaign signs in the
dark of night, Flearly identified him, gave
his information to police, whereupon
months later — the Crown’s lawyers
declined to lay a charge, followed by my:
interview with the winning candidate tha
was a classic of meandering emptiness.
(The losing candidate, whose complaint
this column heatedly back ked i

_ New Democrat.)

There’s more. But i
Mr. Russell study the foregoing
fairness and balance that they Gaim to be
lacking in my prose, they'll be obliged |
conclude: There ain’t a single New.
Democrat on the list:-To my. knowled;
all belong to or have supported
you'd. doubtless call right-of-centre parties
1 conscientiously aim to be an equal