The North Shore Nows ts published by Korth Snore Free Press Lig, Publisher Pater Speck, from 1135 Loxedals Avenue PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) “Chris Johnsen Operations Manager 935-2131 (168) Dowg Foot . Comptroller “2131 (133) Managing Edito ing Editor 985-2131 ivie) 8 Clnaified, Accomuting |” & Mein Office Fax 986-5227 North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified .tnder Schedule 111, Paragraph 112 of the Excise Tax Act, is published cach Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press ” Lid and distnbuted to every dout-un the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales‘. Product. Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Entire contents © 1996 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. =k AVID JON Malloy’s fatal March 17 encounter with a stranger who viciously stabbed him to death while he was driving a cab should pro- foundly disturb and move us all. Cab drivers are a barometer for soci- ety. Figuratively speaking, they are canaries in the coal shaft when it comes to defining the mundane reality of opportunistic violence. The very nature of their jobs puts them at risk. An element of trust must be part of the equation when a cabbie lets a stranger step into his taxi. The desperate and the deranged may see an easy victim. THE SCOOP behind David Mitchell’s weeks- ago announcement that he : wouldn’t seck re-election as West Vancouver- ' Garibaldi MLA and his surprise job as B.C.’s : interim conflict-of-interest. commissioner: money. Mitchell needs it. He has two daughters in private schooj and a ‘newish household. ° Most recent figures show his MLA’s salary is $55,318. His predecessor Ted Hughes was paid ‘about $64,000 last year for what he regarded as a part-time job. ood 1 Fear seldom strikes the heart of your intrepid chronicler. Unhappiness rarely sends a little black cloud over the sunniness of his life in Greater Tiddlycove, But something of that sort occurred a couple of Sundays ago when I pulled up to David Moon's Clyde Avenue bookstore and found tie door coldly shut. * And a realtor’s sign that announced: SOLD. . I very nearly swooned with the thought that a wonderful and whimsical West Vancouver cultur- al institution — and a private one, unsupported by public funding like aris groups and the library — was closing. Sad. Poignant. Time, I reflected, had caught up with Mr. Moon. He is not in the first blush of youth. Probably intended to pack it in, retire to some seaside cottage, and tend his roses. Well, I only wish the other disappointments of life would prove so groundiess. It turns out that Mr. Moon had sold the prop- erty, all right — to an Asian buyer, Asians now ion wastlal PRILRDRIROTAN EN ARS THRUSTS TH RRR ORM BLA OED SIM EY OL a Fe I GT 2 TERED PT Re A BN femce It’s no small step for society’s crimi- nally inclined fringe elements to broad- en their scope of attack and see us all as easy targets. In a very real way we are responsibie for each other. It’s not enough to shake our heads in dismay and simply write off David Malloy’s violent end as the sad cost of doing business on the taxi front. if we agree that at some basic level we are responsible for each other, we must act upon that responsibility. In doing sO we sustain the greater good. ' The recent spectacle of the lengthy taxi funeral procession to a West Vancouver funeral home showed soli- THEAR NOISES! © 1 GUESS (Mh ABOUT To BE RESCUED... owning. a fair bit of !and around nearby‘ 14th and Marine Drive ~— but he has no intention of retiring. _. He is'only 73, and, looking past the white beard, you sce the healthy, ruddy and unblem- ished skin and bright eyes of a * 20-year-old. This is a vigorous man of undiminished ambition — to trade books. And does he have books? Like no one in the Vancouver area. His The Bookstall in Ambleside, its official name, is utterly jammed with books. They wre everywhere. On shelves. In the rafters. In tall plinths. in boxes — on the day I re- visited the store and was reassured that sale of the property didn’t mean the closing of the business, there were 13 boxes of old- looking books that had been rented for a set in‘ the Dr. No television serial. And there are customers for them, bookish, slightly eccentric looking customers — charac- ters. During our talk a woman came in and asked for a certain 1922 National Geographic. ' Unruffled, Mr. Moon called instructions to an assistant as to where to find it. \ The trade is brisker than you might think. Those interesting people, many of them of long acquaintance with Mr. Moon, come in and yarn away for a while, and I was privileged to talk to one such colorful dropper-in, the artist Geordie Tocher. Mr. Moon has been in the book business 27 years (he also had a North Vancouver trave! business) and originally had a store on Marine . / Drive. Before that, his mother Betty had a book- store in downtown Vancouver. News flash: On Tuesday all fears were laid to news viewpoint riwe darity among the cab-driving rank and file. It ulso challenged tiie rest of us to focus on the cause of the ceremony. And so, what to do? * First, let’s have open eyes 80 that the ‘suspect will be caught and brought to justice. The North Vancouver RCMP’ have installed a direct phone line to take tips for the murder investigation. Cail 983-7419 or CrimeStoppers at 669-8477. Second, let’s support the drive to heve cab companies implement security mea-: , sures that might mitigate the yulnerabil- . ity of drivers on the job. |. We have the technology. and, | the. responsibility. “ . pe that nearly “ 90%... of : Canadian believed that this pension plan was too rich and that it should be brought’ into line with: private sector..pen- Sions. The Chretien government: doesn’t’ care what Canadians ‘think about the: MP pension ‘rip-off, how: ever. Despite token changes 1 made to | the pian in 1995, MP pensions are: BB srill twice as rich as private sector, pensions; S stili fully indexed to inflation; : B still-calculated .without regard to” real investment returns)" BH and still payabie immedi et " upon retirement, regardless’ of ge or at age 55 at the laté is From” Trough; TH, a Coalition iblicaion = on the main rae Delighted he's staying town. Mind you, if I bring home one more u book myself, my wife declares she wilt leave me. Promises, promises, 1 tell her. o00Q Great work and a great and informative. newsletter by West Vancouver's Citizens’ Task: . Force to Review School District Amalgamaticn which opposes the provincial government's hur-"> ried, confused and irrational “rationalization” of . , B.C. school districts from 75 to 37. ; Mayor Mark Sager and school board chairman Ken Haycock have solidly thrown their weight : behind opposition to uniting the two North Shore boards, - and task force co-chairmen Coun. Andy Danyliu and trustce Clive Bird have led the charge admirably. It's not headline-making stuff tike the scumbag rob- bing of charities by the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holding Society or the B.C. Hydro-international Power Corp. shenanigans that may be the most durable disasters of the New Democrash Party government, but rather what Trustee Ciive Bird ... behind amaigametion opposition. ; the NDP is doing in its sup- posedly cherished fields of education and health administration — along with its “human rights” wrongs. Just wait till its Closer-to-Homicide regional health boards and community health councils take over control of hospitals next Monday. It’s a bureaucratic snafu that only the. NDP collectivists could dream up.