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Mailing rates evailable on request, 61.582 (average citcuation, Wedescuy Friday & Surieny) fo © Entire contents , ©1995 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Alt sights reserved, fy 906-1837) i HE KILLER among us, the bru- tal creep who abducted and mur- dered 16-year-old Tanya Smith of Abbotsford and almost beat to death her friend, is a twisted power junkie. Psychologists guess he is a wimp who feels he has no control over his own life. The quick fix for such a creature is the exercise of ultimate power, the tak- ing of the life of another. He is a preda- tor and he’s probably = enjoying tie game greatly. , He taunted police last week, warning that he’d strike again, and then fol- lowed through with an attempted abduction in’ East Vancouver. He almast managed to pull a 28-year-old woman into his car. Luckily she man- aged to break free in time and got away with her life. | Statistically speaking, it is more like- ly that those who are victims of violence are known to their tormentors. We tend to focus the pain on family and friends. Yet the Abbotsford killer story play- ing out right now, embodies all of the elements of a bad Hollywood drama. iUs a familiar group nightmare and the hysteria has hit big-time on the North Shore. Rumors are rife. There have been reported sightings. Police telephone PAPE E: Mi SES ERE TAMILS LSU PME AT Dade Pa Wh are £4 Mash cor lines have been loaded with calis of con- cern this week. Kids and parents are running scared. There is good and not so good in all of this. The upside is this: people are taking proactive personal safety mea- sures and there is a heightened sense of vigilance. The downside is to be found in the lives of those who are filled with fear and fimit their lives accord- ingly. We should not allow this evil man such control. The killer wields power — over all who Jive with the fear that they might be his next victim. Hysteria. and’, rumor serve only to strengthen the beast. . . 8 mailioax Little to gain Dear Editor: . and David Mitchell — fling- : ing pebbles at each other. i! _ IT’S AMUSING to see The {Two Davids Without a Goliath — David Schreck from time to time. Well, you don’t expect agree- . ment in partisan B.C. — or even the North Shore, where our mem- bers of the legislature include New -’ Democrat Schreck, Liberals Jeremy. - - Dalton and Daniel Jarvis, and Mitchell, a drop-out Liberal now sitting as an independent whose assessment of his former colleagues - Dalton and Jarvis is off-handedly . scathing. Mitchell is much more respect- ful of Schreck, whose intellect, if not his ideology, is sharply and flat- ly more in tune with his own. _ But there they were the other day, on opposite sides of a non- ‘existent road — a new link, way to the east near Indian Arm, with. Highway 99. : The latter, grandiosely dubbed the Sea-to-Sky Highway, runs along Howe Sound to Squamish and on to the continent's highest-rated ski resort, Whistler. A third Burrard Inlet crossing, linking the proposed road with Burnaby, is part of the plan. : One David — Mitchell — is all for it. The other David — Schreck -— disinisses it as a grotesquely ‘expensive (nearly $1 billion) _ impossibility. + versus vor Lautens © The list of objections, apart from the cost, which makes you gulp, is certainly daunting. The incursions on nature alone would be disturb- ing. Net that nature wouldn't hit back: avalanches, heavy snow and fog could add a certain excitement to the journey. And did | mention _ cost? Sure, but let's mention it again: a billion bucks, and, if it's like most estimates, counting. But Mitchell is on firmer ground, metaphorically though not physically, arguing that safety rea- sons -— the possibility of natural disaster — testify to the need for a second route. Natural disaster. Funny you should mention that, David. I can identify a certain coward who thinks “natural disaster” every time he drives Highway 99, which, being ~ avi a coward, he seldom does. In fact. it's hard to identify Highway 99's greatest threat to life and limb: . i The prospect of having a large chunk of mountain fall upon you, or even small chunks — say, the size of garbage cans; 2 The, um, challenge of driving the highway in rain, in snow, in the dark, or all three; 7 : Or the intense fear that seizes the -cautious when the numerous skid- -, jots (that’s ski idiots, Martha) ~~~ pumped up with drink, drugs, adrenalin and/or certainty of their own immortality blast down the road and up your tailpipe as if par- ticipating in the Quatre-Vingts Heures of Le Mans. wo -Reflecting on these possibilities, I will be inclined to look favorably on Mitchell's enthusiasm for the - Indian Arm route, despite its depri- vations on the wilderness, whenev- er I drive the route. And | will look favorably on the billion bucks whenever I’m not. eee Look, do [ love the great out- doors? Almost as much as the great indoors, especially the latter on a frosty night beside a roaring fire and with a glass in my hand and a heart full of gratitude that my fore- fathers swung out of the trees and took up carpentry and wine-mak- ing. - ; ; Sof have very mixed feelings about the victory of the preserva- Shame on Trevor Lautens: for ~ continuing the debate for the amal- _gamation of North Vancouver City with North Vancouver District. He could at least do his homework and use accurate information to support his position for a union. The city already shares playing fields and indoor recreation facili- - tes with the district through ‘the North Vancouver Recreation Commission. . ; We also share police services, health departments, emergency pre- paredness and now the: museum and ._ archives among. other, things. And: according to the City of Abbotsford, , the verdict is still out whether amal- gamation reduces the cost of gov- ermment. ©. Coe City taxpayers have tittle to gain: in an amalgamation with the dis- trict. Come on Trevor, you can do: better than that. — Darrell Mussatto . : North Vancouver City Councti n roac tionists who have snatched 1,160...’ acres of Deep Cove-Seymour River ~ forests from the developers and “ Mayor Murray Dykeman. : Fact: We're all: living in cleared’ ~: areas rudely wrenched from nature. - Do you wish, white folk, that your - forebears had stayed overseas and you could now be living in one of; those wonderful crowded European ©. cities in which even the rich don’t. :. have detached houses, unless you : -”: happen to be a queen or something? Do you wish your great-grandpar- : ents had stopped development dead." at the edges cf Gastown and : ‘ Moodyville? Where, as the saying goes, will it all end — or should it have ended? oe, con ay @. Speaking of which, the teacups... _ could be rattling in Lower Caulfeild. next Thursday when residents of this little bit of more-English-than- °°. England meet with municipal - authorities to discuss its future... Speaking as one who lives near- | by, I fervently hope that its future is its past. It's horrible to think that there could be more houses like the -.’ bloated monstrosity recently built an its eastern edge, a monument to tasteless pretension. a eee What more can be said about next. Monday's you-know-what in |” Quebec? Couldthe Quebecois real- ly be that seif-engrossed, that need- ful of asserting themselves, that immature, that stupid?