o - Wednesday, September 3, 1986 - North Shore News

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Editor-in-Chiat
News Editor
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Trl VOICE OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER
Peter Speck
Noel Waght
Barren) Fisher
Linda Stewart
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SUNDAY « WEDNESDAY -

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1986 North Shore
Fiee Press Ltd All
nights reserved

he rejection by ‘restraint’? boss Ed Peck, B.C.'s 57,656 ‘average

-_
. gry 6 d
Vote-hungry Board?
r
YT Compensation Stabilization Commissioner, of
West Yan School Board's plea that it couldn't
afford more money for its teachers suggests the Board
may have concentrated too zealously on vote-catching for
the November elections.

The Board had appealed an arbitrated 2.2% salary in-
crease for teachers on the grounds of inability to pay al
the time the tax notices went out. At that point it had
also slashed its original budget by over $700,000 — which
would have covered the $300,000 salary hikes more than
twice over. Presumably, the trustees chose this course
primazily in order to curry favor with taxpayers.

In the event they received, two or three months fater,
an extra $400,000 from the provincial Fund for Excellence
in Education, which has now destroyed their ‘inability
to pay’’ argument in the eyes of the Commissioner.

West Van teachers — with an average wage of $38,220
for 200 working days a year — are not exactly starving.
But the original mili rate set by the Board was reported-
ly the lowest of all B.C.’s 75 school districts, while the
assessed value of West Van property ranks second out
of the 75 districts.

Moreover, West Van teachers had received salary in-
creases totalling only 1.76% over the past three years,
compared to wage hikes of 9% or more for West Van
police and firefighters.

The Schoo! Board exists to provide quality education
and, at the same time, to look after taxpayers’ pocket-
books. Overly enphasizing either one of those duties to
the detriment of the other is NOT the way to win respect
— or votes. ‘

Wednesday
6 Sunday)

IS THE EIGHT DOLLARS ~

TAX DEDUCTIBLE AS A
A CAMPAIGN
CONTRIBUTION?...

-COQUIHALLA.
HIGHWAY

Kind!

YVE ONLY ONE QUARREL with labor, organized or
disorganized. It’s over Labor Day — the most ill-conceived
and saddening of our 10 statutory holidays.

For starters, Labor Day in North
America is a fraud anyhow. All the
rest of the world honors its honest
toilers on May 1, the respectable
interuational Labor Day.

Here, it was the Knights of Labor,
nineteenth-century ancestors of the
AFL, who put the New World out
of kilter with the blue collar brigade
everywhere else by inventing Labor
Day, U.S. style, in 1882.

Deep down it all may have somic-
thing to do with a hidden death-wish
element in the North American
psyche. Fall has always held a
gloomy fascination for settlers on
this continent, ever since the Pilgrim
Fathers spent the two months from
September to November 1620 being
seasick on the Mayflower.

Labor Day overseas on May 1
tends to be a joyous, upbeat festival,
heralding the promised return of
long warm days, bikinis, barbecues
and all sorts of other fun in the sun.
A kind of christening party.

By contrast, North America’s
Labor Day has all the trappings of
a wake, with the mourners struggling
to stay cheerful as the dear departed
— whom they’ve prematurely killed
off that same weekend — is laid to

rest.
The crime officially committed by
our Labor Day is unforgivable.

drift into a leisurely, dignified old
age before dying peacefully of
natural causes.

Here, we finish it off by
euthanasia immediately September
arrives, even though the golden
season of easy living and happy in-

Noel Wright

I still recall the shock I got the
morning after my very first Labor
Day here in 1955, on reading in the
paper that the beaches were now
“‘closed’’. Did that mean I'd be flung
into jail for as much as setting foot
on a patch of sand until the follow-
ing May? Beaches I'd known up to
then never ‘‘closed’’. They just stuck
around 12 months a year for anyone
who wanted to enjoy them.

Elsewhere in the world tender, lov-
ing, carefree summer is allowed to

LETTER OF THE DAY

Sense and nonsense on

Dear Editor:

The open ietter to the Attorney
General by A.B. Griffin (8 August
1986) intrigues me. As President of
the North Shore Safety Council lam
in complete empathy with the con-
cerns expressed re: the law and safe
operation of a vehicle. However, lets
look at radar detectors in a less ex-
citable manner, and state here that

if a person has more money than he
needs and is prepared to shell out
$100 - $200 for a useless piece of
equipment, let him. We taxpayers
benefit from the sales tax, employ-
ment is given to people who
manufacture them, and I guess they
serve to fulfill someone's need for
fancy equipment sticking up in their
car. :

@ focus ®

dolence is still physically in its prime.
Then, washing the dlood from our
hands, we steel our Puritan souls to
answer the stern calls of duty once
more.

Get back to school ... get back out
there and work ... get back out there
and earn money. Shame on us for
daring to goof off for a few weeks.
And with it all, of course, the pro-
mise of nothing but punishment for
the next six months.

Rush-hour traffic snarls, bus line-

(1) If sales are booming, where are
they? Check the cars — few have
them.

(2) They only work when the radar
is on. If a Police Officer activates his
radar specifically for them, then his
reaction is not quick enough to slow
down in time.

(3) Even when detected, the driver
at least has to slow down to the limit

y stop murdering summer!

ups, lengthening nights, misted
windshields, chauffeuring the kids
rain, snow, ice, fender-benders,
snivelly colds, flu bugs, Christmas
shopping, January bills, income tax
time, you name it!

If we weren’t in such a hurry to
murder summer the very first week
of September, we could make the
sentence quite a bit shorter. And
there’s an obvious way to do this.

If we must honor Joe Lunch-
bucket on the wrong date ~ if our
Labor Day can’t celebrate the birth
of summer, as in Europe — at least
fet’s postpone it until the lovely old
girl’s natural death. Our Indian
neighbors were a lot smarter than the
Knights of Labor on this score.
B.C.’s famed Indian Summer as
often as not makes September and
October two of our most satisfying
outdoor months.

So move Labor Day to
Hallowe'en. The date the clocks go
back. The date that leaves only seven
shopping weeks to Christmas instead
of 11. The date that could reduce a
lot of other post-summer punish-
ment from six months to four.
October 31 is quite soon enough to
start getting serious about life again.

Besides which, Halloween already
has the perfect built-in theme for the
labor movement.

Trick or treat!

HISTORY
LESSON

SEPTEMBER 3, 1752 and the 10
following days never came in
England, where the Gregorian calen-
dar was adopted on September 2 of
thai year — losing 11 days in order
to get back in step with the sun. This
led to riots by people who argued
they had been robbed of 11 days of
their lives. Thirty-one years later, on
this day in 1783, Britain and America
signed the Paris peace treaty which
recognized the independence of the
United States. And on September 3,
1939 — after Churchill, Britain’s
wartime leader, had been recalled
from the political wilderness as navy
minister — the British Admiralty
sent its joyful (and shortest) two-
word signal to all Royal Navy ships:
“Winston's back!’’

Other anniversaries on September
3 include the death (1658) of British
statesman Oliver Cromwell and the
birth (1856) of Louis Sullivan, the
American architect who invented the
skyscraper.

radar detectors

then. OK he speeds up later on - un-
til another radar appears.

A little story comes to mind of the
driver who had numerous points for
speeding, decided to beat the system
by an expensive detector. So off he
went confident as all heck, down [5
to Seattle. Got nailed by the air-craft
up above! I know the person.

I too was a police officer for many

years, in Britain, so I know A.B.
Griffin will know what I mean by the
“Ways and Means Act.”

Radar detectors. An expensive
luxury which fools no one but the
owner.

S.A. Lawson
President
North Shore Safety Council