6 - Friday, March 27, 1998 — North Shore News north shore news VIEWPOINT Land mined FAIS land really is yeur land. According to the B.C. Supreme Court decision on the con- tentious 640-acre Cov2 and Mountain forest area, your municipality does have authority over local land-use decisions. And that is good news. In the case of the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. versus North Vancouver District over the fate of the $150 million tract of land, the court ruled that the district had not acted in bad faith when it imposed develop- ment restrictions on the CMHC’s property in the area. ' The CMHC, of course, wanted to develop its property to maximize its return. The district, however, deter- mined that it wanted to preserve the land for recreation use. Thus the battle. the district’s revitalized green con- sciousness, the issue of district devel- opment remains unclear. The district continues to pursue a policy of financing capital and operat- ing expenses through land sales. Though the practice is gradually being reduced to allow the municipai- ity to build up a viable heritage fund that will provide a self-sustaining pool of money to finance major capital pro- jects, it continues to undermine the development of that fund. And while growth is not a bad thing in itself, growth based on any- thing but a far-sighted, workabie Official Community Plan is. The district and its residents need to determine how the municipality’s land bank will be spent. Prudent investmerits now wili pay ATS big dividends far into the future. But while the victory resides with mailbox Dog lovers: don’t abuse Ambieside - Dear Editor: . Wake up, West Vancouver dog lovers. If we abuse this park we will lose iz! : As an owner of two dogs who uses Ambleside Park frequently for my pleasure and theirs, I would like to say how incredibly lucky we are to have this area where we can.ailow our pets to be off-leash, to play, run, swim, socialize and do their own thing. . : Dog owners from all over the city come to Ambleside Park to enjoy this freedom and wish they had the same facilities in their own neighborhood. ' IfJ. Peres feels he can take his dogs anywhere and has done so for 30 years, then I hope somebody catches him and prohibits him from Ambleside Park before the rest of us lose our privileges. :. Mark Tincombe has starred a new business of “Walkies” for dogs. I have just received a letter from him, addressed to my dogs by name, as he purchased a list of all registered dogs from the municipality of West Vancouver. F l¢ appears to be a dog-lover providing tender lovin care and: walks at Ambleside Beach. 8 6 He says he thinks the restrictions are unreasonable and it is a hassle to get to your car. ~ T suggest he enter the park past the Pitch and Purt where he: can park in the area where dogs are welcome (welt behaved, of course). k her his d lo ly he will also fearn to pick up after his dogs. Sheila Greene P F * West Vancouver MAILBOX POLICY LETTERS to the editor must be legible (preferably type- written) and include your name, full address and telephone number. ‘ north shore North Shere Wows, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualted under Schedute 111, Paragraph 111 af the ewe Tax Act, s publshed each Wednesday, Fratay and Sundtay by North Shore fr0e Press ‘Lid. and dsstributed fo every door on the North Shore Canada Post Canadkan Publicabors Mad Sues Product Agreemert No 0087238. Gartara Distribution Manager 906-1337 (124) a La ia Rh Re ok A a Creat Severs ae "*es-2131 (127) 61.582 {average cirautation, Weanesday. Fruttay & Sunday) KEEPIN PRINCES. Princes pass on Rockridge visit ROYAL disappointment: That The Three Princes didn’t visit West Vancouver’s Rockridge mid- dle school. I suppose it’s common knowledge by now that that was the original plan — because of Rockridge’s high-tech facilities. But Prince William apparently is in the equiva- lent of Grade 10. An Rockridge is one grade short. So the visit was shift- ed to a Grade 10 class in one «f those, um, com- moner suburbs. Pity. I had just the right morganatic date picked out for him. . OO The old saying is rigiitt — travel is so broadening, isn’t it? We went to Parksville. The spring break holiday made me more content with the West Vancouver school board, putting aside whatever developed at its Tuesday aight meeting concerning the McCleary questionnaire (past this column’s deadline). Ic looks wonderiilly oper compared with its Nanaimo-Ladysmith counterpart. Unbelievably, the Nanaimo- Ladysmith board hasn’t paid a two-year-old bill of $750,000 to a company called Parksviile Excavating — even after the Supreme Court of B.C. ordered it to pay up. The award has now risen to $850,000. The unpaid bill put Parksville Excavating into bankruptcy and left 20 employees jobless. The board ed — unsuccessfully -- that the work was includ- ed in the contractor's bid for building a Comptroller 905-2131 (133) Te ? rs Photogeapty Manager Classified Manager 985-2131 (160) 986-6222 (202) Entire contents © 1997 North Shore Free Press Ltd. Alt rights reserved. school, the Nanaimo Daily News reports. The board was so careless that it didn’t clarify that in the contract? Spare mo. It’s appealing the decision and won't talk about the matter to the press. Silence seems to be the board’s favored means of vor communicating. Two weeks after parents’ com- : plaints, a teacher was sus- pended for alleged sexual touching (tread carefully, we've seen sexual miscon- duct charges blow up in too many prosecutions — garden most recently those of grouriicss ones locally against Ken Hutchinson of the Avalon Hotel). ‘ihe board wouldn’r comment. Worse, a mother found out a teacher was being investigated for abusing her son — two wecks after the alleged abuse. : Now get this: Angry though she is about being kept in the dark, Mom said that she didn’t consider the teacher’s action — tapping her son on the head to get his attention — to be abuse. On the face of it, the Nanaimo- Ladysmith voters should punish the board harshly — at election time if not sooner. Q00a Closer to home: The joke around West Vancouver town hall is that in former days the real council mecting took place behind closed doors before the public meeting. Now, "tis jocularly said, it takes place among the councillors in the parking lot after the mecting. As for the glacial responsiveness of top West Van municipal! officials to informa- tional requests — like that of council’s perennial gadfly, Lione! Lewis, no matter how irritated they may get with him — I .. hope that the forthcoming and compre- hensive Cuff report deals with that. And that the report isn’t edited, Jaun- dered or otherwise sanitized before it reaches the public. oa0 Having said a critical thing or two about Mayor Patricia Boname, there is one thing | want to emphatically clear up. In my Oct. 17 column I commented . - on the mayor's public embarrassment at discovering —- while many North Shorers seethed over Larco’s expansion plans for ~*~ Park Royal shopping centre — that hus- band Phil had done some contract work for Larco. I wrote that at her age, nearing the - mid-60s, it was possible she wouldn’t serve her full term “if she doesn’t regain public and council confidence. A decline in one’s . health often shows up at that age. It some-. __ times follows a politician’s decline in popu-:: larity.” ‘ A while ago I learned that Mayor — - Boname interpreted this as my hoping.” she’d get seriously sick and have to quit... 3 What I meant was that, under public ©: fire, many politicians have used ill health as the graceful pretext for resigning. . T would never wish illness on Mrs. Boname, whom I personally like very much. I regret if my words were too sub- tle, coy, whimsical, or obscure. But J can’t ~ logize for what I didn’t intend. I trust is clarification will end the matter. Q00 Improved if not good news: Last year only one AIDS case was identified on the North Shore. The North Shore total since 1982 is now 82. LETTERS TO THE EWITOR Letters must inciude your name, full address & telephone number. VIA e-mail: trenshaw @ direct.ca Managing Editor 905-2131 (116) ixt Agric Display Manager Promotions Manager 900-0511 (166) 985-2131 (218) Gail General Office Manages 985-2131 (105) Internet- bttp://aww.nsnews.com Display & Real Estate Fax Newsroom Fax Classified, Accountiag & Main Office Pax Michael Backer - News Editer 985-2131 (114) Andraw McCredie - Spests/Community Editor 985-2131 (147) from 1139 Lonsdale Avenue &