mate! 6+ Sunday, October-20, 1985 ~ North Shore News Editorial Page “News Viewpoint Applaud Royals ESTERN CANADIANS and Cana- W dians in general can breathe collec- tive sighs of reilef: the Blue Jays have swung and missed the World Series ball. With Wednesday night’s 6-2 victory over Toronto’s athletic pride and joy, the Kansas City Royals have spared Canada the jeering superiority of Torontonians. . Two years ago, British Columbians had their faces amply. ground in the bucrish |two-step of off-balance Toronto Argonaut ‘fans leering into television cameras with in- ‘dex fingers raised and roaring ‘‘Argos’’ into ‘media microphones. Though the Jays fost their Toronto ex- clusivity in their quest to add some measure of accuracy to the term World Series, and though most Canadians adopted them as the country’s national team during that quest, it would only have been 4 temporary adoption at best. A berth in the World Series, and, God forbid, a victory in baseball’s seven- game finale, would have instantly reversed custody. . Torontonians would have barged through the doors of Canada’s happy home like deinented Ministry of Human Resources of- ficials and reclaimed the baseball team as their own. The city and its occupants would have thenceforth been impossible to live with... While Torontonians chirped endlessly over ‘their Jays, the rest of Canada would have | been fed a steady diet of crow served up with Eastern glee. So do aot lament the Jays for their defeat, -applead the Royals for saving Toronto from a terminal case of smugness. _ Turned off he B.C. government is proving once again it pays to know those in the know. Corporate guests to Expo will be . offered a gold passport tour and will get delay- ‘free access to Expo exhibits, leaving the rest of us, who are footing the bill, to cool our heels in line-ups. A lack of child minding facilities, - an initial decision to ban brown bags and now this, ensure Expo may very well discourage the very people it wants to attract: the taxpayers. _ Display Advertising 980-0511 Classified Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2131 Circulation 986-1337 ¢ Subscriptions 988-1337 4139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 214 Publisher Peter Speck General Manager Roger McAfee Operations Manager Berni Hilliard Advertising Director Advertising Administrator Linda Stewart . Mike Goodsell Circulation Director Editor-in-Chiet _ Bilt McGown Noe! Wright Photography Manager. Production Director Terry Peters _ Chris Johnson - Classified Manager Val Stephenson North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified under Schedute Si), Part fli, Paragraph IN of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press (td. and distributed to every door on the North Shore. Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885. Entire contents © 1985 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. Subscriptions, North and West Vancouver, $25. per year. Mailing rates available on request. No responsibility accepted for unsolicited material including manuscripts and pictures which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressed envelope. Member of the B.C. Press Council 56,245 (average, Wednesday SOA DIVISION Friday & Sunday) sx. & "THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE WHGH WESTERN BANK GETS NO GOVT. BALOUTS GUARANTEES AL. DEPOSITS AND HAS NEVER MADE A BAD LOAN. ‘Store-front college’ has a vital role in community “‘We didn’t know what an asset we had until the college centre closed its doors.”’ A citizen of Agassiz was recently describing the impact of a decision made in the summer of 1984 to close the store-front opera- tion of one of the province’s fifteen community ’ colleges. The image of community colleges as large campus-based institutions that provide a year or two of university study for recent secondary school graduates is one that prevails in the minds of many people. . The tiny store-front operation that closed, however, did not fit that image. Among ‘services provided there were: *A continuing education program that offered 54 courses to 606 people over the previous one year period ‘eA meeting place and net- work centre for community organizations and for the college *An academic upgrading program for 20 students eA regional training centre for Industrial First Aid Administrative support for the local ‘‘Festival of the Arts’ which drew over 6,600 people to the area the previous _ year By BARRY MOORE Principal of Fraser Vailey College *A major study on the im- pact of a Federal prison on the community 0 °Part-time counselling for members of local Indian bands . ®A workshop bringing together leaders from businesses and agencies to begin work on a plan for economic renewal in the town °Part-time academic counselling ®Access to college library *Registration centre for all regional college programs ®information on courses in all post-secondary institutions in the province To people living in big cities like Vancouver and Victoria, where public and private educational institutions pro- vide every imaginable form of educatiuonal delight, the ex- amples of service provided by LETTER OF THE DAY this store-front college centre may seem somewhat spare. However, to citizens living in small communities these college centres can be as important as U.B.C. is to Vancouver, In fact the college centres can be more important because, unlike U.B.C., they are the only show in town: The importance of colleges to small and medium-sized communities was partially re- affirmed by the provincial government last spring. The government provided several multi-campus colleges with necessary additional funds to keep at least some of their out- lying centres in operation. Citizens in communities like Mission, Vernon and Salmon Arm had reacted very strong- ly when their colleges had an- nounced early in 1985 that they were either closing down or drastically reducing opera- tions because of funding shortfalls. The government’s reaffir- mation of college operations in some of these smaller com- munities is in line with the perspective, held by communi- ty college people for a tong time, that colleges are more ef- fective when their connections Misery days in OPEN LETTER TO W. VAN MAYOR The fall month of ‘‘burn- ing weekends’? means the days of misery for many on the North Shore loom ahead. I would like to voice my strong protest against conti- nuing the archaic practice of allowing householders to burn refuse twice a year. In a municipality that has a high percentage of older people who are more prone to have respiratory pro- blems, burning is an inap- propriate and downright lethal proposition for many. Others of us, who simply have allergies to the airborne residue of whose homes fill with smoke and soot twice annually as ashes and smoke from neighbor’s fires drift uphill, may not be in ex- treme physical danger, but nevertheless, sneeze, wheeze and feel miserable. We are one of the very few, perhaps even the only, municipality still allowing with all of their local com- munities are strong. Indeed, educational programs cannot help but be better when they are driven by real community needs and aspirations. Today, in virtually every community, those needs and aspirations in-" clude dealing with unemploy~ ment, helping citizens to learn new skills, and bringing local agencies and small businesses together to develop new com- munity directions. The government’s decision to reaffirm the local role of community colleges is’ very timely. - The provincial. economy seems to be moving towards recovery, but is still quite fragile. Prospects for im- mediate improvement in B.C.’s position in the national or international economies are limited. Provincial economic renewal will; in significant measure, depend upon renewal in local communities throughout the province. Because they still have a presence in many communities in the province, colleges will continue to be a key resource for provincial economic recovery. V burning. I understand Bur- naby ruled out burning by homeowners early this year. I urge you to discontinue the policy of public burning twice a year so that April and October once again can be enjoyed, not merely struggled through. - ANNE G. LOVE WEST VANCOUVER pe