wing

THE trouble with
Ernie is that Ernie
likes trouble.

In baseball parlance,
North Vancouver District
Coun, Crist is a hardball
hurler. Phere are no softball
lobs in his repertoire.
Beanballs yes. By the arm-
load.

And in the opinion of his
fellow district council mem-
bers, Ernie throws far too
many beanballs.

Some to the head; some
to other parts of the anato-
my; and when they make
contact they hurt.

The trouble is that many
of those in the municipal
lincup that step up to the
plate when Catfish Crist is
on the mound are not used
to his pitching stvle.

Especially at the Jocal
political level.

They are more used to
the old slow-pitch drop
bails.

That’s not to excuse the
ferocity of Crist’s approach.
A Feb. 7 News expose by
Martin Millerchip details its
fallout and how it has
adversely affected some dis-
trict council members and
council operations.

Bullying, dictatorial,
hurtful are just a few of the
descriptors for Catfish Crist’s
beanballs a reader would get
from a quick scan.

There is also the matrer
of Crist’s use of district sec-
retarial services to churn out
those correspondence pitch-
es, Which begs the question
of why, in addition to a spe-
cial assistant to the mayor,
there is a $42,000 per year
secretary hired primarily for
councillors’ correspondence
duties. But that’s another
issue for another column.

According to Millerchip’s
story, Crist is responsible tor
63% of the secretarial work
and seeretarial costs generat-
ed by district councillors.

Looked at one way that is
disturbing. Taxpayers should
not be funding the ram-

blings of a blowhard politi-
cian whose endless motions
and personal diatribes might
be directed more at myain-
taining a high profile for re-
election than at doing any
good work for the district
voters.

Bur if vou know the blunt
Mr. Crist at all you'll also
know that when it comes to
civic politics the guy has
only one speed: wide open.

He is obsessive and
obsessed.

Damned annoying at
times, too.

A phone call to the news-
room at 8 a.m. from Ernic
often starts with the state-
ment that “You guys are
doing a lousy job on the (fill
in the blank) issue” and goes
downhill from there.

Does this guy not have a
life beyond the cultivation of
community issues?

*Fraid not.

Te’s like a 24-hour Crist
TV channel: all community
issues all the time.

But betore you write him
off as some kind of curniud-
geonly eccentric out to
inflict pain and suffering
from one corner of the dis-
trict to the other you have to
know a little about the
man’s roots.

He survived the
Armageddon of Second
World War Germany and
escaped to the peace and
beauty of British Columbia.

He joined the
Communist Party of Canada,
got a job in the once boom-
ing North Vancouver ship-
building industry, led the
first-ever successful rent
strike in B.C. history.

Sounds like a bit of a

One side of you needs to know your investments are guar-
tnteed and you won't ever lose your principal. The other
side wants the growth potential that mutual funds offer.

Now you can have both.

Don’t miss this workshop!
Date: Thurs. Feb 13 @ 7:00 pm

troublemaker, all right. But
it’s earnest trouble all the
way.

A bulfheaded swimmer
against the current, Crist val-
ues the quatity of lite still
offered in this blessed land.

He's not big on seeing it
eroded through this coun-
try’s endemic complacency
and timi-dity.

To that end he is a com-
bative street brawler with the
same blind spot te the feel-
ings of his opponents as
retired News columnise
Doug Collins.

They don't care if people
don’t like them. The game is
not a popularity contest for
them.

And I don’t think they
can understand why others
don’: think the same way.

But, again, that’s not to
excuse all those beanballs,

Crist’s insensitivity to the
feelings of his fellow council-
lors can be disturbing.

His e-mail to mayor and
council after Coun. Glenys
Deering-Robb lost her breast
to cancer is a good example.

From its opening good
wishes on a speedy recovery
and the need to rid bodies of
an active virus it abruptly
bulldozes into an analogy of
the need to rid council of a
Virus “introduced and nur-
tured by one (former mayor)
Murray Dykeman” and later
refers to the ingrained resis-
tance to that surgery from
within council.

Bad pitch.

And his rhetoric is prone
to hysterical hyperbole. In
reporter Millerchip’s story, a
Crist e-mail calls director of
recreation Gary Young “an
apologist of mediocrity, a
tool of ewo-bit Machiavellian
manipulators.”

At times, Crist carries on
as if he were a character in a
Franz Katka novel not a
municipal councillor.

To Crist, fellow council-
lors and other speedbumps

g and missing in N. Van

on the road to the desired
result need to be: “... hit...
where necessary until they
learn what is appropriate. I
will not be intimidated by
these guys.”

Beanballs again.

But then local polities to
Ernie is far more than a part-
time pursuit,

To him it’s ground-level
democracy that doesn’t get
the respeet it’s due from any
level of government. Or the
people it serves.

Thus his relentless push
on such issues as direct
democracy, which far too
few of his fellow politicians
have the stomach to sup-
port.

And his endless motions
against the bullying of senior
levels of government and
such obsessions as the need
to empower local govern-
ment with real taxing pow-
ers.

Says Crist, it’s all about
raising issues of public
importance and local democ-
racy — the struggle for’
which is no fess important
than the struggle for democ-
racy anywhere else.

When you come from a
place where demacracy was
ground up under tank treads
and evil loosed upon the
land because not enough
beanballs were thrown at
political batters, you might
be excused for getting a litde
obsessive on the subject.

Bur Ernie’s way — bean-
balls and all — is not the
Canadian way.

And that is too bad.

A little candor could go a
long way in tis all too
sleepy land.

Others would argue that
Crist’s brand of political

itching is a throwback to
less civilized times.

They might argue that the
district and other municipali-
ties need to establish some
cude of cthics that would
eliminate such behaviour.

Stat tua

er

“i werreny 21 pt. Safety check, 15 minures - FAST!
1362 Marine Drive 980-9STi5
piers: 8:00arn-6.00pm, Sun. 9:00am-5:.00pm Empires Feb. 24/28 |

op wpe Fe
. Phe Koe

Art, Politics

je

Includes up to 5 litres of fOw30 Quakerstate

!

| ~_ abiaa'tch

Aisevices Ol, Lube & Fitter
i

& Histo

Friday February 19, 8 pm

Michael Turner - The Tyranny of Genre,
or Why Listen to Peter Gzowski When You
Can Talk About Contemporary Writing?

Sunday March 7, 1 pm

good behaviour in the politi-
cal vame.

me a
a aM,
MEW: Lb thy 1k
ith vec (=)
| Bf 1600 Maried Drive Mocth Venconvey 980-3431 feamy

Sunday. February 14, 1999 — North Shore News - 7

District

politician is getting the job
done.
Voters should remain the
ultimate judge of that.
—trenshaw@direet.cn

But vou can’t legislate

Nor should you trv.
Good behaviour tor a

ttention Chrysler, Dodge, ©

7 rte fs : ° pa.
Jeep & Plymouth Owners
From time to time, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep or
Plymouth vehicles are recalled. Your vehicle may
have an outstanding recall notice.
It is very important to Mountview to complete
these outstanding recalls. if you own a 1989-
i998 Chrysler vehicle, please call 980-3431 and
have your vehicle serial number ready. There is
no cost for this service.

Chrysler’ discount superstore SIZ

930-3431 |

S.Laursen & Son Draperies and Blinds
|e? Serving the ‘x
p=" Lower Mainland since 1971

SERVICES f” Custom Rods, Upholstery

& Bedspreads

(Ask about our Seniors Discount)

For Free Estimate call
922-4975 or 987-2956

a fq Labour $12.50 per panel unlined, $13.50 lined.

Low Low Paricss

DISTRICT OF NORTH VANCOUVER
CITIZENS’ FINANCE AND

BUDGET ADVISORY COMMITTEE

- A MESSAGE FROM ERNIE CRIST

In February 1998 North Van. District Councillor Ernie Crist, in
a report to Council, recommended the setting up of a perma-
nent District Financial and Budgetary Citizens’ advisory
Committee. The motion was defeated but was reconsidered
and adopted later that year with Councillor Deering-Robb and
Carolan voting against.

The Citizens’ Budget Advisory Committee will advise Council
on a wide spectrum of financial and Budget issues including j
the District Heritage Fund Plan.

} The FUND was iaunched in 1986. To generate $15 million in

interest annually the plan called for a principle of no less than
$150 million by the year 2095.

But, instead of allowing land sales to accumulate, over the
objections of Councillors Crist and Munroe councils have con-
sistently raided the Fund to supplement annual Budgets includ-
ing Operating. As a result, the Fund is shrinking and will, to all
intents and purposes, be eliminated within the next 2 years.

If allowed to accumulate, the value cf the Heritage Fund by the
year 2005 would have been $350 muillioa.

But even if the Heritage Fund had been raided only to the
extent necessary to pay for genuine capital expenditures, the
2005 Fund objective of $150 million would still have been pos- §

sible.

This is another way of saying that the District taxpayers have
derived little or no benefit for almost half of the value cf
District land sold during that period. On the contrary, a tax
comparison and close scrutiny of District operations indicates
that the use of land sale proceeds to cover non capital or oper-
ating expenditures has severely impacted the District's effi-
ciency posture and has resulted in higher taxes instead. The
Braemar Dempsey scar was for naught.

IT IS INCONCEIVABLE THAT SUCH A SCENARIO WOULD
HAVE DEVELOPED HAD A CITIZENS’ FINANCIAL WATCII
DOG COMMITTEE, BEEN IN PLACE.

Participants: Investors who like the security of a Guaranteed
Investment Certificate, but need stock market returns to boost
their nest eggs.

Nettie Wild - Outside Eyes: Art, Politics,
Contradictions

Friday March 19, 8 pm

Duncan McNaughton

another set/of circumstance.: Poetry &
Historical Geography

> Le AECL!

ree

Dan Helm, 5A. MBA,
Vice President
Financial Consultant

Proceeds go to The Capilano Review Endowment

Fund. Support provided by the Leon & Thea
Koerner Foundation, the Capilano College
Foundation, and the Humanities Division of
Capilano College.

To Reserve: Tel: 925-5550

(5 Merrill Lynch

Merntt Inch Canada Inc. is a member - CIPF Ernie Crist