4 ~ Friday, April 10, 1992 - North Shore News Summit of discontent: Caulfeild WILL CAULFEILD Plateau be Wes! Van- couver’s Plains of Abraham? Well, you may not excuse me for not taking the battle over the Caulfeilders and the Hillsiders too, too seriously. The two sides fought at Mon- day’s school board meeting like the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Montagues and the Capulets — and with no Romeo and Juliet to bring them together. My playful jeu d’esprit tast Fri- day — that maybe we'd have our very own separatism in Tid- dlycove, with the nation’s richest community splitting angrily and militarily along the border of 31st Avenue — doesn’t seem quite so outlandish after the board meeting. The issue, as everyone in the world knows, is whether to knock down the 30-year-old Hillside school in central West Vancouver and sell the land for residential development, using the money to help finance a new school on the Caulfeild Plateau in the western part of the municipality. You've read reports of the board meeting in today’s North Shove News, so as a mere detach- ed onlooker I will only relay the major results recorded on my Ap- plause/Boo Meter. The patented ABM is an in- genious device powered by a 1938 mantel clock mechanism and four rubber bands from my home- delivered copies of The Vancouver Sun. It is accurate to within two plus or minus bursts of applause or boos, 19 times out of 29, Its errors are usually due to laughter, which throw it. A more powerful six-rubber-band version, which can detect the difference between supportive, appreciative laughter and the derisive, scornful kind is now under development. The ABM’s ratings, on a scale of 10: A pro-Caul feild supporter was addressing the board and an overflow audience when | arrived sharp at 7 o'clock. She was saying that she’d had a guided tour through Hillside: **For any of you who have been there, you realize that a guide is mandatory..."’ Applause 5.9, Boos 6.1. (Close enough to fall within margin of error.) She went on, contemptuously: **Stairs, nooks and crannies throughout some seven levels..."* Applause 3.4, Boos 6.7. Admit- tedly | may have jiggled the ABM meter at that moment, since 1 would personally prefer a nooks- and-crannies school to the cold factory type without personality or a single nook or cranny. Should Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, even our own UBC Library, be torn down because they have (1) nooks, (2) crannies, and (3) crime of crimes, stairs? The speaker rebuked her hecklers: ‘*E hope you expect the same...when you're doing a pres- entation.”” A heckler: ‘*We’re not allowed to!’ — a reference to the fact that the pro-Caulfeild people got on the evening’s agenda, and the Applause 7.1, Boos 7.1, Too close to call. Stern pounding of the gavel by chairman, or even chairwoman, Barbara Howard. The speaker went on, accusing a “small, vocal, self-serving group”’ of denying its own children educa- tional opportunity. The nexi speaker, a male, called for *‘a rational decision,"’ which, humanity being suspicious of ra- tionalism, largely because it is always claimed by your own op- ponent, registered nothing on the ABM meter. A woman followed, backing the board’s plan for recreational as weil as educational facilities at Caulfeild. Another woman said ‘‘the silent majority’’ supported Caulfeild. (The famous silent majority, being quiet, never makes the ABM pointer twitch.) She accused the pro-Hillside group of dominating board and parents association meetings since October ‘with their badgering and misrepresentation of facts. They are trying to wear us down.”’ Someti we take for Trevor Lautens GARDEN OF BIASES Laughter. (ABM Meter judged that it was probably non-partisan, just edging over to Boo.) Hillside, she continued, has ‘tno redeeming historical or architec- tural significance. Applause 1.3, Boos .03, Weak reaction suggests few people con- we val are the things fident enough to have an opinion, and/or there are few historians and architects in West Vancouver. Chairman Howard then said: “Fd like to thank you all very much for coming here this even- ing..."" Applause 0.00, Boos 0.00. Meter cannot measure insincerity. Chairwoman, or possibly chair- man, Howard looked less than ecstatic throughout. Questions followed. A pro- Hillside woman suggested that the mysterious foreign corporation that has tentatively offered to give Caulfeild a million-dollar com- puter system was putting financial pressure on the board to build the new school. “Taxpayers” needs are more important than those of any foreign corporation »-ishing to ob- tain advertising by donating equipment,’’ she asserted. ‘‘Is it right that a foreign corporation should have a significant influence She was interrupted by chair- woman, or possibly chairman, mes the thi ue most Plateau Howard, who turned the matter over to superintendent Doug Player. He said there was no firm commitment, the decision to build the school was made before the computer offer was made, and the would-be donor’s intent is ‘“‘ob- viously to have a showplace. .--They’re not interested in having a showplace in a school built in the ’50s and ’60s.”" A woman, sarcastically: ‘‘Oh, that’s too badddd!’’ Meeting degenerated. Cries of “Speak up”’ — ‘Wait your turn!”’ —— ‘*Sit down, there are other ;:eople here!’’ — ‘“We were denied an official on this agenda in the first place!’’ At that point I put away my Applause/Boo Meter and whipped out my even more sensitive Democracy/Authority Meter. It has eight rubber bands. Unruly Democrats 9.7, Duly Flected But Beleaguered Authority I'd say that the West Vancouver Schoo! Board has a problem. ngs ranted. Take a moment to think about wha being Canadian means to you. Canadian Citizenship. Take it to heart. NATIONAL CITIZENSHIP WEEK APRIL 12 TO 18, 1992 Canada pro-Hillside critics, who applied late Jast week, didn’t. Multiculturalism and = Multiculturalisme et Citizenship Canada _— Citoyenneté Canada B+a Support the Seeds of Survival Program USC qe 56 Sparks i Ottawa, Ontario Canada’ «ip sa: