com, oh peceeree wes PAST SURPLUS 70 OFFSET DEFICIT LGH to be THE budget allocation for Lions Gate Hospital’s 1986-87 fiscal year will leave the hospital with a $1.3 million deficit. But LGH vice-president Eric O'Dell said Tuesday an ac- cumulated surplus from previous years will offset the shortfall. The 1.5 per cent increase in the hospital's budget over the 1985-86 fiscal year, O'Dell said, ‘tis not enough for us to operate at the level we are now and want to be. We have the surplus this year, but we can only hone we get ati in- crease next year.”’ Projected revenues for the hos- pital have been estimated at $57,645,000. An operating budget of $58,995,000 has been approved by the LGH board of directors. O'Dell added that hospital ad- ministration expected the $1.2 mil- lion surplus to be used last year, but LGH received a $1.3 million funding adjustment from the pro- By TIMOTHY RENSHAW News Reporicr vincial government, which con- tributes 90 per cent of the hospi- tal’s total funding. The adjustment, O'Dell said, meant LGH could hire an addi- tional 30 people this year. Most of the new employees will be nurses, he said. LGH currently employs a full- time workforce of about 1,500. Without this year’s surplus, O'Dell said the extra staff could not have been hired and some hospital beds would have been closed. He added that the hospital was facing a serious shortage of acute care Space because elderly patients needing long-term care were occu- pying acute care beds. Overall, the hospital experienced 90 to 100 per cent occupancy dur- ing the summer. The LGH emergency department logged 752 more visits in August, 1986 than it did in August, 1985. LGH’s elective surgery waiting list was reduced aver the summer. A total of 957 surgical procedures were performed, 714 of which were elective cases. A further 134 elec- tive surgery cases were cancelled by patients who refused scheduled operation times. Ac the end of the summer, the hospital’s surgical waiting list was 1,381. Summer renovations at GH in- cluded a $250,000 enlargement of the hospital’s ultrasound unit, which expanded from three to five procedure rooms and a $405,000 overhaul of neurosurgery facilities. STEELWORKERS Tom Armour and Craig Jory ride a crane's cable from the steel beam they have helped bolt in place for the new St. John’s Church, under construction on 13th Street. The original church, a 75- year-old wooden structure, was destroyed by fire last year. CITY TO BE ASKED ABOUT SPECIFICS Weather: Friday and Saturday, mostly cloudy with sunny periods. Highs near 16°C. 3 - Friday, October 3, 1986 ~ North Shore News INDEX Editorial Page Entertainment Home Improvement... Horoscope Bob Hunter Lifestyles Mailbox TV Listings What's Going On FOUR MEN KILLED Highway deaths’ inquest hears of speeding truck) A CORONER’S INQUEST investigation into the deaths of four men killed in a bus truck collision on the Squamish Highway in July heard testimony Tuesday that the truck involved was travelling faster than the recommended speed. Kathleen Langhammer told the inquest that the tanker-truck in- volved in the collision was travell- ing at 67 km/h in an area that has a recommended speed of 50 km/h. 70 KM/H An Ontario specialist in reading tachographs, Langhammer said the Imperial Oil trailer-truck, driven by Wayne Tyler, was travelling at between 66 and 70 km/h in the 20 seconds prior to the crash, which killed four people. A tachograph records speed and distance travelled by a vehicle. Shortly after 7 p.m. on July 6, a minibus carrying 13 people slam- med into the truck on the Squamish Highway just north of Lions Bay. A 49-year-old North Vancouver man, Ronald Harry Dawson, was one of four men killed in the ac- cident. BLIND CURVE He, along with the minibus’s 12 other passengers, was returning from a golf tournament’ in Squamish. Minibus driver Stuart Crossan testified Monday that he was going about 40 km/h when he went into the blind curve where the accident occurred. Tyler, who suffered multiple in- juries in the crash, has testified that he remembers nothing about the accident, but said he has taken the curve at 60 to 70 km/h. Also killed in the accident were Thomas Robert Smith, 45, and Jess Mellors, 70, both of Van- couver and Robert Joseph Min- chin, 38, of Burnaby. The inquest, which began Mon- day, is expected to be completed on Friday. North Van District to study P&T THE CONTROVERSIAL application for a 20-acre shopp- ing centre development by BCE Development Corporation at the Park and Tilford Gardens site in North Vancouver City jumped boundaries Monday. North Vancouver District coun- cil tackled the thorny issues of commercial and traffic implica- tions to the district. District council called for a joint city and district study of the economic and traffic impacts of the proposal and also moved to ask North Vancouver City Council for specifics addressing the pro- posed development’s effect on ex- isting commercial space in the area. . Council also wants details regarding necessary traffic corridor upgrading to serve the proposed By MICHAEL BECKER News Reporter development. With an estimated 25 per cent of the traffic to the commercial ceatre coming from the east crossing the Second Narrows bridge, district director of engineering services John Bremner foresees serious traffic problems at traffic bottle necks such as Mount Seymour Parkway, Keith Road, Mountain Highway and access to the Trans-Canada Highway. “This development is right at our border. We have to go beyond parochial boundaries and explore what is best for all,’ said Mayor Marilyn Baker. “The argument about this pro- posal being a means to maintain the gardens is a red herring. Zon- ing shouldn't be bought by this kind of carrot or chrysanthe- mum.”” Slamming the BCED proposal as “the wrong development in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Ald. Ernie Crist said the Park and Tilford plan is contrary to both ci- ty and district area community plans. “Community plans are impor- tant good faith documents. Sup- porting something like this would be an act of bad faith,’’ said Crist. The site has been zoned for in- dustrial usage within the city since 1927. A Sept. 25 district planning report to council voiced ‘‘grave reservations about North Van- couver’s ability to support an ad- ditional unplanned shopping cen- tre,’ adding 31 per cent to the total supermarket floor space on the North Shore, and ‘major con- cerns about the impact of a shopp- ing centre on the overall road system."” “We already have more space than we really require in North Vancouver, both commercial and retail,"’ said Aid. Craig Clark. “*Just along the Marine Drive cor- ridor itself the Wosk’s, IGA and Quick Save sites are vecant. A joint intiative to address the best interests of all would be a preg. | ressive step.”* The district planning report estimates the proposed addition of approximately 247,000 square feet of retail commercial space at the Park and Tilford site would boost the city’s 53 sq. ft. average shopp- ing per capita rate to 60.3 sq. ft. The average is 45 sq. ft. We have to Jook at the trade- offs between job loss in one area and job creation in another and how much commercial space our community can sustain,’’ said Ald. Joan Gadsby. The district has two commercial areas on tap to serve the growing eastern portion of the municipality at Maplewood and Parkgate. The city has concentrated on develop- ing the Lonsdale area as the com- mercial centre of the North Shore.