District budget
feedback blocked

PROCEDURAL

WRANGLING at Monday
night's North Vancouver
District Council mecting

killed any chance of public
feedback on the proposed
municipal budget before it
is presented as a bylaw on
Nay 6,

By Martin Mifierchip

Contributing Writer

Under the o .dget, the overall
average municipal tax increase in
the district will be He. The tax
increase for major industries will
be 30%0; the increase for single-
family homeowners will be 6.4%.

But, according to Ald. Esnie
Crist, total homeowners’ taxes in
the district will actually be about
SES less than fast year when the
provincial homeowner's grant is
calculated into the equation.

He added that the hefty 30%
increase for major industries was
instituted because they have had
‘ta free ride’ in the past and will
now pay taxes based on the rates
charged to district residents.

A motion proposed by Crist
Monday night would have called
for Mayor Murray Dykeman to
request a minimum two-hour time
slot from Shaw Cable 4 for senior
financial staff to present and ex-
plain the budget to district resi-
dents and then for mayor and
council to take live questions via
telephone.

Crist’s motion required unani-
mous approval to pass on the
same night that it was introduced,
but despite apparent consensus,
Aldermen Paul Turner and Janice
Harris defeated the motion by
voting against it.

The two said that opposing the

NORTH VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL

mouan was Ctain co Nd. Joan
Gadsby. because she bad rot been
able to gain unanimous consent at
fast week's meeting when she
pushed to introduce a notice of
motion that would have provided
ratepayers associations with copies
wo othe operating and capital
Pudvers and set up a meeting be-
mveen council and ratepayer rep-
reneaitarives,

Gadsby had wanted the meeting
kefore council approved the
budgets and requested that council
consider debating ber motion last
Monday.

Unhappy with council's decision
not to do so, and the in-camera
debate oof the budget, both
Gadsby and Turner went public
last week with their displeasure at
shutting the ratepayers out of the
budget process, charging that
post-bylaw meetings would be just
“window dressing.’’

Said Turner on Monday, before
voting against Crist’s motion,
“We are in the position of trying
to salvage something from a
mistake.””

Speaking of the ratepayers
groups, Turner continued, ‘We
have as a group, whether by
omission or commission, ... cut
them out of the process. What we
have left them with is such a small!
window of time that it is useless.""

Crist was so surprised at
Turner’s vote that it vwook several
seconds for him to realize that his
motion had not passed at which
point he jumped to his feet and
angrily described Turner as a
“phoney.”*

Gadsby later sugpested chat the
procedures governing district
council meetings should be re-
examined.

Watershed review
debates logging

THE WESTERN Canada

Wilderness Committee

(WCWC) is optimistic that the Greater Vancouver

Regional District

(GVRD)

watershed management

review committee will respond to its call to stop logg-

ing steep, unstable slopes
Coquitlam watersheds.

But WCWC is still pressing
for a five-year moratorium on
all logging in the watershed
region, says WCWC forester
Mark Wareing.

‘“sMother nature can provide
us with the purest quality of
water for free if we let hez,"”
Wareing told the GVRD water
committee Thursday on the
first of two days of public
hearings on the management of
the Capilano, Seymour and
Coquitlara watersheds.

In his submission, Wareing
pointed to a dramatic increase
in mudslides in iogged areas of
the watershed, including a
‘‘massive slope failure’? that hit
Jamieson Creek in a clearcut
area of the Seymour watershed
last November.

The WCWC maintains that
the clearcut increased turbidity
in Vancouver’s drinking water.

(At times in November the
turbidity evel in North Shore
reservoirs was 40 times higher
than national recommended
standards.)

Wareing also criticized a
report released last January fa-
vorable to the Jogging practices
of the GVRD in) watershed

areas,
He said the report does not

contain any

give him

provisions — that
confidence that

in the North Shore and

By Elizabeth Collings
News Reporter

“Jamieson Creek-style slides”
will be prevented in the future.
But University of B.C. pro-

fessor Doug Golding countered {

that of the 30 to 31 slides in
the watershed last November,
only one slide — the Jamieson
Creek slide — occurred in a
clearcut area. The other slides
were in uncut areas, he said.

According to Gary
Kobayashi, president of
IWA-Canada Loca! 1-217,
there is no correlation between
logging and road buiding and
turbid water.

Last November's slides, he
said. resulted from record rain-
fall. Kobayashi added that.
contrary to public perception,
turbidity levels in Lower
Mainland drinking water are
actually decreasing.

Kobayashi also spoke in
favor of patch clearcut logging
which he said could help pre-
vent bug infestation and = pro-
vide forest regeneration.

Kobayashi usged the vom.
mittee fo remember the
workers -- Cthe forgotten ele-
ment’? — as they preceeded |
with (he review process.

J

Sunday. May 5, 1991. North Shore News - 3

NEWS photo Terry Peters

A YOUNG child was injured Friday afternoon when a car parked on a hill in the 800-block of East
Fourth Street rolled away, trapping the child between some shrubbery and the vehicle. Accord-
ing to a North Vancouver City Fire Department spokesman, two preschoolers were playing in the
car just before it began to roll at about 1 p.m. The young victim had stepped from the car and
attempted to jump back in when the vehicle started to move. The car rolled over a curb and into
a yard. The injured child was sent to Lions Gate Hospital.

Group founded to fight national debt

FRET OVER the national debt has Ied a North Vancouver
man to found a group dedicated to collecting ‘input and
ideas from thinking Canadians to help change our coun-

try’s course.”’

According to Tom Rogers,
president of the fledgling Domi-
nion Improvement Research and
Implementation Institute (DIRIL).
taxpayers must combine forces to
reduce a federal debt that in-
creases an estimated $1,000 per
second.

The national debt is expected to
reach $400 billion in 199%. This
year, for every tax dollar paid,
about 36 certs goes to cover the
cost of the roughiy $43 billion
annual interest on the national
debt.

The federal deficit. the amount
by which federal expenditures ex-
ceed annual revenues, was $30.5
billion for the year ending March
31.

The federal debt iy about 60%
of the gross domestic product
(GDP). The GDP. the tora value
of all goods and services produced
in Canada, is estimated to come in
at $666 billicen this vear.

Rogers reckons Chat within 1S
years, the entire national revenue
will be needed ta pay 10% interest
on the national debt.

But said Rogers, i'm a ereat

By Michael Becker
News Reporter

believer that over 90% of the
population is sencerned about the
debt. People basically hate seeing
the waste of their money. It's
(DIRE) a matter of providing a
vehicle for them to get involved.
We have to start now, it takes a
long time to turn around a ship
going in the wrong direction.”

Rogers, who describes himself
as an ex-millionaire who fost it all
in the oi! patch, began to think
seriously about the larger debt
picture when he ran into financial
trouble.

Said Rogers, “The idea for the
institute goes back to the mid-
1980s. | could see the problem
with carrying too much debt and I
could see some of the problems
my friends were vetting into. T got
caught myself. 7 dust got really
concerned about where my kids
and grandchildren were going to
wind up.”

Rogers is fooking tor peaple to

research such areas as:
© prisons for profit;
* co-op farms for welfare;
® government size reduction by at-
trition: . .
+ government cost-saving innova-
tions;

For more information about
DIRIE call 922-6180.

Index
BB High Profiles........ 20
MComics............. 43
@ Fashion ............ 13
@ Lifestyles ....0.0..... 39
@ Miss Manners ....... 40
@ Spirituatly Speaking ..22
Vintage Years....... 44

@ What's Going On... .34

Weather

Monday and Tuesday, cloudy
with showers. Highs. 1&C.
lows 7'°C.

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