DOES the monster GVRD have monstrous ears? Can - they burn? ; I doubt it. ‘My. opinion is that big ears would have to presuppose . a big brain, or some kind of brain. “ Also a big heart, which seems | “even more unlikely. In fact'1 confess | can’t really iimagine the’ Greater Vancouver “Regional District as having any- ~ thing but a big reach , and possibly a very big mouth into which its ‘amorphous amoeba-like arms / s push its food, sticks and dirt and. “anything else they pick up includ- ede on: “But this i is unfair, since I have “never seen’ the GVRD up close but . ‘instead have only read about it, ithe way knights heard about drag-’ ons before being introduced to. ‘them. ¢ _ Anyway, the GVRD at least . got a’ sword brandished in its face ‘quite incidentally.and apparently, spontaneously at West: Vancouver ‘Council on Monday. For a few minutes a’number of councillors : unloaded their feelings about it. “The ad hoc colloquium was touched off by Coun. Andy.” Danyliu, whose sniping for clear explanations and/or underlying -truths sometimes misfires but who is council’s:most ‘probing as well as most entertaining dissenter hen he’s on target... . on ‘The’ occasion .was the receipt ‘of é final ‘draft of the GVRD's « Livable. Regional Strategic Plat. Poter Speck” _Pubiishor, 985-2131 (101) Comptroiier 1139 Lonsdale Avenue ° fe ‘North Vancouver B.C. 7M 2H4 North Shore Managed Doug Foot. .- | 985-2 131 (133) Lautens garden of biases which, as Hollywood used to say about blockbuster movies like The Bible, was years in the making. In fact the plan took almost as long to unfold as The Bible — | The Book, with the original cast. | Danyliu spiritedly lit into this solemn document. He rudely and audaciously wanted to know what all the stuff described therein - would cost, a modest omission on the part of its many anonymous authors. Without that information, it was simply “an extensive and expensive exercise in ue rela- tions” that didn’t present “a achievable and affordable ideal.” Its creators had merely asked everyone what they: wanted, and, predictably, of course they wanted everything, including a guarantee “of a perpetual blue sky. Thus, opined Danyliu,:the ,, ‘Chris Johnson Operations Manager 985-24 31 (166) HE GREATER Vancouver Regional District’s current watersheds tours are an illuminating public relations exer- cise in exposing: Lower Mainland residents to the beauty of backwoods North Shore, but they have failed to explain why the regional district continues to log forests adjacent to public drinking water supplies. The free four-hour bus tours are being offered Thursday to Sunday at 8 am, and 12:30 p.m. until Sept. 17. They were initiated by the GVRD to educate the public. about . local drinking water and the GVRD’s current watershed management program. Much newspaper ink has been expended over the past few years on that program, most of it over the contentious issue of watershed logging. The debate pits the GVRD against enyironmentalists. : As a quick review: the GVRD claims its watershed logging program is now focused on maintaining water quality through the removal of diseased or fire-prone trees; the environmentalists say clearcut logging in the watersheds exposes the area to erosion, which results in silt and other runoff ending up in water reservoirs and, ultimately, Lower Mainland taps. But it’s not just environmentalists who; question the watershed Jogging line being | toed by GVRD representatives. Anyone who’ relies on common sense to determine. right _ from wrong will tell you that the construction | of logging roads and the removal of trees can only disturb the natural cycle of watershed purification: that has been going on in the watersheds for. thousands of years. ' We all know what our water quality has been like since watershed logging began. We © need to know what that quality is like without . it. The only way to determine that is to insti- tute a watershed logging moratorium. result was merely “a 1 number of noble statements ... that have’ ” neglected to mention to people ~ what it's really going to cost.” What, for example, said Danyliu, warming to his subject, would the cost be of limiting the use of the automobile in favor of a more convenient and affordable . public transport system? . Mayor. Mark Sager, vice-chair- man of the GVRD (who has repeatedly and generously offered to take me by the hand around the GYVRD and thus diminish both my igaerance and my GVRDphobia, an offer soon to be taken up), thoughtfully responded to Danyliu’s critique. ; “{ find it all a bit frustrating,” our muscular mayor remarked, especially. when “what is popular ~-at election time” isn’t consistent " with politicians’ previously held : positions. ; Sager dwelt on the growth/transportation issue in the region — the GVRD's prime — obsession — noting that there was much argument about how much growth the Fraser Valley can an- f dle. After Coun. Ron Wood. affirmed his support forthe — “directions” pointed out by the “ GYRD plan, “at least in concept,” Coun. Allan Williams provided a much more devastating picture of “that august body. : It was, Williams broadly said,. totally dominated by Vancouver , and Burnaby, and its plan is occ Timothy Renshaw Managing Editor’ © 985-21 3t (116) pied with the problems of shovel- ling peuple in and out between those two distinguished centres of civilization and the ruder bedroom . . hamlets cast of them. Well, I 5 translate him freely, but he said ‘ something like that. “They couldn't care less about: other municipalities... We hear nothing about what’s going to be | done to help the North Shore, ” Williams charged. And, as a former attorney-gen- eral of this grand province, our most elderly councillor knows °: how to lay a'pretty stiff charge. More ominously, he turned wrathfully to the issue.of a new or revamped crossing between Vancouver and the North Shore (remember?). If anything “‘hap- pens” to Lions Gate Bridge, said Williams, “real estate prices in * West Vancouver will drop like a stone.” ; ' Acertain chill could be felt in . the, chambers. Collective visions.‘ “: he remembered a meeting at Linda Stewart _ Sales & Marketing Director. : 980-051 1 (319) percolated throughout the room of costly BMWs and Mercs plunging | ” into. the waters from the rusty . bridge or shaken down by an earthquake. - / Even a columnist — a breed seldom troubled by conscience or |.” second thoughts, indeed first ones.“ are all too rare — uncomfortably” recalled his cavalier attitude - /toward this vital unresolved issue: Yes, Mayor Sager reminisced, - which then-Highways Minister Art Charbonneau briskly asserted ’. Peter Kvarnstrom, ‘ Display Manager. "980-0514 (103) : then. late in the year that a decision would be made about a new link by the following March or April. That was three years ago. No _ decision. No new link. Full circle, Coun, Danytiu con- cluded by philosophizing that politicians pay for the false’ expec- tations they raise, and, as for his , own skeptical raising of questions, “I'd rather be called guilty at the beginning (of such matters) than guilty at the end.” ‘His listeners —- precisely once . dozen citizens —~ went home, pos- «: sibly sadder but wiser. And proba-° bly relieved that they didn’t have to cross Lions Gate Bridge quite ‘Erecord with real. sadness the death of a familiar and beloved , character on the West Vancouver <. scene. The clientele of the 16th Street liquor. store always had“ their spirits raised in more ways ’ than one when entertained by» ‘ Robert Newton, whe earned ° : money as a University of B.C, stu- © dent with his elegant violin music : ‘whose sounds wafted pleasurably. ‘ around the square, and his beauti- . ful, silky golden retriever Farley, always ready to retrieve a ball and to receive and give affection,...;: ' which he did with the generosity _ bestowed only on dogs. ° . *. Farley died on Monday | ° evening, and I for one wept : Valerie Stephenson ’ Trixi Agrios ‘Classified Manager 986-6222 (202) | Promotions Manager © 985-21 at a 8) “North Shore News, tounded j in. 1969 as an ‘independent suburban newspaper aiid qualified under Schedule 111,' Paragraph’ 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press «: Ltd. and distributed to every door on the North * Shore, Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Salas Product Agreement No. 0087238. Mailing rates available’ on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and /: Pictures, which should ba accompanied bya stamped, sclt- ‘addressed envelope, ' Administration , Display Advertising Real Estate Advertising « Classified Advertising: - Newsroom” Distribution | Display & Real Estate Fax _. 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