The Worth Shore News Is published by North Shore Free Press Ltd., Publisher Peter Speck, from 1139 Lonsdale Aveque 4 WTA 2H PETER SPECK Publisher 985-2131 (101) S Dee Dhalival Human Resources Manager Doug Foot Comptrolies Sales & Marketing Diet 930-0511 (319) "Terry Petors 905-2131 (168) q ie Barbora Emo “Jonathan Betl Distribution Manager Creative Services Maneger 986-1337 (124) 985-2131 (127) Otzntay & Real Estat; Fax Beveroem Fa: Clanviied, Acecunting Main Offices Fax 5227 Michoe! Becker-News Editor QB5-2131 (144) Andrew McCredia-Sports/Community Editor U5-2131 (187) LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Letters must include your name, full address & telephone number. VIA internet: kenshaw @ direct.ca COMPUTER BBS - 980-8027 User (D:mailbox * Password:letters internet. http://www. nsnews.com North Shore Hews, funded in 14 as un mierda suburban newgueet an! gielified umdkt Sefouube 111, Paragraph PH of de: bach Tar Aad is publish eat Wertresstyy, Fike son! Sanay by Neeth Shave Five Pros fad vant lstibutod ocvery dour ont te North State Curuaka Uy. Canakin Publcapon Mal Saks Podat Agmurent iso OUST2 Marling rates avwbais nn oan. member GEA Gchn SIG bf a Bee; Enlire contents © 1996 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. -C.’s Auditor General George Morfitt states the obvious in his recently released report on Motor Vehicle Branch enforcement programs and truck safety: Trucking industry safety is just not geod enough. But where do we go from here? One possible route is to ban heavy trucks from particularly dangerous loca! roads. The steep North Shore is full of challenging grades. Last year municipal staff in West Vancouver attempted to do just that and SWOT Ss \ Truck time calied for a temporary ban on truck traffic on three streets. Onc of them, 22nd Street, saw a trag- ic truck crash played out upon it. The dump truck, belicved to have been over- lorded by some 4,550 kilograms (almost five tons) roared down the hill and struck and killed a pedestrian. The council of the day did not act on the 1995 staff recommendation to block the roads to trucks. The new council has an urgent item on its agenda. The two North Vancouver councils SENNA | ereenerenennt we oS SS Ss Sx SSS SS ON SAAN SSH SRR RD Setee SSQRAHIEN AC RT MAAMRERNA AANA ALPIT ED ovr gy we ey | bea =p Sia: oh should also show some leadership on this issue. Tt’s not enough to simply shake our heads in dismay at the news of such needless loss of life and property. Morfitt estimates one of every five commerciaj trucks on the road would be grounded if sufficient inspection clout were in place to check for defects such as faulty brakes. We would do well not to count on the province acting quickly to rectify the sit- uation. It’s time to act locally. District raise is all wrong Dear Editor: : I think it’s appaliing the way Worth Vancouver District council members have voted themselves a substantial raise. I believe, we, the voting public, were misled by their not announc- ing during their campaigns that they felt the money wasn’t enough. How can someone like Ernie Crist who has been on the council for years suddenly, immediately after re-election, decide the* pay wasn’t enough for the work required. Their claim that unless you pay well you don’t get good people is a lot of crap. Are they trying to tell us thar the council members in other. . municipalities ace not very. good: ‘because they don’t get paid as much? . What was their campaign about. I didn’t hear one of them say that unless they got a raise they wouldn’t do a good job. Maybe © they should reconsider who they are serving on council, themselves or . the residents of the North Vancouver District. Bob Rasmus North Vancouver Here's to the heroes in the Lamont case A serious miscarriage of justice has been averted, Stop there. You have seen that state- ment or variants of it many times. So you probably instantly assured that this was a mis- carriage of the authorities against an innocent or innocents, No, reader. Pm talking about a miscarriage of justice against the authorities by the guilty. And I state most solemnly: ft would have stneared the Canadian government, its ministers and its hureaterats Carave and unbreakable in this case). It has already done damage like that in some gullible minds, And it has cost Canadian taxpayers a bundle in diplomatic and parliamen- tary costs and effort on behalfof the supposed “innocents.” I refer to the Lamont-Spencer case. Eiht years to the oonth afler she and her boyfriend David Spencer were arrested in a police shootout and charged with a role in the sensativnal kidnapping of a Brazilian millionaire by Marsist terrorists, Christine Lamont has final- ly admitesd guilt. After eight years in custody in Brazil and facing another 20, and the failure of one of the most high-profile and Lengthy lobby- ing efforts in our history by her family and the soft-hearted, the soft-headed, and the hard left, garden of biases eee ee a Christine has clearly raken the only route with any possibility of success. She’s admitted guile. Let's name the heroes — the ones who refused to buckle before the nasty, sometimes libelous onslaught. Barbara McDougall, thea external affairs min- ister, She was viciously slagged. Seatt Mullin, her skilful media relations man — not the usual jumped-up journalist but a highly experienced career diplomat. And twa honest Canadian newspaperwomen (and their editors) who began by believing the propaganda- mills’ mantra that Lamont and Spencer were innocent, bue were convinced otherwise during their research: Isabel Vincent of the Globe and Mail and Caroline Mallan of the Taronto Star -— who scored a scvop with her story of the discov- ery under a Nicaragua ante repair shop ofa sophisticated arsenal and a damning cache of doctored passports, fake letters of reference, and vaguely-worded letters by Christine that were to be mailed at intervals to hee family to create the impression (and doubtless serve as alibi) that she was in far-off Nicaragua, not Brazil, at the time af the kidnapping. Police called it part of an international terror- ist ring. Here, a declaration of self-interest: Vincent and Mallan each wrote books — respectively, See No Evil (Reed Books Canada) and Wrong Tine, Wrong Place? (Key Porter Books) — that flatter- ingly acknowledged my skeptical columns on the issuc. Right from the start I'd have bet the farm that Lamont and Spencer were guilty, The whole thing smelled. And nothing smelled so stinky as the far-left’s instantly jumping in. They included same of the apologists for the terrorist Squamish Five. (David Spencer was one of them.) The Lamont family spent hundreds of thou- sands of dollars to free Christine, some to Ottawa lobbyist David Humphreys. Blaine Donais of Saskatchewan's Lawyers for Social Responsibility and Jennie Hattield-Lyon of Queen's University’s law faculty contributed weighty academic papers. Harry Rankin, Big Daddy of Vancouver's left, told a rally thar McDougall was obsessed with the pair’s guilt or innocence, when her only job was to try to free them (1). Then-Liberal MLA Lynn Stephens joined in. West Vancouver's well-intentioned Ray Eagle and David Morgan of North Vancouver were among those who publicly castigated my good self I explicitly advised the family in print years ago that there was only one course of action that might spring Christine. Admit guilt. Belatedly, Christine has —- and undercut her backers. By the way, Tam also absolutely aght about abortion, feminism, and the gay lobby. Relieve it. — The North Shore News believes strongly in freedom of speech and the right of all studes in a debate ta be heard. The columnists published in the News present differing paints af view, but those views are not necessarily those of the news- paper itself.