Certain North Vancouver District aldermen -- angry over the recent exposure of the Beak Report on the North Shore's chlorine hazard -- have condemned the media for being “irresponsible” and “printing garbage.” As the North Shore News played a leading role in the exposure we assume that we are one of the objects of this aldermanic. displeasure. Just for the record, the North Shore News had no part in locating Hooker Chemicals adjacent to a thickly populated area. We didn’t ask council to spend taxpayers’ money on a report about the plant’s possible r dangers. We certainly didn’t encourage ~ council then to keep that report secret for 20 months. The North Shore News did not arrange the derailment of a chlorine tank car at Mississauga which forced a quarter of a million people to flee their homes for a week. We didn't cause three recent derail- ments on local CN and B.C. Rail tracks (one of them also involving a chlorine tank car). . Nor did we elect Alderman Erie Crist to council, or write his letters for him. The North Shore News DID report these events objectively and, in its editorial columns, added certain relevant comments - - as any citizen is entitled to do. If this is what our heated friends on District council are talking about, we are proud to have done our “irresponsible” duty to the public as printers of “garbage.” As to the aldermen in question -- no comment, ladies and gentlemen. Back too soon? Looking at the members of the latest Liberal cabinet one is almost tempted to feel a little sorry for them. Like Prime Minister Trudeau himself, eighteen of the 32 ministers are retreads from the government which the electorate threw out less than 10 months ago in favor of new ideas and fresh faces. Many of the faces being far from fresh, it's to be hoped that.at least plenty of new ideas have been generated in the short time since last May 22. Or did the Liberals pull the plug on Joe Clark a mite too soon for their own Rood? | sunday news north shore news NEWS - ADVERTISING 9860-0511 1139 Lonsdale Ave . North Vancouver, B C V7M 2H4 (604) 980-0511 CLASSIFIED 986-6222 Publisher Peter Speck CIRCULATION 986-1337 Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noel Wright Eric Cardwell Classified Manager Production & Office Administrator Tim Francis Berni Hitiard Faye McCrae Managing Editor Nows Editor Andy Fraser Photography Chris Uoyd Eltsworth Dickson Accounting Supervisor Barbara Keen North Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent commun: ty newspaper and qualified under Schedule Ill, Part tt, Paragraph tI of the Excise-Tax Act, is published each Wednesday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Lid and distributed to every door on the North Shore Second Class Mail Registration Number 3885 Subscriptions $20 per year Entire contents © 1979 North Shore Free Press Ud. All rignts reserved No responsibility accepted for unsolicited matensl manuscripts and pictures. which should be stamped. addressed retum envelope including accompamed by 4 VERIFIED CIRCULATION 49,603 40.478 Eons SN ¢ Wednesday ty aco THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE Let's train our own people By ROGER WORTH to skilled workers are rising A heavy equipment Shorages become, more company recently advertised evidene in a prestigious national business publication seeking Meanwhile, “more than a general manager. The $200 billion will be spent on starting salary: $50,000 per Major energy related projects in the country in the 1980's. As a_ result, the experts estimate Canada will year. At the same time, another firm advertised in the same publication seeking a diesel mechanic. The starting tained workers. salary: $50,000 per year. Until recently, most - Admittedly, the diesel governments in Canada have mechanic would be located in a remote area of northern British Columbia. But it's intriguing that at least one tradesman in Canada 1s earning as much money as a generally taken a wait and see attitude toward upgrading manpower training and apprenticeship policies and programs. In a recent survey taken general manager of a firm by the 55,000 member with sales of $15 million. Canadian Federation of The point, of course, is Independent Business, for that there is an acute example, 17% of those shortage of skilled trades people in the -country and the situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. In addition, salaries paid interviewed listed shortages of qualified labor as their most important problem. A crash program to train Canadians to fill the high paying jobs that are now need at least another 40,000 ; THE HOSTAGES ?... _— tes SILL TRYING TO MAKE UP HIS MIND! TORONTO “AUIN going begging is urgently needed. Otherwise, the pressure to import even more skilled trades people from other countries - while untrained Canadians remained unemployed - will become unbearable. ‘(Roger Worth is Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Federation of Independent Business.) Bargain basement councils This is the season when municipal councils put the finishing touches to their budgets for the current year -- and when council members, in the course of doing so, sometimes vote themselves a modest pay hike. The latter procedure is always watched with a hawklike eye by the public, some of whom feel that mayors and aldermen should be ‘above such sordid matters as being paid for their services. In spirit, at any rate, many New Westminster, with mayors and aldermen only 1,000 more residents already must be. Whatever than West Van, pays its else inspires them to run for mayor $23,544. Port office, especially in smaller Coquitlam, with less than municipalities, it’s certainly three-quarters of the not money. population of North Van The average industrial City, rewards its chief worker's wage in Canada magistrate with $17,325. presently stands at ap- The mayors of Port proximately $16,540 a year. In North Vancouver City (population about 32,000) Mayor Jack Loucks earns over $1,500 less than that basic figure — $14,973, to be Moody and White Rock (each with a mere 12,000 or so inhabitants) earn $19,431 and $15,400 respectively. When you translate North Shore figures the imto precise. hourly rates they become In West Vancouver even more thought (population some 37,000) provoking. For all three Mayor Derrick Humpbreys - - once he got the hang of the cash register — could swap jobs with a supermarket checkout clerk and sacrifice at most a couple of hundred bucks out of his current North Shore mayors the job is a full-time one. If you equate them with the world of business, they are the chief executive officers of $12 million to $20 millon a year corporations, per- $16,428. He would also have sonally responsible for around 20 hours more free everything the municipality time every week. does In the much _ larger Their “shareholders” are municipality of North the taxpayer-electors, for Vancouver District whom the buck stops with a bang in the mayor's office When you add to His Worship’s full days at his desk (or out and about on field inspections) those lengthy evening council and committee meetings - plus cqually lengthy ceremomal chores that often fall on Saturday or Sunday -- 60- hour weeks tend to become (population 63,500) Mayor Don Bell does a little better. At $23,000 he’s in roughly the same wage bracket as the average teacher. On a population basis the remuneration of North Van District's mayor is reasonably in line with that provided by other large municipalies such = as Burnaby, Delta and Rich. (the rule rather than the mond Bult) among the crception smaller) = municipalities of These guys must really Greater Vancouver, North love their work At = rates Van City and West Van are very definitely the poor relations ranging from $5 20-$5 70 an hour for the mayors of North Van City and West Van up to focus Noel Wright the heady $7.99 an hour for the mayor of North Van District’ a_ self-respecting liquor store clerk wouldn't even look at the job. North Shore aldermen don't fare all that much better. In North Van City they get $4.991, in West Van $5.475. in North Van District $7 000 A conscientious alderman can easily put in up to 15 hours a week, 48 weeks year, on mumcipal business. So their hourly rates run from about $6 93-$7 60 in the City and West Van to around $9 72 inthe District District aldermen at least get into the checkout clerk league And, unhke = the mayors. aldermen are able to continue in their own paid occupations or professions. But it's stall hardly a princely reward for as much as 720 hours a year out of your family hfe Aldermen. too, must dove their work almost any other form of moonhghting would pay a lot better. Meanwhile, compared to their elected masters senior ‘municipal staff members enjoy a very different level of remuneration. This, despite the fact that even the top men, the municipal managers, still have to refer many minor routine decisions to the mayor for his blessing. Measured by the standards of the business world, they are ad- mimistralors rather than true mangers. Nevertheless, the three municipal managers on the North Shore receive salaries in the $40,000-$50,000 range -- in two cases that’s at least three times as much as the “chief executives” to whom they report. This doesn't necessarily mean they are overpaid. But it certainly Suggests that their bosses, the mayors, are grossly underpaid for the respon- sibilities they have to assume. True, perhaps, the honor and dignity of elected office have to be reckoned as part of its rewards. But honor and dignity won't pay a mayor's tent and grocery bills any more than they'll pay yours and mine And there's one final statistic (hat makes this a pretty flimsy argument. anyhow. The combined salanes of mayors and their six aldermen work out al ap proximately seven cents per houschold per week in North Van City and West Van, and just over five cents in North Van District. Those salaries could be doubled tomorrow and individual taxpayers wouldn't even notice it. They say people get the government they deserve The truth of the matter ts that the kind of local government we get on the North Shore -- with all tts occasional errors 1s far better than we deserve in return for the miserly pay we offer its elected members