4 - Friday, duty 4, 1986 ~ North Shore News

News Viewpoint

|__News Viewpoint _|
SkyHigh costs

ARPET-LAYER Stuart’ Brown has made an
astute observation regarding the $5.30) transit
levy, now appearing on B.C. Hydro bills.

The charge is being made to subsidize the new

SkyTrain.

Brown, a North Vancouver resident, doesn’t cide the
new rapid transit system because he says it doesn't
come here and probably never will.

He's upset the charge, up 231 per cent from $1.60 a
month, is being made across the board. And like
many, he plans to protest the hike.

One vocal lobby group, the B.C. Coalition to End
Poverty, is calling on everyone to write letters to their
municipalities requesting they draft resolutions oppos-

ing the increase.

The coalition argues the increase is going to hurt
pecple on the lower economic scale, who are already
struggling to survive on low welfare rates. According
to the coalition, the $5.30 will mean less money
available for welfare recipients to spend on food.

The coalition also suggests letters be written to Pro-
vin: i Secretary Grace McCarthy, calling on the gov-
ernmeni to fund SkyTrain from general revenue.

Both suggesticns are valid.

If North Shore residents are upset with the bill, hit-
ting rich and poor alike, now is the time to speak up

and voice your opposition.

The SkyTrain serves Vancouver, Burnaby and New
Westminster — not the North Shore, or for that matter
the rest of the province who must also pay the addi-

tional transit levy.

THE VGICE OF NORTH AND WESt VANCU J6 ict
aa qu:

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News Editor Barrett Fisher

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North Shore News,

Over to you...

RESTRAINT REDUCTIONS REDUCED CAREFULLY

. Van school trustees

should be co

Dear Editor:

The casual reader is likely to
be completely misled by the two
invidious letters published in
the North Shore News, May 30,
(Taxpayers’ Views Ignored,
from Mrs. M.E. Baker; Parents
Protest WV (School) Budget

_ Cuts, by unsigned members of
the WV Parents’ Association).

The latter complains of the
reduction in the provisional
$986/87 budget by the 4:1 ma-
jority vote of the Board of
Trustees of School District 45,
while completely ignoring the
fact that the final budget
adopted by the same 4:1 major-
ity is a sizeable $900,000 in-
crease over the previous year,
an increase of approximately 5
per cent.

Mrs. Baker complains bitterly
of the power of trustee Margot
Furk's arguments for limiting
the budget increase to said 5 per
cent and implies that trustees
Stark, Boname and Howard
joined Mrs. Furk’s ‘‘gaggle’’
(Mrs. Baker's chosen term) like
so many geese.

In point of fact the other
trustees had independent views
of their own supporting their

W/V for

| the dea f/

votes, as has been made clear to
anyone who has attended regu-
lar (open) board meetings con-
sistently.

The Board of Trustees of the
West Vancouver-Lions’ Bay
School District (#45) are to be
commended on their steward-
ship during these past four dif-
ficult years.

Expenditures and restraint
reductions were carefully
reduced on a smooth descent
rather than being applied in a
delayed but inevitable sudden
drop. In each year actual
dollars spent per pupil increased
mildly until the 1985/86 y<ar
when there was a slight reduc-
tion.

The new 1986/87 budget will
see a sizeable rise of more than
$150 per pupil to a new water-
mark level of apoproximately
$4,000. The pupilfteacher ratio
continues to hold in the 17.5:]
area, significantly below the
provincial average.

Class sizes have been careful-
ly contrc‘led by adherence to
long-standing formulae, and
emphasis on effective treatment
of learning disa’sility has been
maintained. This has been done

Dear Editor:

Since my wife and | came to
West Vancouver last year, one of
our greatest complaints has been
the amount of noise we have had
to endure.

The climax came early this mor-
ning when the ear(i-shattering roar
of a mechanical excavator, belong-
ing I understand to Ocean Point

along with paying due attention
to the needs and growth of the
French Immersion program and
its implications on staffing and
operation economy.

There is no factual basis for
any claim of deterioration in
teaching and learning standards
in School District 45.

School boards are always
subject to pressure and invec-
tive from minority groups who
hope to extract more in the way
of jobs and dollars from the
system than the residential tax-
payers can afford to put in to
it.

To meet the justifiable
1986/87 budget increase in
West Vancouver the board has
increased the mill rate by 7.4
per cent. For the so-called
“‘average’’ ($160,000 assess-
ment) residential taxpayer this
represents a raise of about $40
to a total pre-Homeowner
Grant school tax of $589 this
year, and another similar raise
automatically next year.

However, a large portion of
homeowners have assessments
two and three times or more
above average, without neces-
sarily having proportionally

Contractors Ltd., disturbed the
whole neighborhood.

This nuisance, I am told, is like-
ly to last some time and we have
apparently no redres: for the in-
convenience and discomfort.

My advice, therefore, to those
thinking of settling here is: ‘Don't
unless you are deaf.”’

David Macaree
West Vancouver

ended

larger ability to pay.

West Vancouver residential
taxpayers should take cheer that
since the current provincial
government revised the school
finance formula in 1982 their
schoo! taxes dropped 45 per
cent from the 1981 level.

If the school budget sharing
ratio for S.D. 45 of 60 per cent
provincial: 40 per cent residen-
tial taxpayer adopted for 1982
had been maintained instead of
being dropped closer to 50:50 as
of 1986/87, the new increase of
7.4 per cent in residential mill
rate for schools would not have
been necessary.

In closing may [ contrast the
1981-1986 overall drop in
school taxes of 45 per cent to
the total! municipal tax-plus-
sewer and waste charges in-
creased 41 per cent for the
“‘average’’ taxpayer over the
same period, in West Van-
couver.

It would appear high time for
residential taxpayers to shift
blame for rising taxes from our
school board to our municipal
government.

Paul J. Sykes
West Vancouver

eae

Entire contents
1986 Noh Shore
Free Press Ltd All
nghts reserved

PIANNING A
TRIP THiS
WEEKEND?

Dear Editor:

On May 10 we were on our way
home to Deep Cove after a long
day at Expo and were waiting fora
#239 bus at the Lonsdale Quay ex-
change. For whatever reasons it
was late, which meant another half
hour delay for our connecting bus
at Phibbs Exchange.

We explained this to a transit
supervisor whom we know only as
Jeff. He proceeded to help load
the bus and then drove ahead to
Phibbs to hold the other busses so
that we and the other passengers
could make the respective connec-
tions.

We wish, through you, to thank
him,

With all the criticism going
around these days about public
servants, we think it is time to in-
dicate appreciation when service
above the strict call of duty is
rendered.

Richard and
Mary Blackburn
North Vancouver

Call for equality

Dear Editor:

I am confused over the reverse
discrimination practised in our
country.

We allow a smail sect of militant
Sikhs to carry weapons of war. Yet
other Canadians must not carry a
knife over four inches.

This is not right. There must be
equality. Through recert events
they have shown us their irrespon-
sibility to bear arms.

So either we all can bear arms or
no one should bear arms.

Jim Morrison
North Vancouver