7 Page 6, November ry 1978 - North Shore News

It’s a charade because
‘Mayor Jones and his council
supporters are on record as
saying that a “10 per cent or
Jess” vote is exactly what
they would have have ex-
pected from the great
majority of the community,
had the official referendum
gone ahead. So what we
really wind up with is not a
simple referendum question,

West Vancouver. Mayor Peter. Jones and all but fF

one of. his council members wish they'd never §£

heard. Since last summer’s Proposition 13'revolt |
by California taxpayers, however, it has become
part of Mr. and Mrs. Everyman’s basic political
vocabulary and—whatever our: ‘present elected
representatives may think ‘about it—

REFERENDUM i isa word that’s not going | to > go.

away.

The word is s being heard

‘more and more often among

citizens in all parts of. the

North Shore (and beyond)
who don’t. buy.
proposition that | city hall
alone. automatically. knows
“what is. best :

taxes. ‘Meanwhile, _ the
referendum question in West

_ Vancouver has become a hot _

political . potato — “during
“recent weeks. in. another
connection.

At the beginning of . Oc-
tober West Van’s 10 main
ratepayer eos, asked

council | include a
feferendum on the com-
-munity’s future growth in the
. November 18 _ election.

Voters were to be asked

whether they favored growth

of 50 per cent or more, or 25

‘percent, or 10. per cent or.

less. —

Council threw out the

the.

for them,.
: especially in the: matter of.

had been denied the op- §
portunity of. expressing at

the ballot box—the North

Shore News went ahead with

two identically | ‘worded
surveys of its own: a

_telephone poll based on a
‘balanced |
sample of the population; |

-Gallup-type

and a write-in‘ ‘referendum. ”

- Results of the telephone

poll were published last
week. They showed 60 per
cent of . the respondents
demanding 10 per cent

growth or less, 20 per cent in

favor of 25 per cent growth
and 4 per cent ready to
accept 50 per cent growth or

more; 16 per cent of the —
‘respondents “didn’t know.”

The sample’ used, in-
cidentally, was ap-
proximately 100 times

larger, as a percentage of the
West Van population, than

‘the standard sample used in |

request by a 6-1 vote, with -

only -

ratepayers. The political pot
has been bubbling furiously
ever since, with the rejected
referendum and its im-
plications shaping up as one
of the major West Van issues
on polling day later this
month.

TWO SURVEYS

In an effort to cast some
light on the wishes of West
Van residents regarding

. future growth—wishes they

ee > |
Wo A
‘)

Alderman: Doreen
Blackburn. supporting the |

the nationwide | Gallup
surveys.
The write-in “referen-

dum,” which closed Mon-
day, unfortunately coincided
with the postal strike and,
presumably. because of this,
the response was lighter than.
in numerous similar write-in
surveys conducted by the
News in the past. Never-

theless, a total of 258 eligible
West Van voters took the
‘trouble to clip the coupon,
fill it in and somehow get it
delivered—in the majority of
cases. by. hand. The results
were rather more dramatic

vil i is wy oy
' '" ws va . v \

CREATE YOUR OWN

than those of the telephone
poll. .
SOLID MAJORITY

Out of the total of 258
respondents no less than 241
(over 93 per cent) voted for
10 per cent growth or less.
Seven plumped for 25 per
cemt growth, and another

seven were ready to accept |

50 per cent growth or more.
Three respondents wrote on

their coupons that they

didn't know.

In relation to population
densities, the responses
came pretty evenly from all

four main areas—115 from :

Ambleside-Park Royal-Ce-
dardale, 44 from British
Properties, 54 from Dun-

darave-West Bay and 45 [

from the 3500 block west to
Horseshoe Bay.

| Obviously, neither survey §

is as authoritative as an
officially conducted
referendum . would . have
been. But they were the best
that could be done under the
circumstances by way of

but a crisis of confidence
between the electors and the
elected in West Vancouver.

TRUST LACKING

The mayor and his five
council followers argued
that the wording of the
referendum included no
time frame for desired
growth—and that even
small-scale subdivision
development in “fill-in”
areas, together with such
things as extra bedrooms
added to individual homes,
could well exceed a 10 per
cent growth limit within a
decade or so.

confirming—whichever way — i

you slice it—that a solid
majority of West

couverites want minimal

growth (expressed as “10 per

cent or less’) within the
foreseeable future.

Aside from that fact, this

whole exercise in numbers is
little more than a charade.

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Be that as it may, what the
ratepayer groups .
council saying was that it
didn’t want its development
options controlled by having
a policy directive (via a
referendum) formally placed
on the record.

What the ratepayer groups
themselves were saying—put
bluntly—was that they didn’t
altogether trust council to be
left alone with the options.

Council had admitted that
it knew the wishes of the

‘people
refusing —
wishes to- be. ‘expressed in

heard

in? “advance.
to. allow

“In
those

constitutional ° ‘form, the
mayor and five members of
the present council

inevitably laid themselves
open to the suspicion that
they were not prepared to
bind themselves to the
majority will of the elec-
torate. -

Which is: where the matter
still rests—until pons day,
November 18. a

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