Brooksha ball barrage f hitting ho By Anna Marie D’Angelo News Reporter me GABE Torok has a collection of 40 softballs he doesn’t want. “It’s getting to the point where it’s now ridiculous,” said Torok. He usually returns the “millions” of balls that have come over his fence in the last three years from people using Brooksbank Community Park. But if the balls hit him, his father or damages his proper- ty, he doesn’t return them. The damage has included a bro- ken greenhouse window. And if a ball retriever climbs over the fence without per- mission, “the ball is mine,” said Torok. Torok has one neighbor, two back alleys and the park with a softbal! diamond on the borders of his property. He lives in the 900-block of East 13th Street. Torok said someone, likely a Brooksbank elementary school parent, recently backed into his fence with a car. He said his fence gets damaged at least twice a year in this way. Torok said that his fence and gates have been also bat- tered by people carelessly climbing over them in search of their lost softballs. He has complained about the situation to district staff for two years. North Vancouver District Parks manager Richard Boulton said the municipality is planing this fall to increase the height of the fence near Torok’s property and put up netting to help solve the problem. “We are definitely not going to move the park,” said Boulton. Boulton noted that softball season was now over. Torok said he calls the police about nwice a week con- cerning groups of noisy youths congregating in the park’s parking Jot at night. “Pye never scen the cops come to the area unless they are called,” said Torok. North Vancouver RCMP Const. Catherine Galliford said the park is one of the places kids are known to hang our, bur she said it was not a hotbed of youth problems. “He should give us a call whenever there is any problem. That is what we are here for,” said Galliford. Torck said that he has lived beside parks before and never had these problems. He said that lighting the park and parking lot would help deter some of the unwanted activities. W. Vancouver woman seeks ouster of NDP over budget “deceit” By lan Noble News Reporter WEST Vancouver resident Liz James has set her sights firmly on the next provin- cial election. But James said she’s not satisfied with having to wait five years to cast her ballot and cast out a deceit- ful NDP government. Instead, James began Operation Dissoive ‘96 on Sept. 26 to get British Columbians to bombard the desk of B.C, { isutenant-Governor Garde Gardom with hundreds of thousands of letters, to convince him to dismiss the government now and call an elec- tion, It’s a huge task, but James has been buoyed by the response to her campaign. Just under 600 peo- ple have called in support, and some of them have said they have support from hundreds of others. “So what Lhoped would happen is happening, A brush fire is starting,” she said Wednesday. James said she’s prepared to accept the results of index @ Bright Lights - @ Crossword Friday, October 4, 1996 — North Shore News - 3 ss NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge GABE Torok lives near a North Vancouver park. Sometimes it rains balls. He’s not happy with the situation. an election in a demacracy. What she can’t accept is what she called the NDP’s deceit before, during and afier the May provincial election, when the party claimed budget surpluses for 1995-96 and 1996-97 even though those claims conflicted with the data provided by bureaucrats James points to news reports saying the NDP knew its rosy deficit projections were out of whack beforé the election when backing up her accusations of deceit. A Sept. 11 Vanconver Sin story under the headline “NDP ‘ignored warning’ of budget deficit” stated that documents show provincial bureaucrats “clearly and consistently warned the New Democratic Party it was headed for a budget deficit before the last previncial election.” The story stated that Finance Minister Andrew Petter maintained he was given a range of growth projections when drawing up the 1996-97 budget. He chose an aggressive economic growth rate of 2.7% when diattag his budget. At the time the Sia reported that Peter ontin- ued to support his growth projections, Since then, the government has revised its growth forecast dawn to 1%. For 1995-96, the forecasted surplus has turned into a deficit. And worries about a surging deficit for 1996-97 have led to announcements of government cuts. James said comments by an NDP Cabinet minister indicating the government can do what it wants was the last straw. “I thought: over my dead body. In a democracy governments can only do that which people allow them to do,” she said. She alsa took the NDP to task over its intention to move millions of dollars from the Forest Renewal Fund to the general revenue fund. James, who works in marketing, voted Liberal in May but said she has no provincial political cards in her purse. Michael Roberts, the private secretary to’ the licutenant-governor, said the licutenant-governor has a number of powers, which include dismissing, the government. But Roberts said the circumstances under which he would exercise that power would be extraordinary and would be guided by the customs, conventions and usage of the Canadian Constitution. “It's an exceptionally complex constitutional matter,” h . The last time the lieutenant-gover- nor dismissed a government in B.C, was in 1903, Reale rts said. James said waa oc on removal of the government through referendum and recall because the process in B.C. is far too ponderous. She can be reached at 988-2066, As of Oct. 5 copies of James’ petition can be downloaded via the Internet trom http://www hdmdigital.com/toral- reeall/. SS, 6 North Shore Allert... ssessecseee 7 & Real Estate.. WY bulk housing controls go to hearing By lan Nobie News Reporter A revised West Vancouver bylaw to prevent monster houses proposes minor changes to current regula- tions, but leaves out con- rentious parts of an earlier proposal. That proposal, which was dis- cussed at a public hearing in June, was roundly panned by builders, designers, and realtors for control- ling bulk housing through numeri- cal targets such as amendments to floor space. The new proposal, which goes to public hearing Oct. 21, takes a different route to achieve the same result. The proposal calls for staff te proceed with consultations to eval- uate the review and regulation of design elements and report back to council. When district council bounced the bylaw proposal in July, Coun. Rod Day called for a design review process that could include working from guidelines and a portfolio of acceptable design. Assistant planner Joel Lawson: said that while the district looks at the design review process, majer! changes to the zoning bylaw’ shouldn’t be made. ; “We feel the design review process may address issues we were trying to address through changes to the bylaw,” he said. : Lawson said a home’s impact on its site, the street and neighbor- hood chatacter would be looked at under a design review process. Staff have already started examining what, if any, precedents exist for design review processes and what means are available to institute such a process. He said West Vancouver is lucky to have a large group of designers, realtors and architects to consult with staff to gain consensus of what the municipality wants to do. . Although staff feel the changes proposed in the current recommen- dation are mostly minor, Lawson said they could have a major impact on some homeowner, One change included in the recommendation is a change to. site coverage. Currently, some smaller lets can support a home that covers a larger portion of the lot than some larger lots. To counter that, staff have rec- ommended site coverage be 40% for lots smaller than 7,140 square feet, as is now the case. For lots between 7,140 and 9,520 square feet, the site coverage’ would be 2,856 feet, compared with 30% site coverage now. Lots bigger than Y,b20 square feer would continue to support 30% site coverage. Some of the other changes proposed include: @ partially exempting open trellises from site coverage and ‘regulations toa maximum of 3% of total area; Bexcluding below grade basements from floor area ratio calculations; @ requiring a minimum setback of 10 feer from a creek preservation area. : Faximum = Software, a | West Vancouver-based fax software com- pany, has placed the new bulk hous- ing bylaw on the Internet at hup://www.faxsimum.com/bulk- housing. a