A6 - Sunday News, October 25, 1981 It’s far from clear how the new school financing formula being considered by Education Minister Brian Smith would relieve the savage tax burden imposed this year on North Shore homeowners. Mr. Smith is reported to be looking at a two-tier system of school taxation. School boards would pay only for local options such as smaller classes, additional elective subjects and other forms of “enrichment”. The entire bill for the Basic Education Program would be paid by the province — partly from general revenue and partly from a new provincial property tax based on the same mill rate throughout B.C. - The joker, of course, is the proportion (not yet revealed) of the BEP tab to be covered from general revenue. Otherwise, the proposed changes seem largely cosmetic. They might take some heat off school boards. But in the end they could make little if any difference to taxpayers in high-priced property areas like the North Shore — because they ignore the fun- damental issues. As long as local residents pay any part of their community’s school costs, they must have local control over those costs through a revived referendum system. School boards must NOT be given a blank cheque. More to the point, property taxes should be levied only for services to property. Education is a service to people. Like all other services to people, it should be funded from general tax revenue collected on the basis of ability to pay. Until Mr. Smith faces these truths, the pain in your pocketbook isn’t likely to ease. Hawk feathers _ Newsmen were recently voted the worst dressed males in the U.S. -- but now the Custom Tailors Guild has awarded top honors as the “all-American dresser” to Walter Cronkite. Meanwhile, it named State Secretary Alexander Haig among the 10 best dressed Americans, but found President Ronald Reagan’s dress habits “deplorable”. Neither newshawks nor nuke hawks, it seems, can be recognized by their feathers. j sunday. news narth shore 1139 Lonedale Ave. North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 news (604) 985-2131 ADVERTISING NEWS 960-0511 CLASSIFIED 985-2131 986-6222 CIRCULATION 986-1337 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Editor-in-Chief Advertising Director Robert Graham Noet Wright Eric Cardwell Managing Editor News Editor Andy Fraser Chris Lioyd Genera! Manage: Creative Administration Director Berni Hilliard Production Director Rick Stonehouse Tim Francis Photography Elsworth Otckson Accounting Supervisor Circulation Director Barbara Keen Bran A Ets Purchaser Faye McCrae North Shore News founded i } POU as an mndependeant oommunity HOWws ApEe: aNd qualihed undor Se hedule I Parti Paragraph IW oof the tnciee Tae Act of published each Wednesday and Sunday by North: Shore bree Press Lid and chatributed to every duo on fie North Shore Second Class Mat Hogistrahon Numbe: $865 Subscriptions $20 per year Entire contents 1001 North Shore Free Press Ltd Ali nights reserved Nu Fe ngponinitiabty ac opted tH a Te ae yventesr seal eee LEAT ea EN ad pone Pree ate haf scnabe Dre ae erga ced Ley a aarp abe ned) et venteng re vt Pababe to Wa La ATION 583 340 Wednesday 52 $46 BbBunday SN’ THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE By JAMES A. TAYLOR Every pool and puddle at the seashore seems to have a crab in it. Little ones, scuttling to and _ fro, squeezing under rocks, peeking out from behind a patch of seaweed, oc- casionaly venturing out to nibble on unwary human toes...... If you're lucky, you may also see bigger crabs, waving with ponderous majesty its huge claws as a warning to stay away. Often you can find the shell of a crab washed up on the sands. That’s how crabs grow — when they get too big for their protective shells, they split the shell open grow a new one. Ive never talked with a crab, so I don’t know what it's like for them. But I suspect it’s a painful process, and that until they manage to grow a new shell, they must feel horribly defen- celess and vulnerable. Because, that’s what humans feel like when we crack our shells. Like crabs, we have shells. You can't see them, but they're there, just the same - - shells of habit, shells that protect us from being hurt by other people, shells that are the roles we play as parents or workers. And we keep having to crack those shells open, just when we've gotten comfortable with them, and emerge quivering and defenceless into a whole new world. Teenagers have to crack SURVIVAL is the name of the game in next month's municipal elections, for which nominations close noon tomorrow (Oct. 26). Time runs out Nov. 2! for 20 North Shore council and school board incumbents — of whom !7 are girding themselves to fight off challengers and win a further (erm. In the City, Mayor lack Loucks and his entire crew — Aldermen Stella Jo Dean, Ratph Hall, Elko Kroon, Frank Marcino, Gary Payne and Bill Sorenson - = are expected to seck a second two year stint, with an acclamation victory probable for Gentleman Jack Aldermans,. challengers to date include North Shore Tenants Association chieftains Richard Blackburn and Greg Richmond who recently won hefty rent rollbacks fot Rufus Park tenants and arc tegarded in quarters as somewhat to certain. other standing the left of Leonid Brezhnev Theres also former AN for effort candidate Dana Taylor Veteran City school trustee Don Burbidgc has bowed out but colleagues Marg Jessup and Phillp Joe arc running again along wath open their shells to become adults. (No wonder they get crabby sometimes). Adults have to -quit running their kids’ ‘lives. Employees get laid off. A wife or husband dies. In- vestments -fail. Dreams disappear. _ Whatever the event, a shell is being cracked. And the person who used to live comfortably in that shell has to start over. Like a crab, the longer we have that shell, the tougher it has grown, and the more ‘painful it is to break out of it. That’s particularly true in our faith lives. Some of our shells have been handed down by our ancestors. and though they may still be good shells, they also have become prisons — so bur-' dened with the barnacles of the past, so tied down by trailing weeds, that we can no longer move anywhere. No one wants pain, in life or-in faith. Often we prefer to remain squeezed inside shells that no longer fit very well, rather than risk the vulnerability of cracking them open. But crabs know something we overlook. When their shells get too strong and too protective to be cracked open, they can’t grow anymore. That’s then when they die. (James A. Taylor is a syndicated comumnist for the News Services of the United Church Observer. published in Toronto.) sunday brunch by Noel Wright newcomer Rev. Dungey. District Aldermen Ernie Crist, John Lakes and Gordon Rose will all be taking another kick at the cat, possibly with sailor girl Marilyn Baker (who took a sabbatical from council two years ago) breathing down their necks. Realtor Jim Fraser 1s also reported to be entering the fray once more On school board, District Roy incumbents Frank War- burton and Verna Smelovsky are both defending thetr seats Over in dignified Tid dlycove look for Aldermen Dave Finlay and Diana Hutchinson to be stomping the hustings again, with perenmal optimist Gordon Rowntree and two or three other outsiders panting after the council pew vacated by (,corge Morfla. Dont be surpmsed if popularex alderman Doreen Blackburn files her papers around 1159 am Monday On West Van school board trustee Fran McDowell is coming back for seconds and as Lillan Thiessch calls ita day oa second seats up for oyratbsa by Ne weoomers West Van Assoniation holds Meanw hile blec tors rts all candidates aprile Thursday. Oct. 29, at 7:30 p-m. in St. David's Church hall. Twenty dates with destiny loom a Despite the Yellow Pages ad you still can't order a taxi from the North Shore's Sunshine Cabs but blame SC president Richard Hughes. With impressive backing from local councils, chambers of commerce. hotels, restaurants and other businesses he's been ready to put his fleet of 25 Cadillacs on the streets since February ~ when tt seemed wise to ect into the Yellow Pages rather than miss oul for the next 1200 months But Richard alas has got bogged down in the bureaucratic red tape of the Motor Carner Commission which has finally got around to calling a public bheanng on his longstanding apple ation Sunshine ( ahs aim bo provide oa white Khloe SCEVECO with bonded drivers In Mies and packets whe oped doors for you and ring doorbells rastead oft honking TPhey weal alse improve the North Shores cab to population rate fecotrs ats present Pro Mr cv veded don't to 1:1239 (in Vancouver City w’s) -1:1000) as well as creating 125 new local jobs. Rival North Shore Taxi is naturally opposing the application. The path of progress is often rocky ... HITHER AND YON: That “flower-watering” TV fire ten days ago in an Argyle Avenuc highrise has brought lavish praise for West Van firefighters from Mrs. Joan Gray who hives in the suite directly underneath. They handled it “marvellously”, she says, getting her neighbor out safely and even making her a cup of tea Welcome home to West Van's Dick Saunders, back last week after his cycling marathon to New York Congrats to North Van's Hank Dann, owner of Speedy Fork Lift’ Lid) on winming the Federal Business Development Bank 5 Business Management Award for B ¢ Provincial Liberal leader Shirtey McLoughlin holds open house Thursday at 4 pmioin the Coach House And give blood Monday CO t dor > oto pm oat Lic Crate WRIGHT As horse OR WRONG, Wilde scnse 44 Ose ane observed what keeps horses From betiing on what people will de