TES TPO

TEAS pany tsar 2m ene AMEND HENS YP DRE a Hae Se STABLE

workers reject
contract offer

THE MARINE and Shipbuilders Union local 506, which
represents about 300 workers employed at North Van-
couver’s Vancouver Shipyards Co. Ltd. (VSCL), will ask
the B.C. Federation of Labor for permission to seek a
strike vote after the union membership rejected the North
Vancouver-based company’s latest contract offer on Mon-
day by an overwhelming vote of 94.4 per cent.

Union president Ron Ferguson
said Tuesday that while the two
sides are close on the issue of
wages, he wants VSCL to
“sweeten the pot.’’

Ferguson said VSCL offered the
union increases of $1.11, or 5.0
per cent, in the first year of a
two-year contract and $1.17, or
5.5 per cent in the final year.

But Ferguson said he wants that
offer increased by 85 cents in each
of the two years.

“We've presented our vote
results to the company and they’re
in meetings over it right now,’’
said Ferguson. ‘“‘We’re not very
far away from each other right
now.”’

The union’s wage rate at VSCL
currently ranges from $18.88 up
to $20.25 per hour.

Vancouver Shipyards general
manager Tom Ward said earlier
that he does not expect any labor
disruptions. ~

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

“T think the union negotiators
have been very sensible,*’ Ward
said. ‘*We don’t want to get into
the same situation as Versatile
(Versatile Pacific Shipyards tnc.)
got into when they had a labor
dispute and went downhill from
there.”’

Ward added that unionized
employees at VSCL want to con-
tinue working.

Last December unionized Ver-
satile workers ended a three-week
strike after voting 72 per cent in
favor of accepting a two-year con-
tract.

A strike or lockout at VSCL at
this time could jeopardize com-
pany plans to help build a new
$120-million passenger superferry
for the B.C. Ferry Corp., a con-
tract Versatile won last week.

Viednesday, September 12, 1990 - North Shore News - 3

NEWS photo Neil Lucente

WEST VANCOUVER Mayor Don ‘‘dunkin’’ Lanskail takes a shot at sending West Vancouver
Const. Bob Fontaine for a dip at the Police and Fire dunk tank Sunday during this year's Coho
Festival. Money raised goes to salmon enhancement programs as well as to sending a North
Shore delegation to the upcoming Fourth World Police and Fire Games in Memphis, Tennessee.
Throughout the next 10 months the three North Shore fire departments, the North Vancouver
RCMP and the West Vancouver Police Department will be active with fundraising projects and
with canvassing the business sector for sponsorship.

Golf course foe blasts WV newsletter

WHILE THE court battle against the proposed Cypress
Ridge Golf Course awaits judgment, a golf course oppo-

nent has

filed a complaint

with the inspector of

municipalities claiming a West Vancouver District newslet-
ter contains false statements and misinformation about the

golf course developmeit.

“It’s riddled with deceptions,”’
said Friends of Cypress founder
Paul Hundal.

The four-page color municipal
report, which <ost $4,500 to
publish and distrivute, was
delivered to residents izzt week.

Contained within the i2port is a
two-page spread with sketches of
the golf course layout and the
proposed old-growth park as well
as a chronology of the develop-
ment of the golf course concept
and plans. .

Hundal charges that a message
to the community from Mayor
Don Lanskail within the newslet-
ter misquoted a statement from a
report prepared for the
municipality by landscape ar-
chitect John Neill in 1973.

In the message, which details
the history of the golf course con-
cept, Lanskail quotes Neill as say-
ing ‘the area appears to be ideal
for the development of a most in-
teresting golf course.”’

In fact, Neill’s report states that
“Topographically, the site appears
to be ideal ....”’

Hundal said that by omitting
the word ‘‘topographically’’ the
statement was misconstrued. The
statement, he said, ought to imply
that the site’s rolling terrain is
suitable for a golf course and that
not necessarily the entire site is
ideal.

But Lanskail told the News that
he had not written the message
nor read the Neill report. He said
he delegated the research to
municipal manager Terry Lester.

“I didn’t actually draft that
portion myself,’’ he said. ‘It was
done by the editor based on Terry
Lester’s research.

“T never actually saw the origi-
nal quotation myself. I haven't
got time to write all this stuff in
detail myself.’’

Lester maintains the Neill report
summary concludes that although
the development may be costly,

By Elizabeth Collings
News Reporter

the site is ideal.

“The text was ‘this is an ideal
site’ and that is a summary state-
ment,’’ he said. ‘‘Hundal wants to
pick at minor points to create
doubt and the doubt is simply not
there.”’

Course revenues couid

MUNICIPAL REVENUES from
the proposed Cypress Ridge Golf
Course could be used to fund
West Vancouver District Council's
policy of buying up _privately-
owned mountainside properties
for recreational purposes, Ald.
Mark Sager said at Monday
night's West Vancouver Council
meeting.

By Maureen Curtis
Contributing Writer

EE
WEST VANCOUVER
DISTRICT COUNCIL

“*} don’t think many of us
would disagree that we would like
to preserve as much of the hillside
above the 1,200-foot level as
possible,’’ Sager said.

Sager proposed the idea follow-
ing council’s decision to receive
the lease document between West
Vancouver and the golf course
developer in preparation for
Thursday night’s public informa-
tion meeting on the golf course
lease.

The meeting is scheduled to
begin at 7:30 p.m. in the West
Vancouver Secondary School
auditorium.

Hundal also claims that the
newsletter omitted several prob-
lems with the potential develop-
ment site that Neill draws atten-
tion to in the report.

These problems include the cost
of drainage and clearing as well as
maintenance due to the soil’s low
fertility level, leaching from pre-
cipitation and runoff from melting
snow.

Neill’s report also notes climate
as a limiting factor and states that
the remaining forest wiii be left
vulnerable after clearing takes
place

««Gidicr trees do not adapt as
readily to a changed environment
and many along th2 edges will

Copies of the lease can be pick-
ed up at West Vancouver’s
municipal hall.

Due to come before council for
consideration Oct. 1, the 49-year
lease contains an option to renew
for two, 25-year terms.

The agreement gives West Van-
couverites golf club membership
priority and ensures some public
access to the 27-hole course.

Under the terms of the lease,
the developer, Cypress Ridge Golf
Ltd., would pay rent in the form
of a percentage of revenues from
club memberships and _ greens’
fees.

The company would also pay
$150,000 over three years to de-
velop public trails in the park-
designated area around the golf
course and in the 22-acre old-
growth forest set aside in the site’s
northern portion.

Because the province recently
decided that a golf course does
not qualify as a recreational use, a
72-acre portion of the proposed
golf course site must be cleared of
recreational-use restrictions.

The site’s restrictions also limit
property leases to five years
(without public approval), or,
subject to approval under a cefer-
endum, no more than 20 years.

The short-term lease period
would make it impossible to fi-

decline and die or blow down,”
the report states.

And, according to Hundal, the
municipal newsletter also falsely
claims that 95 per cent of the
old-growth forest on the 350-acre
golf course site will be saved.

He maintains that only 25 per
cent of the old-growth forest will
be saved and said the district is
using figures from the developer,
Cypress Ridge Golf Lid.

“They don’t mean all the old-
growth trees, they mean 95 per
cent of the trees more than five-
feet wide within a specific area
which only encompasses half of
the old-growth area and even
those trees are going to be on the

fund parks

nance the golf course develop-
ment.

Council has already received
some provincial government sup-
port in the proposed transfer of
the ‘‘receational-use only”’ restric-
tion on the 72 acres of the golf
‘course site to the park-designated
area,

The 72 acres were part of a
parcel given to the municipality by
the province in 1970 in exchange
for provincial lands given to the
municipality with similar recre-
ational restrictions in 1932.

But Friends of Cypress, a group
dedicated to saving all the old-
growth trees in the golf course
site, maintain that only 25 per
cent of the trees are being saved
through council's park designa-
tion.

In the group’s latest informa-
tion sheet, it charges council with
“destroying a national treasure in
order to lease public land to a
private golf course at substantially
below market value in return for
the public getting limited use of a
course that is plagued most of the
time with cither fog, snow or
rain."*

Friends of Cypress founder
Paul Hundal also considers the
proposed ‘‘landswap*’ of restric-
tive titles ‘tuncthical.”*

sides of fairways and subject to
blowdown,’” Hundal said.

In his letter to the inspector of
municipalities, Hundal is asking
for a public inquiry into the con-
tents of the newsletter.

While Fred Thompson, director
of investigations for the ministry
of municipal affairs, said he could
not comment on Hundal’s letter,
he did say that public inquiries are
tare and require cabinet approval.

Meanwhile, Supreme Court
Justice M.A. Rowles reserved
judgment Sept. 6 after a one-day
hearing concerning the golf course
issue. Hundal is seeking to have
the golf course rezoning bylaw
overturned,

Index
@ Budget Beaters
@ Business
EB Classified Acs
@ Doug Collins
@ Editoria! Page
& Bob Hunter
Inquiring Reporter ...12
@ Lifestyles
@ Mailbox
North Shore Now. ...23
@ Dr. Ruth
@ Sports
@ TV Listings
@ What's Going On ....20

Weather

Wednesday, sunny. Thursday,
sunny with cloudy periods.
Highs 20°C.

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