December 4, 1985 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 Circulation 986-1337 52 pages 25¢ 7

re en INDIAN DISPU TE

: ‘ SQUAMISH Indian Band chairman Dave Jacubs
has been dismissed from his administrative duties

SPO SBERIE REY eotmateg ise cee at totes

sages

with the. band.
Ina special band meeting

held Sunday, 198 of the 308°

Squamish Band members in

-attendance voted in favor of

Jacobs’ dismissal.
The band chairman was
implicated in a controversial

lot transfer involving his
family on the band’s
Capilano reserve.

A five-member committee

of inquiry set up by the band
council to investigate the lot
transfer recommended the
disrnissal, along with the
band’s head of housing
Chief Joe Mathias, band ~
manager Glen Neuman,
housing cheque signer

Richard Williams and coun-"

cil secretaries Andrea
Jacobs, Dave Jacobs’ wife,

.lowing the April 27,

and Bonnie Dan, Jacobs’
sister.

Motions Sunday to
dismiss secretaries Jacobs
and Dan were passed with
wide majorities. A further
motion to remove cheque
signing duties from
Williams, Chief Mathias,
and Chairman Jacobs, and
replace them with three new
cheque signers appointed by
council, passed in a narrow
113 to 101 yes vote.

DISPUTED TRANSFER

Band members voted 165
to 98 against the recommen-
dation to dismiss Chief
Mathias as head of band
housing.

The controversy surroun-.

ding the six band council
members arose over the
disputed transfer of a lot
owned by band member
Roger Antone to Stuart
Jacobs, son of Dave Jacobs.

As reported in Sunday’s
edition of the News, Stuart
Jacobs had made a tentative
verbal agreement with An-
tone in 1983 to exchange

Antone’s lot 46 for an un-
disclosed alternative lot.

Council gave Jacobs per-
mission to build on the lot
on the condition that the
alternative lot
available to Antone when he
returned to the reservation
from the Vancouver half-
way house in which he cur-
rently resides,

But that alternative lot has
yet to be made available.

Though transfer of An-
tone’s property was not ar-
ranged until Oct. 16, Jacobs
began construction on the
property Aug. 21.

The eventual transfer of
the property was arranged
by Jacobs’ mother and aunt
(Andrea Jacobs and Bonnie
Dan).

UNDER PRESSURE

Antone signed the transfer
under pressure, without
knowing what it was, and
with no witness present, the
committee of inquiry said.

Jo-Anne Aird, who lost
her Indian status when she
moved off the band reserve

DIVING instructor William James Shaw has been
acquitted of criminal negligence in the death of a

36-year-old student diver.

A Supreme Court jury
made, the decision Saturday
in the case dealing with the
drowning death of Knud
Laursen in the waters of
West Vancouver's
Whytecliff Park.

The 64-year-old Shaw was
charged with criminal
negligence causing death fol-
1984
drowning.

Laursen, who had gone
with his friend Rod
Lawrence for a. dive with
Shaw, drowned shortly after
6:30 p.m. while swimming in

approximately 10 metres of
water at the West Vancouver
marina.

Prior to April 27, both
Laursen and Lawrence had
been certified as competent
scuba divers.

But in his instructions to
the jury, B.C. Supreme
Court Justice W.J. Wallace
said that certification had
nothing to do with any con-
sideration ‘that instructor
Shaw had a duty he failed to
perform.

Rather, Justice Wallace
said, to be guilty of criminal
negligence, a person must

be made.

nd chairman ousted

10 years ago, said her work
with the committee and her
stand against what she
Perceives us an injustice to
an absentee band member
have put her in disfavor with
many Squamish Band.
members. That disfavor was
further intensified . with
Aird’s decision to divulge
the details of the story when
she was contacted by the
News.

“They call me an apple. —
red on the outside and white
in the middie — but I don’t:
care. There is a wrong that
has to be set right here.’’

A spokesman for the
committee of inquiry, who
wished to remain
anonymous, said there was
an overwhelmingly negative
reaction to the story going
beyond reservation’ bound-
aries, .

Squamish Chief Philip Joe
said Monday that he had no
comment or, the lot transfer,
Jacobs's dismissal, or the
News story: ‘‘As far-as I’m
concerned the whole thing is
an internal matter.’’

show wanton and reckless
disregard for the safety of
others. .

On the day of the tragedy,
Shaw told Laursen | and
Lawrence that he was
‘under the weather’’ and did
not want to dive with them.

Lawrence testified. he and
his friend had the option of
not diving that day, but they
decided they would.

During Laursen’s attempt
to swim to the shore without
flippers, he apparently got
into trouble and panicked,

Lawrence told the court in
earlier testimony that his
companion was a poor
swimmer.

See Divers