3 - Sunday. March 25, 1990 - North Shore News

WORK CONDITIONS CRITICIZED

Union charges
school janitors
suffer from
low morale

A. SURVEY conducted for the union representing North
Vancouver school custodians has found that they are over-

worked and suffer from morale problems, the president of
the Canadian Union of Public Employees union (CUPE)

NEWS photo Neit Lucente
VETERAN SEASPAN employee Wendy VanSamang taunches 2 new chip barge from North Vancouver's
Vancouver Shipyards by breaking a bottle of bubbly on the 200-foot barge. The barge has a carrying capac-
ity of 2,500 short tons or 1,200 volumetric units and was built at a cost of more than $1 million. The cere-
mony was held last week.

RESIDENTS POLARIZED AT NVD PUBLIC MEETING

Badger Road extension
sparks heated debate

TWO YEARS of meetings, plans, surveys,
legal advice and petitions about North Van-
couver District’s proposal to extend Badger
Road culminated Monday night in another
long and occasionally rancorous public
hearing.

By MARTIN MILLERCHIP
Contributing Writer

The bylaw under consideration would allow
Caledonia Avenue property owners to purchase a 40-
foot road allowance to provide access to the rear of
their lots, which are extremely long, and then sub-
divide their property.

The road allowarce property is part of a district-
owned parcel that is designated as park in the Deep
Cove Official Community Plan but is currently zoned
residential.

The new bylaw would also dedicate the remainder
of the parcel as Parks, Recreation and Open space
(PRO).

Speakers supporting the bylaw at the public hearing
outnumbered those opposing by a 2-to-1 margin, but
the numbers of letters and petition signatures pres-
ented were almost evenly split on the issue.

PETITION PRESENTED

Michael Jameson of Badger Road delivered a
246-name petition which he said represented 200
households in Deep Cove opposed to the bylaw.

“I believe the OCP is a contract. A contract pro-
duced between the residents of the district,’’ said
Jameson. ‘‘All residents are allowed input into the
contract’s formulation and council and staff are
responsible for the final draft.”

Continued Jameson, ‘*Once (the contract has been)
entered into, council should have to preserve and
respect this statement of community objectives both in
spirit and in deed. If you do not, there seems very lit-
tle point in creating an OCP in the first place."

The hearing heard allegations that canvassers for
Jameson’s petition claimed the district was ‘‘giving
away land for development,’’ but Mayor Marilyn
Baker said she assumed people read what they signed
and that the statement ‘‘we the undersigned are op-
posed to Rezoning Bylaw 880, Bylaw 6224, as it
allows a road allowance on district-owned property
which is designated as Park and Natural Area in the
Deep Cove OCP to enable private development’’
seemed quite clear.

Allan Ramsay, the Caledonia

spokesman for

Avenue Citizens and Owners Committee (CACOC),
presented letters of support that ‘‘when added to”’
those presented at the previous hearing ‘‘would be
well in excess of 246 signatures.”’

Quoting from the last page of the Deep Cove OCP,
Ramsay said, ‘‘The Deep Cove Community Pian map
is conceptual, giving the relative location and size of
the major land uses. The boundaries shown on the
map are not intended to be definitive. New zoning
based on the OCP will further delineate the bound-
aries of each land use.”’

JOBS CREATED

Ramsay argued that if the lot owners were allowed
to subdivide, the district would benefit from at least
eight new construction jobs, increased tax revenue and
the trickle-down effect of the eight former residences
on the market.

In addition, he said, the extension of Badger Road
would provide access tc the newly designated park
land and also the Baden Powell Trail.

But Deep Cove Community Association repre-
sentative Katherine Fagerlund opposed the sacrifice of
public, park-designated land for the purposes of
private development.

Said Fagerlund, ‘'The issue is not whether private
Property owners have a right to subdivide their own
land but whether they have a right to demand access
across public land to do so.”’

Fagerlund dismissed the concept of the proposed
road allowing park access. ‘‘The proposed road does
not include parking facilities suitable for a vehicular
park access. Nor do we see this area as that type of
park. We understand the purpose of park designation
to be preservation of the greenbelt which forms a
backdrop to our community; a greenbelt which will
one day only be a strip between us and further deve!-
opment of the Indian River subdivision above.’’

But North Vancouver District firefighter Chuck
Band said he was ‘‘mad’’ at what was being repre-
sented as Deep Cove opinion and wondered whether
Fagerlund belonged to a ‘‘splinter group.”

Asked if she felt that her association’s views accu-
tately reflected Deep Cove resident opinion,
Fagerlund replied, ‘‘Approximately a year ago there
was a public hearing held on this issue and it was clear
that 90 per cent of the people at that hearing were not
interested in secing development on park designated
land. We reaffirmed what we have always said right
from the beginning: that this land should be left
alone."*

The issue will be decided Monday night.

local 389 said Friday.

Mike Hocevar said the union
will present the findings of the
report, entitled ‘‘A Custodial Ser-
vices Needs Budget for North
Vancouver Schools,’* to the North
Vancouver District 44 School
Board at its regular March 27
board meeting.

The board is also expected to
adopt its 1990-91 school budget at
that meeting.

The report, prepared by the
school board unit of CUPE local
389 and the Trade Union Research
Bureau in Vancouver, has also
come out with a series of recom-
mendations it wants the school
board to consider adopting before
it passes its budget.

The recommendations call for:
¢ adoption of a needs budget for
the 1990-91 school year that in-
cludes a reallocation of funds to
increase custodial staffing by a
minimum of 20 positions by
September;
© reinstatement of full-time senior
day custodians in all schools;
© reinstatement of a daily
classroom cleaning schedule;
® formation of a joint
management-CUPE committee
responsible for the development of
a mutually agreeable custodial
staffing formula;
© development of a comprehensive
custodial training and staff devel-
opment program;

¢ development of a district-wide
building maintenance standard
practice, policies and procedures
manual;
e administration to work with
CUPE to restructure support staff
work assignments at the district’s
outdoor school.

Hocevar said the survey, which
was initiated last fall, included in-
terviews with the custodians who
are working in North Vancouver
schools.

He added that the maintenance
budget for North Vancouver
schools has been dropping since
the 1983 restraint period and that
he has learned that money has
been taken out of the maintenance
budgets over the years and put into
other areas.

“It’s a critical situation,’’ said
Hocevar. ‘*The result of that study
shows that the board has seriously
neglected and under-funded
custodial services for schools and
offices.’’

“The thrust of this brief is to
show the extent to which custodial

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under-funding and neglect is very
seriously affecting the physical
condition of our schools, the
health and safety of the students
and teachers and above all the
health and morale of our custo-
dians,’’ added Hocevar.

He said the school board’s
maintenance budget was chopped
by 31 per cent in 1984, resulting in
the loss of 45 positions, and was

ALA: RR

“The result of that study
Shows that the board has
seriously negie:ted and
under-funded «tstodial
services for sch:vols and

offices. ”’
—CUPE local 389

president
Mike Hocevar

cut by a further 10 per cent in
1986.

While the maintenance budget
was being cut, Hocevar said, the
school board increased the aumber
of its facilities that are to be main-
tained by the CUPE members
from 40 in 1984 to 43 in 1989.

“In addition, there is no specific
role for custodians in the earth-
quake manual, and should an car-
thquake or other disaster happen
during evening or weekend school
occupancy, who would shut down
the boilers, turn off the valves,
operate emergency evacuation
equipment for the disabled and so
on?” said Hocevar.

He added that his members are
becoming increasingly frustrated
with the lack of support they have

been getting from school ad-
ministrators.
“Our custodians,” he said,

“feel that they are treated as en-
cumbrances within the system, that
they are at the bottom end of a
pecking order, that everyone in the
school is their supervisor, that

‘everyone has the authority to give

them orders.’’

WEATHER

Sunday and Monday, mix of
clouds and sun, Tuesday,
cloudy with showers. Highs
near 12°C.

Second Class Registration Number 3385