A6 - Sunday, May 15, 1983 - North Shore News Bottom line The variable municipal tax rate, promised for this year by the re-elected Bennett government, doesn’t necessarily mean bottom-line benefits for property-owners on their June tax bills. The new system has been urged by B.C. municipalities for years. Its flexibility is undoubtedly an improvement on the former rigid options A, C or D for allocating the total municipal tax burden between residential and business taxpayers. The variable tax rate will at lIast allow municipalities to “fine tune” that burden according to local situations — not only between residential and business properties but also between sub-categories of each. However, there remain two snags over which municipalities — which sent out the TOTAL property tax bills — have no control. One is assessments, which are set by the provincial government. In some cases this year's assessments for residential property _have dropped more significantly than for commercial property. That means taxes on individual business properties may still be disappointingly high even when a favorable adjustment of the overall business-to- residential taxation ratio has been made. The other snag is school taxes which are set separately under a provincial government formula. They are not controlled in any way ‘by municipalities, which merely act as collection agencies for school districts. If the bottom line on this year’s tax bill still shocks you, don’t automatically attack city hall. The villains are more likely to be the B.C. Assessment Authority, the Ministry of Education and the local school board. Value for money Democracy doesn’t come free of charge. The cost of the May 5 provincial election is estimated at $9 million. Add $5 million spent on last year’s voter enumeration, for a total of about $14 million, which works out to over $8 per vote. So, with some 15,000 votes apiece, the North Shore's three MLAs have already cost $360,000 over and above their ongoing salaries — good reason for voters to demand value for money from them! 1e08 VO8CE OF MONTH AED WEDS YALLERWR® sunday news Display Advertising 980-0511 north shore Classified Advertising 986-6222 n ews Newsroom 985-2131 m Circutation 086-1337 1139 Lonsdale Ave... North Vancouver BC V7M 2H4 Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Robert Grahan: Editor-in-chief Noel Wright Advertising Director Turvy 6} eaarve an Personnoi Director Mes Bern bHilhard Circulation Director Hoan Ao ft ihs Production Director Office Manage: Chis jobversseon Oxonna Granady Tomy Peters North Ghore Nows loudest CUO an an aide pendant © enmity Crer we rgpaapert canned caesesbeteaecd carvetee Sve Beercduate: WM Ft eae CU PPeaenqgeang ats ED cot thes tone cesar Vine Act an goeatofesstoesdt aac t: Wednescay and Sunday toy North Sore free Brenn thd ame onstrated lo every coor on tre Nortts Shore oecond Clans Marth Hegntiation Nurotrer $4 Entire contents 1982 North Shore Froe Presa itd All rights roserved Saabncreptiogn Nott ane West Varina bit prerr yerar Muathrag taatern apvantbert ales core cercgu sete! Ne cop terre abet, ee agent ' ” oe eee Wee Det ogy ye er wt bd eee raped whites tae VERIFIED CHREUL ATION 54,460 Wednesday 947/70 Sunday “oy «SN THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE Photography Manage: LOSER-PAY is a generally accepted election principle - metaphorically, at any rate. Some unsuccessful can- didates forfeit their deposits. All of them forfeit: varying amounts of pride. There's nothing metaphorical, however, about the loser-pay situation in’ which Mort Graham, defeated Liberal candidate in West Van-Howe Sound, finds himself. He not only lost his bid for the seat. He's also lost his job. Mort - who collected a respectable seven per cent of the votes at his first try - voluntarily resigned his ex- ecutive position with a Van- couver ad agency in order to run in the election because of a conflict of interest. His forn.sr agency handles Socred government = ac- counts. With the Socreds tnumphant, including John Reynolds in West Van, there is, of course, no question of rejoining the agency. So 51-year-old Mort, the multi-award-winning adman who achieved fame by smug- glhing a bottle of Canadian vodka into Russia and hav- ing it photographed = on Moscow’s Red Square, is now job-hunting - an heroic example of putting your money where your mouth is. Not that he’s in any way depressed. “Ill be back,” he declares, echoing General Douglas MacArthur. Most probably, he thinks. as a West Van aldermanic can didate this coming November. Meanwhile. two days after the election, Mort had touching proof of his tn- creased visibility in| the con- stituency sunday brunch by Noel Wright He was walking along Duchess at 15th when an elderly lady in her seventies was hit by a car and thrown to the ground. Mort was the first to reach her and folded his coat to put under her head until help arrived. Gaz- ing up at him, her first words were: “I voted for you on Thursday”. Happily, the news from hospital indicate she'll be around to vote for Mort again... Zalm a couple of months before the election, the two- man commission (Sager and former school superinten- dent Al Stables of Victoria) went into suspended anima- tion for the duration. If they revert to the original schedule, the next public hearing will be in North Van. Always worrying about something? News publisher Peter Speck quotes a solu- tion that sounds worth try- ing: ELECTION “LOSERS” with a future? Adman Graham (left) and commissioner Sager. Another election casualty is back on his old job. Mark Sager, who lost the West Van-Howe Sound Socred nomination to John Reynolds despite support from retiring MLA Allan Williams (and reportedly, at arm's length. from The Preem himself), announces that his commission inquir- ing into school ad- ministrative costs, will be resuming its province-wide hearings momentarily. Set up by retiring Educa- fron Minister Bil Vander “One day ata time - this ts enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past. for it is gone: and do not be troubled about the future. for it has not yet come. Live in the present. and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering " FOLKTALES: