6 - Wednesday, October 29, 1986 - North Shore News
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News Viewpoint Display Advertising 980-0511 Publisher: Pater Speck

Classitied Advertising 986-6222 Editor-in-Chiot Noel Wraht
0 n li S G n VY ote rs MUNDAY « WEDNESDAY oF Tipay

Sicbatn cay Managing Etor bane
Subscriptions 906-1337 Advortising Director Linda Stewart
1139 Lonsdale Ave.

onday’s deadline for candidate nominations North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2Ha4

in the West Yan and North Van District

municipal and school board elections on
Nov.15 found democracy alive and well on the North
Shore.

All in all, 43 hopefuls filed papers to compete for a
total of 23 mayoral, aldermanic and school trustee
seats. One was ruled ineligible on grounds of a sponsor
irregularity which is stil under appeal until 5 p.m. to-
dry.

Sixteen of the contenders are incumbents bidding for
re-election. OF the remaining 27, three are former of-
fice-holders secking «2 comeback, six others have
fought previous elections and 18 are fresh to the local
political scene,

Is a healthy, well-balanced mix, offering the
chance of interesting new blood-—especially on the two
school boards where only four incumbents are
scrambling against 13 challengers for the total of nine
vacancies.

However, this is aiso a difficult election, particularly
for the newcomers, because of the unusually brief
period between nominations and polling day. Two
weeks are an awfully short time in which to remind
voters of one's good deeds, present or past, or even to
get one’s name known.

Ht puts a special onus on voters themselves to learn
as much as possible about all the candidates in the next
17 days—by reading about them in this paper, atten-
ding all-candidate meetings and watching them on
community TV,

These good folk, our neighbors, are offering to serve
us. We owe them at least the courtesy of paying atten-

fntee contents oo:
YOKE Nonh Shore
Free Pross Lid All
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57,656 taver age. Wednesita,
Prichay Ao Sunday

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SORTING FACT FROM
FANTASY in an election cam-
paign can make forecasting the
winning numbers in the 6/49 look
like #a exact science.

As an election issue, the
Caulfeild Plateau shopping mail is
a fantasy in point.

It’s being used as a club to beat
West Van Mayor Derrick Hum-
phreys and his council over the
head as the villains who’ve climbed
into bed with the wicked developer
and sold unsuspecting Plateau
dwellers down the creek.

Just to recall the details for the
benefit of Tiddlycove’s 35,000
under-privileged citizens who don’t
live on the Plateau, the proposal
by Bell Canada Enterprise
Development Corp. (formerly
Daon) is for a $10 million retail
complex adjoining the stately
homes of Headland Drive and
Timberfeild Road,

Located on a five-acre commer-
cially zoned site, the 69,000 sq. ft.
of retail space would include a
25,000 sq. ft. Safeway. A good
many locals are appalled at the
prospect, though not all for the
same reason, and they’ve applied
for an injunction to halt the whole
thing. A court decision is awaited
momentarily.

A number of them don’t want

| among the mansi

their plush neighborhood sullied
by any stores whatsoever, period.
Some insist that real estate
salesmen never even hinted at the

possibility when they bought.

Jones and his council, is based on
the old ‘land use contract”
system, whica Victoria changed the
following year to the present
system of ‘‘development permits’’.

Noel Wright

Others see the problem as being
primarily the size of the project,
since the commercially zoned area
was originally shown as only about
3.5 acres. ‘‘Why,’’ they ask, ‘‘the
extra 1.5 acres now approved by
council?”’

The simple answer is that the
present council finds itself holding
an unwanted and messy baby
dumped in its lap by the natural
parents — one of whom, however,
is now taking an active interest in
the child again.

The Caulfeild Plateau develop-
ment as a whole, finally approved
in 1978 by former mayor Peter

LETTER OF THE DAY

Every schoo! needs its

Dear Editor:

Parents have despaired for years
about the lack of quality control in
the public schools and the latest set
back adds to this frustration.

The dismissal of a teacher, held
to be unsatisfactory by the West
Vancouver School Board, has now
been reversed and is on appeal to
the B.C. Supreme Court.

Not only is the decision making
around quality questions

frustrating, but there are enormous
costs entailed. The estimate was
$70,000 for this case so far. As
well, there is the veiled threat that
the teaching fraternity could
bankrupt school systems who try
to pursue quality efforts. I’m sure
the message of Pat Clarke, former
leader of the B.C. Teachers’ Fed-
eration, got through to parents and
school boards alike when he said,
“If school boards are looking for a
way to spend some money, then

@ focus ®

In general, the latter now gives
councils much more hands-on con-
trol over details of a development
in such matters as size, siting, den-
sity and design. The land use con-
tract it replaced could leave a
developer free to do pretty well
what he liked in these areas
without council having any say.

Short of a rather unlikely
court-ordered revision of the entire
contract, therefore, today’s council
has very few legal options. It
would have had even fewer
without an engineering goof.

The commercial zoning bound-
ary was set at Timberfeild Road.

they can try doing what West Van-
couver has done. We'll take thém
to court and appeal every one of
these cases.’" (Vancouver SUN,
Feb. 26, 1986)

In 1978 I recall another teacher
dismissal case in West Vancouver.
The hearings took 21 days and the
costs were conservatively estimated
at $90,000 {about $150,000 in to-
day's dollars).

It must be clear to everyone,
especially in light of the added

But when the road actually went
in, it swung wide, adding the extra
1.5 acres. A clause in the contract
ranked this as a ‘‘minor amend-
ment’? requiring a development
variance permit from council.

The permit could, presumably,
have been refused. But that would
have Jeft the developer free to
build any monstrosity he wished,
without interference, on his 3.5
acres — plus 1.5 acres of useless
commercial land which apparently
cannot be rezoned. Even if it
could, who would build a $400,000
home with a shopping mall in its
backyard?

In the event, council decided to
use what small bargaining leverage
it had by ‘‘trading’’ the permit, so
to speak, for improvements in
other aspects of the complex,
notably setbacks, green strips,
Jandscaping and overall design.

The man in as good a position as
anyone to distinguish fact from
fantasy about the original
Caulfeild Plateau deal is none
other than this year’s mayoral
challenger Don Lanskail.

In 1978 he was a senior member
of council, working with Mayor
Jones on details of the land use
contract which, all along, made it
possible to erect a mall among the
mansions.

Ask Don why it was okay back
then!

(From the North Shore News dur-
ing the week of Oct.28, 1981)

“NO CONTEST” was already the
verdict in the Nov.21 North Van
school board elections. For the Ci-
ty, Rev.Roy Dungey was sole can-
didate for the seat vacated by past
school board chairman Don Bur-
bidge. For the two District vacan-
cies incumbent trustees Verna
Smelovsky and Frank Warburton
were also unopposed. All three
were therefore declared elected by
acclamation.

* € *
RESTRICTIVE covenant placed
by West Van council on a Bellevue
highrise project caused the
developer to withdraw his applica-
tion in protest. ‘‘Council is not a
rubber stamp for developers,”
Mayor Humphreys told the public
meeting.

* * *

HUGE, STINKING mounds of
garbage on the Premier St. dump
will soon be eliminated, District
Mayor Don Bell promised, by ex-
panding the landfill to the north.

OW trustees

current concern about sexual abuse
of students, that there niust be bet-
ter ways to ensure quality control
in our schools.

I have maintained over the last
twenty years that excluding parents
from the governance of their
schools would have 2 damaging ef-
fect on education, children and
society. While I have been gratified
to see more parents taking contro!
of their children’s education via
home education, nevertheless, |

feel we must find ways in which
the natural advocates of children
— parents — can have an in-
strumental role in each of their
own schools. This will only be
done by a structural change
through each school having its own
board of trustees as in private
schools, or providing parents with
vouchers to use on the school of
their choice.

Tunys Audain

West Vancouver