Cocktails &
Caviar with
Joy & John

PAGE 17

THE SULPHUR piles at Vancouver Wharves provide the backdrop for these cormorants perched atop pilings along the North Shore waterfront.

" NEWS photo Elke Schroter

ISLAND'S CONTROVERSIES TAKE UP TOO MUCH TIME, BOARD MEMBERS SAY

INCREASINGLY frustrated with the amount of time they
spend refereeing controversial development proposals on
Bowen island, members of the Greater Vancoidver Regional
District board of directors are calling for the incorporation

of Bowen Island as an autonomous municipality.

Controversies on the island such
as the Snug Cove marina expan-
sion have mired the board in an
administrative quagmire for years.

And according to some board
members, resolving Bowen Island
issues absorbs more time than any
other board function.

Surrey Mayor Bobo Bose, a
GVRD_ director who sits on its
electoral areas committee, said
Friday the board's position as an
poo foe

administrative body for Bowen
Island “‘is an outrageous waste of
the regional board's time. | mean
we have to get down to talking
about six-lot subdivisions. You will
never have a community working
together as long us someone else
has to take the responsibility for

i
en ds.

what goes on there. It’s a fun-
damental issuc.’*

North Vancouver District Mayor
Marilyn Baker, who is also vic e-
chairman of the GVRD_ board.
said dealing with Bowen Island
issues *‘takes an incredible amount
of time."”

She said the only way for Bowen
to come to grips with the devel-
opment pressures it currently faces
is for the island to becoine self-
governing a. scon as possible.

But the chairinan of the Bowen
Island corimittee studving the in-
corporation issue says the GVRES,
as the owner of the island’s 600-
acre Crippen Regional Park, will
retain a large measure of responsi-

ctors cal
ncorporation

bility within the Bowen Island
community regardless of whether
the islanu! vecomes an autonomous
municipality.

Ross Carter said the GVRD was
established, in part, to deal with
the growing pains of unincor-
porated areas like Bowen Island.

But it has failed, he said, to
come to terms with its respon-
sibilities on the island.

“They have neglected to put into
place an infrascructure to deal with
Bowen Island's problems effective-
ly," he said.

Incorporating Bowen as a
district, municipality or village,
would provide the island with its
own elected council and make it

for

responsible for supplying its own
municipal services.

But Carter said the financial
impacts of assuming the responsi-
bility for such services as roads
must be finalized before any
serious consideration can be given
the option.

Bowen Island is currently gov-
erned by a number of different
government authorities, which
makes development and = ad-
ministration of the island extreme-
ly complex.

The istand is one of three elec-
toral districts administered by the
GVRD. As such, the GVRD board

See Bowen
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