OOOH LOOK! .. I'VE WON AN ALL- EXPENSE PAID TRIP TO HAITI... SRN AS See AWS ~~ - Overpass at last? AKE A bow, Mr. Schreck. Your quest to secure the Upper Levels Highway overpass at Westview Drive appears to have been successful. But the delay ix initiating a project that was originally announced in 1985 has been costly, and the new estimated time to com- plete the overpass ieaves too much room for more delays and cancellations. The North Vancouver-Lonsdale MLA joined a host of government bigwigs at a press conference on Monday to auneunce that $33.5 million will be allocated through the NDP’s BC 23 fund to build the inter- charge. _ The announcement will be greeted with hearty applause from North Shore com- muters and ferry travellers alike. For with the completion of the Cassiar Connector and ‘the Upper Levels interchange at Lonsdale Avenue, Westview teck over the dubious title of the last commuter bottleneck on the Trans-Canada Highway. Over the past decade, the priority of the Westview interchange project has risen and fatlen with both the Social Credit and NDP governmenis. But its pricetag, unfortunately, has only risen. The estimated cost of both Lonsdale and Westview interchange projects when origi- nally announced in 1985 was $30 million, which wouldn’t even cover the projected cost of the Westview exchange today. And the much-delayed project, which should have been built 10 years ago, will still take until 198 to be completed, according to the NDP’s timetable. So applause now for the announcement; but full-blown celebration and knighthoods should be reserved until the overpass has actually been built. LETTER OF THE DAY» Mail attack on senior a cowardly act Dear Editor: So four teenage boys beat up a home? fighting wars and not on the job at a 60-year-old man prove? Is this something that they can man in his 60s at the Park Royal shopping mall. Well, I'm a man in my 60s and so J think | will have my say. When I grew up in Cabbagetown during the Second World War, we had gangs, too. It seems to me though, that when the fathers and uncles and big brothers came back, they sort of disap- peared. Does that mean that there are a lot of parents out there who are Petar Speck Timothy Renshaw Noel Wright Managing Editor .. Associate Editor.. There used to be gang fights with chains and knives, and four- on-ones, but it seemed to me that if a boy wanted to prove himself he still went out and looked for the biggest and meanest guy on the block and went one-on-one. No knives, but almost anything else went. And it didn’t really mat- ter if you won or lost, it was the fact that you came out of it a man. What does four boys beating up Display Advertising 980-0511 986-6222 Fi Classified Advertising 985-2131 Newsroom Distribution Real Estate Advertising 985-6982 Subscriptions ‘ax Administration go back to their girlfriends with and strut around and flap their arms and brag about how the four of them just beat up a 60-year-old man? Is this something that turned their bimbos into mush and hot sex? j suggest that Park Roya! rent a cou- ple of blind old women for these cowards to warm up on for the next time they visit the store. Bob Hartman North Vancouver 986-1337 986-1337 985-3227 985-2131 Narth Shore News, founded in 1969 as an independent suburban newspaper and qualified urider Schedule 111, Paragraph 111 of the Excise Tax Act, is published each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday by North Shore Free Press Ltd. and ~ distributed to every door on the North Shore. Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agraement No, 0087238. Mailing rates available on request. Submissions are welcome but we cannot accept responsibility for unsolicited material including manuscripts and picturas which should be accompanied by a stamped, addressec envelope. V7M 2H4 1139 Lonsdale Avenue North Vancouver B.C. North Shore Managed MEMBER Gu SN SDA DIVISION 61,582 (average circulation, Wednesday, Fnday & Sunday) Entire contents © 1994 North Shore Free Press Ltd. All rights reserved. 1 Book bargains 'a bad deal for WV taxpayers ALL RIGHT. I’ve cainied down, You may remove the straitjacket, gentlemen, and there is no need to shoct whatever stupefying sub- stance is in that rather for- midable-looking needie into my body. But] give you fair warning: this is getting to be an annual madness. You may have to restrain me again next year around this time. What brings on this seasonal frothing, you ask’? Well, it may sound silly. [It is the annual West Vancouver Memorial Library book sale. Biuntly, J think it’s all but a giveaway of goods that cost the West Vancouver taxpayers plenty. Most books go for $1 apiece for hardcovers, Paperbacks, 25 cents. Some books, judged more desir- able by one of the Friends of the Library, which operates the sale, are marked with a stick-on red dot, and cost more. Chief jibrarian Jack Mounce tells me that cach year the West Van library discards from 10,000 to 12,000 books, not all through the book sale. About two dozen of the Friends 66 Bluntly, I think it’s all but a giveaway of goods that cost the West Vancouver tax- payers plenty. 99 conduct the sale, this year led by John Hunter. Ex:ept for a few stout carterers, the labor is all volunteer. In fact, far frors being reimbursed, the Friends in effect pay for the privilege through their $10 mem- bership fee. This year’s sale realized $6,100, down from last year’s $7,700. Pretty meager, I'd say, for an operation whose 1994 budget is $2,330,000, including grants of about a quarter of a million dollars. 1 wonder what those books cost the library — and taxpayers — new? The buyers — some of whom, you may be sure, are second-hand bookstore owners — are getting a sweet deal, graciously underwritten by thee and me. {ve reported before that I myself bought 2 1951 30-volume set of The Encyclopedia Americana at the 1992 sale for only $30. Good for me. But bad, I'd say, for taxpayers. A jazz expert and writer in the field picked up four jazz books from last month's sale. Four books, four bucks. More stunning: An art beok, a limited edition of only 1,000 _ copies, also went for a buck. One dollar, That book, I’m told, would be offered for sale at a bookstore for at least $25. Lack of shelf space is no longer Trevor Lautens GARDEN OF BIASES the issue. The expansion cornpleted last year allowed the “repatriation” of 20,000 books that the library had been obliged to stare on West Van school board property. ; I hate to be critical, because the library is my No. 1 favorite munici- pal service, though it might slip back a notch if the sewer system broke down. Its help to me is, liter- ally, immeasurable. And Jack Mounce is also my favorite chief librarian in the world, always cooperative, never showing rancor about my criticisms. (Of the buyer of the art book described above, he said: “I guess he got a deal. ... But that is an exception.”) He very ably defended library policy identifying its “unwanted” books. Any book-lover would agree with much of it. : The first criterion is physical deterioration. Some books are worth re-binding, Most aren't. A second: books that have lost relevance, some of them super- seded by later editions. A third: last year’s best-seller that becomes this year’s fading star. The library therefore reduces its copies from, say, four to two. - Fourth: loan patterns. A nice way of saying that a book uncircu- lated for a year or two may be des- tined for the book sale. It’s that last category that I'd challenge most. It’s my view that a library is best judged by its attitude toward its “unpopular” books — that no library will gain much stature if it doesn't have the ballast, so to speak, of significant books for which there is little demand. Jack Mounce’s answer is that that’s the role of large research libraries. . He may be correct. He presides over Canada's highest-circulation- per-capita library. It must be doing something right. But I'd argue that if our library isn't interested in keeping its spe- ciatized or minority-interest books, it should take time to identify them and offer them to libraries that are. Not virtually give them away. The taxpayer, if not the reader, deserves better. eee So the West Vancouver Museum and Archives opened on Dominion (Canada) Day. Warm ceremony. Nice site. Sound munici- pal investment (in the Gertrude Lawson property). Neat displays. It takes about seven minutes to go around. We just ain't got enough history to stretch it out further. Sorry.