Be go TE LAR Fey Shy wT She ea = September 14, 1990 Classifieds 986-6222 Office, Ed‘torial 985-2131 Display Advertising 980-0511 Get the latest auto facts Automotives: 29 shot North Van City “Ewe Shere Cindy Goodman PATRICK O’CONNER puts the finishing touches on the hull of the ‘Black Duck’’ at Mosquito Creek Marina. The ship, about 30 years old, was used as a Royal Canadian Air Force rescue boat. IDE: ss TREVOR LAUTENS: 5 HATS RRR ay CES Council Distribution 986-1337 92 pages accused of buymg, votes NORTH Vancouver City Council has shot down plans to build a controversial Grand Boulevard helipad that would have been used for helicopters transporting trauma victims to Lions Gate Hospital. Rejecting a city staff recom- mendation to draft a park rezon- ing bylaw to make way for con- struction of the helipad, Ald. Stella Jo Dean moved Monday night that the staff report be received and filed, ensuring that the helipad plan be mothballed. Although helicopters have been landing on Grand Boulevard during emergencies, LGH had asked the city to build a $40,000 temporary pad to make the site safer. The temporary helipad was to be used until LGH builds its own facility as part of its expan- sion. Aldermen supporting Dean’s motion said they were voting against the Grand Boulevard helipad because it would delay construction of the LGH pad, it would require park rezoning, it was opposed by some local resi- dents and because it would likely become a permanent facility. But, said Ald. Bill Bell, who cast the sole vote against Dean’s motion, ‘‘The status quo is one that is unsafe and life threatening. When it comes to lives, $40,000 is not a lot of money.”’ Dean had originally introduced her motion against building the Grand Boulevard helipad at the Aug. 28 council meeting. She told council Monday night that she had since learned from a helicopter pilot that rot only do pilots use the Grand Boulevard site in emergencies, but that a permanent pad at Vancouver Wharves is also used. {U's not as if we don’t have a helipad in North Vancouver,’’ she said. ‘‘We cannot be big spenders of $40,000 when LGH will even- tually, in two or three years, have one (helipad), and Vancouver Wharves has one.”” Ald. John Braithwaite added that if council approved a “‘tem- porary permanent’’ helipad, it could slow construction of the pad at LGH. Braithwaite said that with budget cuts in the planned LGH expansion, the hospital's helipad By Pamela Lang Contributing Writer ALD. BARBARA SHARP .... “We're not going to cause a life or death situation.”’ could become a4 low-priority item. The Grand Boulevard park has been used fur 20 years for trauma cases, he said, and although B.C. Ambulance has chosen not to use the site, pilots still land there dur- ing emergencies. Referring to accusations by Bell and the media that council was buying votes by giving in to Grand Boulevard residents, Ald. Barbara Sharp said there has been little change in council's views over the three years the pad has been debated. “I do not want a permanent pad in a park in a residential area, when we have alternatives,’’ she said, adding that she called the pad permanent bevause if it is built ‘1 would be extremely sur- prised to see it go."” “We're not going to cause a life or death situation’ with this deci- sion, Sharp said, since pilots can, and do, legally tand on Grand Boulevard. Sharp said that the unsafe con- ditions of Grand Boulevard as an emergency site have been over- dramatized, puinting out that dur- ing the 20 years the site has been used, ‘there hasn't been an inci- dent.” See Alderman page 3