Cypress saga needs solution ;

CAN you name the most popular provincial park in British Columbia?

It’s a tough trivia ques- tion, because few people will correctly guess that the most visited park in the province is situated right here on the North Shore, up above West Vancouver, in Cypress Bow!.

Believe it or not, an esti- mated 1.2 million visitors a year turn up at Cypress Provincial Park.

It has everything to do with the fact Hie the park is easily accessible to the province's major centre of population and features a combination of breathtaking scenery and old-growth forests, including gi giant trees

rmiciibox

Fireboats not built.for ice

Dear Editor:

I read with interest Ian Noble’s Jan. 19 News report on the rescue carried out by Fireboat No. 3 in Indian Arm. I was the inspector dur- ing the construction and trials

the fireboats, and during trials of what I believe was No. 3 we did operate in very thin ice at high speed in the Port Moody area. However, the fireboats were not designed or built with ice operations in mind, although with prudence they can obvi- ously venture into thin ice.

For the record, the story is - incorrect in stating that the * fireboats are double-hulled. They have a single skin, gen- erally %. and %-inch thick alu-

that are literally as ofd as Christianity.

But the popularity of Cypress also has a lot to do with skiing. In fact, 300,000 of the annual visits to the park consist of those who are attracted to the best local ski- ing in the vicinity of Vancouver. Cypress has the third highest number of downhill ski visits in British Columbia, behind Blackcomb and Whistler. And in terms of cross-country ski visits, it ranks second in ail of North America.

These impressive statistics form the backdrop to a long- running dispute at Cypress Bowl. Should the area be pre- served as a pristine example of our province's natural beauty? Or should it be opened up to more commer- cial development?

Last Friday night, 250 concerned citizens crowded into St. David’s church in West Vancouver to receive an update on the status of their beloved park.

While no local elected rep- resentatives chose to attend the meeting, there was plenty of concern expressed about

the latest proposal to expand the water and sewage hook- up to the park.

A staff report on the mat- ter from West Vancouver District is eagerly awaited. In the meantime, Katherine Steig, chairman of The Friends of Cypress Provincial Park Society, questions the need for any expansion of park services.

And former West Vancouver mayor Derrick Humphreys suggests that the history of the area deserves rereading. How right he is. More on the incredible story of Cypress Park next week.

For now, it’s worth noting that well-attended public meetings on the park's fate have been an ongoing feature of life in West Vancouver for several decades now.

When I served as MLA for the area, I had a steady stream of calls and letters on the subject. For the most part, residents of the North Shore have been consistently opposed to any plans for fur- ther commercial development within the park. In fact, the great majority of locals are appalled at the ugly spectre of

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a mini-Whistler at Cypress.

I will long remember the sentiments expressed in a fet- ter from a renred West Vancouver resident who summed up his feelings about Cypress Park by saving: “I am a right-of-centre conservative concerned with fiscal respon- sibility, but I state unequivo- cally, ‘Don’t touch the old growth!” ”

I passed along these and other comments in the sum- mer of 1995 to Commissioner Bryan Williams, who was at the time guiding the Cypress Park Special Planning Process. He concluded his review of the Cypress situation with some eminently sensible recom- mendations. Unfortunately, they have not yer been acted upon,

A big part of the problem is that Cypress is a provincial park, containing within it a private operation, Cypress Bow! Recreations (CBR).

This is a result of the commercialization of provin-

Park R.

cial parks that occurred in 1984 under the Social Credit government of Bill Bennett. In some parts of the province, this privatization process seems to have worked well — Manning Park is a good example.

Burt Cypress has been a bone of contention ever since CBR was granted its park use permit.

And the battles haven’t been restricted to what seems like the cliche quarrels between environmentalists and developers; in fact, the Ministry of Parks has proba- bly been the biggest thorn in the side of CBR. It’s not going to be easy to smooth over more than a decade of animosity.

Now entering into this festering controversy is West Vancouver District.

The previous council gave the appearance of attempting to wilfully ignore the issue, hoping it might just go away.

History says otherwise.

Mayor Pat Boname and

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her new team of West Van councillors will soon be called upon to make an important decision about the possibility of expansion plans fer the commercial facilities within Cypress Park.

For everyone’s sake, let’s sce some leadership on this issue. No more dithering. No more buck-passing. Let’s have a definitive decision.

-— The North Shore News believes strongly in freedom cf speech and the right of all sides ta debate to be heard. The columnists published in the News present differing points of view, but those views are not necessarily those of the newspa- per itself.

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