BRITISH COLUMBIA

EUNICE PARKER ... re-elected in Coq-
uitlam.

GEORGE PORGES ... new ACE voice |
on school board.

Some stunning upsets in Saturday’s
municipal and school board elections mean
voters are rejecting Social Credit govern-
ment plans to decentralize and privatize
municipal government and services, and
Socred policies on the local level.

While the results aren’t enough to send
Socred strategists back to the drawing
board to devise new ways to sell cutbacks,
the overturn of right-wing administrations
on council and school board in Burnaby,
for example, indicate support for the
government of Bill Vander Zalm is waning
as taxes for residential property owners soar
and education services face further cuts.

The Burnaby Citizens Association, the
one-time coalition now officially consti-
tuted as a New Democrat civic club, swept
out the majority enjoyed for years by the
right-wing Burnaby Voters Association led
by defeated mayor Bill Lewarne.

The BVA were identified with the
increasingly unpopular expansion of the
Metrotown Centre and with rising property
taxes on individual homeowners. Lewarne,
a cohort of Economic Development Minis-
ter Grace McCarthy, went down to defeat
at the hands of the BCA’s mayoral candi-
date, former deputy fire chief Bill Copeland.

While incumbent BCA aldermen Doug
Drummond and Lee Rankin have provided
some opposition to the dominant BVA,

Proposed bill opens door
to sell-off of services |

The Socred government is introducing
amendments to the B.C. Municipal Act
to facilitate privatization of municipal
services in business districts. .

The legislation which will be put to the
coming legislative session will establish
enabling powers for municipalities to
create “business improvement areas”
(BIA) within any area of a municipality
on commercial or industrial zoned land. ~

The BIA will be administered by a
corporation with a board of directors
appointed by the municipal council.
Upon establishment, the BIA will be
granted a budget to be spent on “‘servi-
ces,” primarily marketing or promoting
the business area, and “works,” involv-
ing the “improvement, beautification or
maintenance of streets, sidewalks or
municipally owned land, buildings or
structures.”

A report to Vancouver city council
states that the BIA board of manage-
ment “can determine which works and
services should be undertaken and how
much money should be spent on them.”

Under the scheme, part or all of the
normal functions of city departments
would be delegated to the BIA manage-
ment board, depending on the size and
scope of the area. Municipal councils
would retain ultimate control over the
annual budgets and expenditure of funds
and could set conditions on how services
or works will be contracted.

Councils that oppose privatization
and contracting out will have the politi-
cal power to ensure the maintenance of
city services by city workers, but those
councils looking for an escape route
from collective agreements will have a

- amendments to the Municipal Act has

-tion in the BIA, and the likelihood of

. to the council decision requiring consul-

ready made framework to contract out.

The legislation also stipulates that the
BIA budget be in part or whole reco-
vered by a local business tax levied by the
municipal council on recommendation
of the BIA board of management. That
would provide additional incentive for
the BIA to seek low cost non-union bids
on projects wherever possible.

The draft legislation containing the

been circulated to all B.C. municipalities
by the provincial Ministry of Municipal
Affairs with indication that the legisla-
tion will be brought to the current session
of the legislature.

In Vancouver, council voted to seek
broader powers for a BIA with an
amendment to the Vancouver Charter
that would also allow the board of man-
agement to buy, own and sell property,
and to establish public services. These
additional powers could give business
improvement areas and small business a
significant role in community develop-
ment, but it leaves open questions
regarding citizen and resident participa-

privatization and contracting out.

The BIA issue was rushed in and out
of Vancouver council in the first week of
November without notice to Local 1004
of the Canadian Union of Public
Employees, which represents the city’s
outside workers. But Ald. Bruce Eriksen
of the Committee of Progressive Electors
was successful in having a rider attached

tation with the union over the drafting of
any BIA bylaw for Vancouver.

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 25, 1987

much of the credit for stronger stances
against tax hikes and other policies by the
BCA slate during the election is probably
due to an economist who ran unsuccessfully
as an independent — David Fairey of the
Trade Union Research Bureau.

Fairey had made headlines in recent
months as a spokesman for Operation
Fightback, a popular citizens’ organization
that appeared several times before council
to protest the council’s policy of heavy
annual tax hikes on individuals while hold-
ing the line on corporate and big business
property taxes.

Fairey hit the campaign trail with a full-
fledged program that included maintaining
civically owned services with unionized civic
workers, social housing and citizen invol-
vement in development.

Fairey hailed the election results as a vic-
tory over “developer-oriented politics.”

“What we saw in Burnaby was a
groundswell of oppositidn to the arrogance
and developer orientation of the BVA,” he
said.

Fairey said the Burnaby Citizens Associ-
ation had been “weak” on the question of
taxes, Metrotown and high-rise develop-
ment but stiffened its policies under the
influence of citizens’ groups like Operation
Fightback.

‘ Victories for NDP-associated candidates
continued in several other municipalities
where right-wing politicians had dominated
for years.

In Surrey former alderman Bob Bose
won out over two right-wing candidates to
take the mayor’s chair. Bose, who ran with
the newly formed Surrey Civic Electors, an
NDP civic group whose aldermanic candi-
dates were unsuccessful, has been out-
spoken in his opposition to several large
development proposals threatening Sur-
rey’s natural lands, and has called for con-
trolled development for the large Fraser
Valley municipality.

The candidates for the Surrey Coalition
of Progressive Electors — council hopefuls
Terry Lawrence and Steve Gidora, and
school trustee contender Gord Savard
— were also unsuccessful. The candidates
had urged SCE supporters to save a vote for
the Surrey-COPE slate.

“We received broad community support.
If there had been a united progressive slate,
there could have been enough candidates to
change the nature of council,” Gidora, a
Surrey teacher, said.

In Coquitlam, Ald. Eunice Parker was
re-elected for a third term, coming in second
from the top of the polls. Parker’s running
mates for council in the labour-backed
Association of Coquitlam Electors, Lorna
Morford and Phil MacLeod, were unsuc-
cessful. But ACE school trustee Anne
Kachmar was re-elected at the top of polls
and was joined by running mate George
Porges for an additional ACE voice on the
school board. ,

Mayoral upsets in favour of NDP asso-
ciated candidates also took place in Powell
River, with former area MLA Don Lock-
stead taking the mayor’s chair, and success-
ful candidacies for mayor by Sophie
Weremchuk in Mission and William Har-
tley in Maple Ridge.

In Victoria, Mayor Gretchen Brewin was
handily re-elected and was joined by fellow
NDPers Janet Greenwood and Pieta Van
Dyke, whom, along with university profes-
sor and successful candidate Martin Seggar,
were leading opponents of the controversial
Cadillac-Fairview-Eatons development in
downtown heritage buildings.

Peter Ramsey, unemployment counsellor
in the city’s Victoria Action Society, was
unsuccessful but increased his vote to 43 per

cent from 34 per cent of the number nece
sary to win over the 1985 race. He credi
Brewin’s victory with her support amon
the capital region’s large peace movemen!

In Richmond .the results were mixe(
with members of the Richmond Ne
Democrats — a long-time civic ND.
club — taking half the council’s eight seat
Re-elected were aldermen Harold Steve
and Greg Halsey-Brandt, joined by nev
comers Robert McMath and Doug San¢
bert. But four right-wingers hold the otht
four seats, and with the re-election of Mayé
Gil Blair, the progressive forces face a
uphill battle against unpopular develof
ments such as that threatening the fertil
Terra Nova farmlands.

On the Richmond school board incum
bent Sue Halsey Brandt was re-elected an
joined by fellow New Democrat Pat Gud
lausson. The board remains predominant!
right wing. :

Fortunes for the Citizens Association 0
Delta — CitADel — were not as kind
although aldermanic hopeful Bruc¢
McDonald took a seat on council. CitAD¢
candidates and incumbents, along wil
those associated with the reform group
Trustees for the Independent Manageme?
of Education (TIME), were routed on tht
Delta school board, by a conservative slate

In the Interior, Vernon hopefuls Bef
Nilsson and Joan Packota were unsuccess
ful in their labour-supported council cat
didacies, although Packota’s vote wa
reportedly impressive. Nilsson also noted
that two candidates also opposed to a cof
troversial project to dump sewage into
Okanagan Lake — Ron Morgan and
Wayne McGrath — were elected to coum
cil. 3
On Vancouver Island labour counel
secretary David Crosby was unsuccessful 1!
his first attempt for a Campbell River city
council seat. But Crosby’s supporters say hé
achieved the highest vote for a labour cat”
didate in the city’s history.

For school board, incumbent Cathy
Shaw was re-elected at the top of the polls
and was joined by George Campo, a form?
trustee, in their labour-backed candidacié:
Crosby reports that Shaw was instrumenté
in having course fees abolished which facil
tated higher registration in certain classés:
The board now has a progressive majority: