Alderman Harry Rankin (left) was one of about 75 demonstrators in a A drenching rain Saturday to protest the widening of Boundary Roadintoan eight lane thoroughfare. Organizer Sol Jackson (right) of Killarney Champlain Heights Citizens for Action said residents will take the matter to city council Feb. 12. No reason to threaten homes for LRT route By HARRY RANKIN The residents of the Trout Lake (John Hendry Park) area are alarmed and angry. And for good reason. Two of the three proposed routes for the Light Rapid Transit system that is to be built from Van- couver through Burnaby, New Westminster and Surrey, would cross their area. They would cut right through Trout Lake and the park and require the destruction of someé’40 or 50 homes in the area. The people living there want to keep their homes and they want to keep their park. Furthermore they intend to keep them no matter what. Actually, it’s not at all necessary for any light rail transit route to go through their area. Another one of the proposed routes is quite accep- table to the residents, the Nanaimo Alignment route would’ bring the transit line from the Central Park area of Burnaby along Vanness (that’s the old B.C. Hydro street car line) up to Nanaimo. Then it would go along Nanaimo and head north to the Great Northern Railway cut and from there along these railway tracks into Van- couver. On this route, no houses would have to be demolished, no parks destroyed or divided up. At present this route would be above grade. I think the Nanaimo section of it should go underground. It’s true that putting the line underground for about a mile along Nanaimo would add to the cost, but the whole rapid system will in any cost over half a billion dollars so this would not add much to the-cost. The residents of the Trout Lake area feel so strongly about the issue that they got out: stickers which read‘S.O.B: They: explain-that this could mean Save Our Backyards, but it could also mean something elseif the politicians try to demolish their homes or cut through the park! I can see no valid reason why the route should go through the Trout Lake area when we have this other route — the Nanaimo Alignment — available. I have every intention both in the GVRD andin city coun- cil to give the Nanaimo Alignment my full support and I hope other members of city council, as well as the GVRD, can be persuaded to do the same. Over 400 residents attended a meeting in the Trout Lake area on January 30 to voice their concerns. They showed how strongly they felt about the issue. If city council doesn’t listen to their objections now, I’m .quite sure they’re prepared to come right to council with them. ~ ‘PEOPLE AND ISSUES TRIBUNE PHOTO— FRED WILSON ( _ The last real opportunity to put in place a ward system for the 1980 civic elections in Vancouver will be before Vancouver city council Tuesday, but it already seems clear that the right wing NPA majority will once again block implementa- tion of the 52 percent majority vote for a ward system in the 1978 plebiscite. Last Tuesday council heard 17 delegations speak to the recom- mendations of the Eckardt report, almost all ringing with denuncia- tions of the report and of the NPA. But after more than two hours of presentations and with almost 100 people looking on, the NPA followed a familiar pattern and im- mediately moved deferral of the issue to the following meeting. Eckardt’s recommendations for a partial ward system in Vancouver based on the gerrymandered pro- vincial ridings turned out to be only incidental to the meeting Tuesday, as most fire,from the left and the right, was focused at council itself. “The issue is democracy, ma- jority rule’? COPE president Bruce Yorke declared. ‘‘And COPE intends to make democracy the central issue in the next election.” : Yorke predicted that the NPA will be punished at the polls for their actions will cross political lines.” Numerous speakers turned their attention to the 1980 election as the answer to the issue, and for a ma- jority of speakers the answer was COPE. Three other COPE candidates, Bruce Eriksen, David Schreck and Libby Davies addressed council, hammering at the same theme. Eriksen told council to ‘‘be honest with voters’’ and ‘‘tell them if they want a full ward system and civic democracy they should indicate’ that at the ballot box by not voting for you.” ‘TEAM’s May Brown made her © first appearance at council since her defeat in the 1978 election and was one of only two speakers to give a qualified endorsement of the Eckardt report. But Brown warned council that if no action was for- thcoming, citizen groups around the city would re-evaluate their positions and give overwhelming support for a full ward system. The pro-ward committee ARFA presented the most detailed critique ~ of the Eckardt report and called on council to ‘‘put into place the best ward system you can” for 1980. s anyone who has worked for a labor newspaper knows, the rumuneration doesn’t generally qualify you for the ranks of the ranks of the highly- paid. So when you get robbed — as Tribune staff re- porter Janice Harris did this week — the blow is often doubly felt. Thieves climbed over the roof of her apartment Tuesday night and forced the back door to get in. There wasn’t very much to take — a new typewriter (what reporter could be without one?) and a stereo set - — but in the process her whole room was ransacked, with drawers opened and their contents strewn. And perhaps the final blow was a Tribune collec- tion can for paper sales — which the burglar had care- fully opened with a can opener. * * * oy ak Ithough he was forced by ill health to lay down his pen several years ago, Tom McEwen’s col- umn is one that is remembered by hundreds of people across this province. And next week — on Feb. 11 — Tom marks his 89th birthday — quite a milestone for someone who in his lifetime has been a Workers’ Uni- PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 8, 1980—Page 2 ty League leader Communist Party organizer, editor of the Tribune and a member of the Kingston Eight, imprisoned under Section 98. Our best wishes to him. * * * * * E rom Bert Nilsson. comes the sad news of the pass- ing of John Klim, aname that was known totwo - generations of working people in the Vernon area and a long-time supporter of the Tribune. He died Jan- uary 26 in Vernon Jubilee Hospital at the age of 85. Born in Galicia, in the old Austro-Hungarian Em- pirein 1894, he came to Canada with his parents who joined the exodus of emigrants. In 1936, he settled in the Vernon area, establishing a fruit farm that he maintained until his retirement. He was one of the earliest members of both the As- sociation of United Ukrainian Canadians and the Communist Partyinthearea. Bert Nilsson spoke at the memorial in Vernon Feb. 2. A message from the provincial executive of the Communist Party remembered Klim as ‘‘a dedicat- ed advocate of working class causes.’ sss sess | Fight for wards shifts focus to 1980 elections Significantly, AREA argued against another plebiscite on the issue, claiming that nothing has changed since 1978. It was a right winger, however, Bill Clancy, a public relations director with a long connection to W.A.C. Bennett, who was most scathing in his attack on Volrich and the NPA. Clancy heaped scorn on Volrich ‘‘for trying to define a majority for us’’ and predicted that if he didn’t change his position he would go down to a crashing defeat in the next election. “Bigger people than you have fallen for disregar- ding democracy,’’ he said. _ The one real chance for action om a ward system in 1980 is the Gray Report, prepared by UBC professor George Gray, proposing 12 wards for the city. The report . was commissioned by Eckardt’s governmental review commission but was discarded. Sunday, COPE drew about 100 people to a meeting at the Plaza 500 to hear Gray speak to his reports — “These 12 areas are not completely homogeneous but they do have a sense of social and geographic 4 reality,” Gray told the meeting: “The issue is this: are they bette definitions of community for He political re-organization of Vai” couver. They are much bettel definition than the provincial com” stituencies proposed by Eckardt. These would be huge, ungainly constituencies containing big dif ferences.”’ Gray discounted the notion that a city wide view is needed from a number of at-large aldermen. Such a view doesn’t exist, he said, It depends on your political and class rspective. a separate resolutions, COPE endorsed the Gray report and call- ed for its immediate implement@- tion for the 1980 election and for broad co-operation by all pro- ward groups in the city with a view to forming a coalition for the 1980 elections. Crist demands airing of covered-up report North Vancouver district alder- man Erie Crist has demanded that mayor Don Bell release a “‘secret”’ report which warns of the possibili- ty of a Mississauga-style accident should rail cars carrying chlorine gas from the Hooker Chemical plant in North Vancouver be derailed. The report, prepared by Beak Consultants for the district council, was submitted in its final form in ' May 1978, but, according to Crist, the mayor has been keeping it under wraps. = However, in September, 1978, the report was leaked to the Pro- vince, which quoted it as predicting ‘a disaster of major proportions which would require massive evacuations of North Shore and Lower Mainland areas.” “This report must be released and the public must know the facts,’’ Crist declared. His demand has been echoed by a newly-formed group of North Shore residents who have asked council for a public _ airing. _ He added that he didn’t ‘“‘want toseeit incamera, confidentally, or in secret. ‘I want to see it in public, at an open meeting of our district council, where the media and all other citizens can also see it.”’ A rail car carrying 25,000 to 35,000 gallons of chlorine, if rup- tured, could spew out a gas cloud 600 times that volume, or 18 million gallons of gas. Crist blasted all three levels of government for ‘“‘passing the buck. “The best that anyone seems to have come up with is the proposal that thousands of North Shore people should be taken to the top of Mount Seymour and evacuated from there by helicopter. “Can you imagine 50,000 panic ~ stricken people clawing their way up Mount Seymour through clouds of chlorine gas?”’ he asked. In an open letter to mayor Bell, submitted to North Vancouver papers, Crist said he was mainly in- terested in whether such an acci- - dent can be prevented in the first place, although he felt safety precautions in the event of a chlorine spill will ‘require the joint action of municipal councils, the tax notices — GVRD and both provincial and federal governments. “{ don’t want any report on this prepared by Hooker Chemicals, — but by a reliable, impartial body with public hearings and public in-_ put.” Socreds hit © for use of — The Socred cabinet has moved to order municipalities to help spr provincial government propagan- da with property tax forms, but at least one council has sent a sharp protest and is threatening that it won’t comply. Port Coquitlam city council las Friday voted to protest the Socred cabinet’s order in council 80-80 which will require all property tax notices to state how much more the tax would have been were it not fot assistance from the provincial government. Port Coquitlam council, led by alderman Phil Ranger, was not im- | pressed. The province is ordering municipalities ‘to spread their pro- paganda,”’ Ranger charged. | The statement, which must be included on the tax form, is devised to imply “‘that the provincial government is rescuing the poof taxpayer from the clutches of greedy municipal governments,” he said. According to Ranger, taxes in Port Coquitlam for city purposes are up only 4.7 per cent, while taxes to other levels of government are up by 16,9 per cent. }‘‘This il- lustrates the withdrawal of provin- cial tax support,’’ he said. Ranger called the order in coun- cil ‘‘an ill-conceived regulation that borders on scandal”? and moved that council flatly refuse to comply with it. On consideration, how- ever, the council toned down the response to a sharp protest and a decision to raise the issue at the convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities.