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4 Terrace Review — Wednesday, April 16, 1986

| On in ions

_ Editorial -

BCSTA shows
political courage

Two items from the
Terrace school board’s
April 8 agenda illustrate

the political crossfire

that local trustees are
facing. One is the
board’s application to
the Excellence for
Education fund for $1.4
million; the other, a let-
ter from the B.C. School
Trustees Association
urging the local board to
boycott the Excellence
fund until the Ministry
of Education operating
budgets are increased to
the level required to
maintain adequate
school services.

This appeal from the
BCSTA, coupled with an
announced intention to
contract an independent
financial audit of the
Ministry of Education,
shows more political
courage on the part of
that organization than
anyone would have ex-
pected. These moves,
however, come too late
to be of any use. Local
tax rate bylaws must be

Letters to the aditor will be
considered for publication
only when signed. Piease
include your phone
number. The = aditor
reserves the right to
condanse and adit fettars.
Opinions expressed are
not necessarily those of
the Terrace Review.

Terrace
Review

Established May 1, 1985

The Terrace Review is published
gach Wednesday by Close-Up
Business Services Ltd.
Pubilsher:
Mark Twyford
Editor:
Maureen Barbour
Staff Reporter:
Michael Kelly

Advertising:
- 636-4339

or
635-7840

.. Production:

_ Kim Kimble

Office:
Carrie Olson

Accounting:
Mar} Twyford

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ragistration No, 6896.

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mission of the publisher.

4535 Greig Avenue,
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V8G 1M7

Phone: 635-4339
ne

passed and submitted to
Victoria by May 1, so
boycotts and audits are
virtually irrelevant to
this year’s situation.

The Excellence funds
are at the very least a
questionable method of
financing education. By
establishing insufficent
funding in operating
budgets for school
districts, the provincial
government insures the
participation of school
boards in the Excellence
project and, by implica-
tion, their tacit approval.
Trustees are put in the
impossible situation of
having to either cut
school services or raise
local taxes, and the addi-
tional monies which the
Excellence fund repre-
sents cannot be ignored
in this situation.

It’s a set-up typical of
this provincial govern-
ment, which avoids
politically hazardous
decisions by forcing
someone else to make
them. While crowing
about a budget that
levies no taxes, the
Socreds send trustees out
to face the combined
anger of residential
ratepayers, teachers and
parents.

The use of a cabinet-
administered fund which
stipulates narrow quali-
fying guidelines also
allows Victoria greater
control over the
developmental direction
in schools. Meanwhile,
local taxpayers are
burdened with a greater
share of the cost of
operating their schools
and simultaneously be-
ing stripped of their
power to influence local
education.

Everyone’s going to
lose this year: teachers,
who are being forced in-
to job action tactics
which they abhor;
trustees, who must act as
reluctant seconds in an
undeclared duel between
the province and residen-
tial taxpayers; the tax-
payers themselves, who
are going to get burned
once again; and perhaps
more than anyone the
students, who have to
wring an education out
of this atmosphere of
dissatisfaction, anxiety
and distrust.

Michael Kelly

“No, I will not help you find your
‘Application Rejected 'stamp...!"

Commentary

School trustees put in
no-win situation.

At last Tuesday’s meeting of the Terrace School
Board, Superintendent Frank Hamilton had to admit
that the Board has, up to now, been unable to get any
answer from the Minister of Education to its request
for the funding of a larger portion of District 88's
1986/87 school budget.

A month has passed now since the request was
made. The Board has to pass its budget bylaw by
May 1 (a special meeting has been scheduled for this
purpose on Monday, April 28). If Victoria does not
respond favorably to the board’s request, the board
will have a very difficult decision to make: to raise
residential school taxes or to forego essential expend-
itures, including: replacement of school supplies, the
French Immersion program, Young Offenders
classes, and additional teachers to eliminate ‘‘split’’
classes.

The Terrace School Board is not alone in this
quandary. The vast majority of B.C. school boards
will be forced to make the same choice: raise taxes or
cut the budget, and eliminate needed services.

Why is the Minister of Education not forthcoming
with any help for B.C.’s beleaguered school boards?
The reason is that he doesn’t in my opinion have any
help to give. Despite the March blizzard of press
releases, calling attention to the Excellence in Educa-
tion Fund (which is in actuality just part of the
education budget that has been sliced off for political
purposes), B.C.’s education funding is actually fall-
ing increasingly short of current needs.

In its Provincial Report, which British Columbians
recently found in their mailboxes, the Government
says it has ‘‘provided $85 million in the education
budget to offset nonresidential school tax reductions
(i.e., tax expenditures, or giveaways to big corpora-
tions) introduced in last year’s budget.’” What the
report doesn’t state is the amount of these reduc-
tions.

The total reduction in property taxes on machinery
and equipment, and on industrial and commercial
property, over the three year period 1985/88, is $502
million. About one-third of that amount, or $167
million, is applicable to 1986/87. As can readily be
seen, this leaves a deficit of $82 million. This deficit
will have to be made up by increases in B.C.’s local
school taxes, or else services will have to be cut.

A friend who is a computer salesman said to me
the other day: “Every day we hear from the Govern-
ment that increasing emphasis in education must be
placed on business and industry. Yet business and in-
dustry pay less and less of the tax burden of educa-
tion (half a billion dollars over three years — see
above). This burden is being placed, unfairly, on in-
dividuals and homeowners.”’ | think that puts it very
well.

I can sympathize with school trustees who have
been put in a no-win position. But at least the tax-
payers and voters should be aware that the School
Board is not the source of the problem.

George Stanley
Terrace, B.C.

“Those who dabble in
the doctrine of demons
are going to get burned”

I have noticed Dungeons and Dragons writing on
walls around town, indicating that some buildings
have been marked by the sign of the beast for some
sort of Satanic activity in this game. .

I would suggest that if there is death due to in-
dividuals playing this ‘‘innocent’’ game, as we
recently saw in the Detroit area where actual human
sacrifices were performed, then in my opinion we can
blame secutar bookstores. This may sound harsh but
many stores have been told of the hidden dangers of
the game; and I am told that there are big bucks to be
made selling the Devil to young people.

If you doubt my words then I recommend William
Dear’s book, ‘‘The Dungeon Master.’’ Dear is a
Dallas private detective (who Hollywood based the
Matt Houston TY series upon) who was hired in 1979
to look for a young university student whose IQ was
over 180. Through the course of his investigation
Dear discovered the student was playing Dungeons
and Dragons, and was connected with witch cults,
drug rings and homosexuality as a result. Dear found
the student, tried to reason with him about the
dangers of D & D, but in the end the teenager com-
mitted suicide.

The problem is that young people, and some book
store owners, think it’s just a game: “‘If someone is
affected by it then they were weird to start with.”
That’s not Dear’s story. Nor is it the experience of
people like Malachi Martin, a Catholic Church exor-
cist from New York. After 300 exorcisms he
understands that those who dabble in the doctrine of
demons are going to get burned.

Mike Warnke, a former Satanist high priest,

- reminds us that the powers of darkness require the

consent of people participating in their realm. The
Bible says Jesus knocks at your door and will not
come in unless invited. Satan is also a gentleman,
more slick and silver-tongued than anything we can
imagine. In fact he has convinced most of the world
that he Lord is the evil one and he is the one to open
your heart to. He offers ‘“‘total freedom’’ in the form
of total slavery, .

A few years ago police linked the death of a Toron-
to police officer to Satanic rock and roll. The con-
stable was killed by a crazed youth who fired over 40
rounds from his stolen automatic M-16 rifle. The
youth was described by neighbors as a model kid who
enjoyed Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, AC/DC, etc.
He wore the usual heavy metal 666 T-shirts and had
hand drawn sketches of demonic creatures on his
bedroom walls. Just your typical teenager, right?
Have you checked your kid’s record collection lately?

While members of parliament from all the parties
over in Ottawa are apparently planning to remove
Victorian laws prohibiting witchcraft and occult ac-
tivity in Canada, this stuff is on the rise. B.C. is one

of two ‘‘deep wells’’ in North America, which means |

there is more occult activity here than anywhere else.
People seem to be asleep and will not wake up when

warned of the dangers of our Conservative govern- _

ment’s plan to remove these ‘‘archaic’’ laws

I understand from my investigations that a group
of witches have established a coven in.Terrace. A
local business is a front for occult activity and has
even ensnared some Christians,

To the natural world caught up in new age trends it
all seems as harmless as a Broom Hilda comic strip,
but beneath the surface there is a real dungeon anda
real dragon waiting to steal souls. If you want to see
below the surface you must adjust your altitude. It is
the Christian position to say: The Spirit of the Lord
God is upon me; because the Lord had annointed me
to preach good tidings to the meek;’ he has sent me to
bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the
captives, and the opening of the dungeons to them
that are bound.

I say to young people: Don’t be a patsy — boycott
the D & D section of bookstores. Read William
Dear’s book, and others on this subject at Something

Good bookstore. Brian Gregg

‘Terrace, B.C,

cana TE