British Columbia Shenanigans catch up with NPA trustees The ad hoc backroom deals of Mayor Gordon Campbell and former school board chairman Ken Denike — both of the Non Partisan Association — have finally caught up with them. Thanks to their arrogant bungling, the school board is today without a home and Vancouver taxpayers will be losing $250,000 per month within 14 months. The most recent setback to Campbell’s and Denike’s secret schemes took place on May 4, when False Creek area citizens angrily denounced the attempt to build new school board offices at Sixth and Cambie. Citizens didn’t buy Denike’s statement that “It’s a lovely site.” Mayor Campbell, all NPA aldermen, and even “independent” alderman Carole Taylor were forced to backtrack and join Com- mittee of Progressive Electors aldermen in voting against rezoning this land. It all started in January of last year. Without any public discussion the NPA school board decided to dispose of its administration building at Broadway and Granville. It followed this up by giving a Calgary developer, Trilea Centre, a 99- year lease on its Broadway and Granville property beginning July 1, 1990. This was done before any alternative site had been secured. Compounding this stupidity, the board signed an agreement providing for a penalty of $125,000 a month plus loss of rental fee of $125,000 a month from Trilea for every month it stays in its present site after July 1990. The NPA school board then decided, in secret session, that its new administration building would be located at Eric Hamber Secondary School at 33rd and Oak. It planned to do this without even a public hearing. But when Eric Hamber residents threa- tened to call a public meeting of their own, the NPA board reluctantly agreed to a public information meeting. Community opposition to this site by community resi- dents and teachers was so strong that the NPA school board was routed. Our NPA dominated city council then voted to reject consideration of rezoning the Eric Hamber site. Still determined to select an alternative site in secret, the NPA school board rejected a COPE motion calling for a pub- lic debate. Then (by this time it was October 1988) the NPA school board announced that its new administration building would be located at Cambie and Sixth Avenue. Again this was done without consulting the local residents. But it couldn’t get away with this. City bylaws require that rezoning proposals must be subjected to a public hearing. Public opposition at this hearing was so strong that it left NPA school trustees and NPA aldermen with their ears burning. And NPA aldermen who had agreed to the site had to do an about-face again. It was another fiasco for the NPA. The opposition to the Sixth and Cambie site was well founded. Everybody familiar with the area knows it’s a poor choice. Traffic congestion in the area is already terrible. It can only get worse as the city grows. Public transit to the site is poor. It’s not centrally located in relation to where the majority of children and schools are in Vancouver. Only half of the site would be under the control of the board; who knows what would be built on the other half? An indus- trial area, a site that is trapped between railway and a traffic congested arterial road and overshadowed by Cambie Bridge, is the wrong place for a school board administration building. An education centre, which is what a school board administration building would essentially be, should be on a site easily accessible to the public: It should be a building all Vancouver citizens can be proud of, one that truly reflects our con- cern for education. The reason the NPA backed off both from the proposed site at 33rd and Oak and more recently from the site at Sixth and Cambie was because many of the pro- testers were middle-class NPA supporters. In sharp contrast, the NPA didn’t listen when the citizens of the east side recently opposed the scheme to build a high-rise at Commercial and Broadway. There we had two public meetings last- ing into the small hours of the morning . with about 74 opposing briefs. The NPA- dominated city council, maintaining its - reputation as a developer council, turned a deaf ear to all the pleas of the east side residents. The NPA, and especially Mayor Campbell and former school board chairman Denike, got themselves into this absurd situation of being without a school board office because of arrogance, stupid- ity, a penchant-for secret deals, misman- agement and reluctance to consult citizen groups. As Ald. Libby Davies said, “It’s got itself into one hell of a pickle.” It got what it deserved. So now we havea school board without a school board office, A good site would have been the board’s property just west of city hall. But this was frittered away too by the NPA council and school board and turned over to developers with assurances it would never be needed by the school board. To get out of the stupid situation in which it now finds itself, the school board needs a new approach. It needs to pursue a multi-track approach, looking at all avail- able sites. Central to its search must be an. - open public consultation process. Free trade Continued from page 1 anda eaucation, including the distribution of a leaflet on the budget and its ramifications. Volunteers are needed for the mobiliza- tion committee, CAFT member Colleen Fuller said later. The coalition was also mandated to “urge the Pro-Canada Network to organize a National Day of Protest against the Con- servative government’s budget.” The coali- tion was to formalize that request at its regular meeting Monday. The federal budget was the main focus of a two-day meeting of the CLC executive council last week. Communications direc- tor Derik Hodgson said it produced a stra- « tegy “that ranges from small to big (activities).” But he quoted congress president Shirley Carr as saying a large-scale day of protest has not been ruled out, but that such would only be considered “‘in the long haul.” Instead, there will a different kind of fightback that, aside from the usual news- paper advertisements and media blitz, will target Tory MPs in their ridings with local demonstrations, Hodgson said. ““We can likely also expect some sort of action around Labour Day (Sept. 4),” he said. Citing “somewhat of a collapse in the political opposition to free trade,” the CLC spokesperson said the congress wants to help unite the various coalitions and consti- tuencies into a fightback. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers will tackle free trade from a slightly different angle with demonstrations in Toronto and Vancouver — and possibly other centres — on June 23. On that day the Fraser Institute, B.C.’s very right wing think tank, hosts a Toronto conference on privatizing the post office with speakers that include Canada Post president Don Landers and the minister ‘responsible for the mails, Harvey Andre. 2 « Pacific Tribune, May 15, 1989 budget hit “Tt’s clear to us that the Fraser Institute is working hand-in-hand with the Tories,” organizer Marion Pollack said. Eventual privatization of Canada Post is part of the Tory agenda that has already begun with the April 27 budget, analyst Swankey told the Vancouver meeting. Swankey said the budget, which imposes 26 new taxes and tax hikes on 80 per cent of the Canadian population, has a threefold purpose: to harmonize Canada’s social pol- icies with those of the U.S.; to redistribute wealth and give more to corporations; to continue corporate tax breaks. The Tories plan to complete the privati- zation of Crown corporations like Air Can- ada and PetroCanada, and by forcing the post office to turn a $300-million profit annually in the next five years, eventually privatize Canada Post as well, he warned. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Con- servatives are the first government to attack the universality of Canada’s social pro- grams, said Swankey, noting the introduc- tion of a means test on old age pensions and family allowances for middle-income Can- adians, accompanied by a 15-per-cent on those services. This is only the beginning and soon those measures will affect eve- ryone except those on welfare and the work- ing poor, he said. “This budget is the one that was demanded and received by the Business Council on National Issues, the Canadian Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the banks, the U.S. multinationals, the International Monetary Fund and the think tanks of big business: the C.D. Howe Institute and the Fraser Institute,” he said. Said Calvert: “I think what’s happened. so.far has been very positive. I think we’ve broken down some of the isolation that individual groups and constituencies have felt, and I think that the future for this kind of organization is a positive one.” June 24. And that is alarming. date. time in the drive. strong. GREATER VANCOUVER Quota Achieved Aubrey Burton 700 175 Bill Bennett 500 105 Burnaby 6,000 795 Coquitlam 2,500 1,410 Effie Jones 1,500 2,041 Kingsway 5,000 2,390 New West. 2,000 --- Nigel Morgan 600 - --- North Van. 2,500 825 Richmond 1,500 480 Seamen 350 25 Van. East 7,000 1,452 West Side 4,800 1,195 FRASER VALLEY Delta 600 --- Fraser Valley 900 800 Maple Ridge 2,200 5 Surrey 2,200 30 White Rock 1,000 775 The alarming facts... As you can see by our figures, we have raised less than a third of our goal as we reach the halfway point in our drive to reach $82,000 by We need to reach that figure on time and even exceed it if we are to maintain a weekly voice for working people. A few clubs — Effie Jones, Penticton, Creston, and Fernie — have already reached their objectives and a big thank-you goes to them for their hard work to But the reality is that we are $13,000 behind last year’s total at this We need more help, a lot more help, if we are to make the goal. We don’t have our traditional contest to rely on because the attorney- general has taken that way from us. All we have is you: the link that can and must make the difference over the next 30 years. Please dig deep. We’re counting on you to keep us fighting and OKANAGAN Kamloops 1,000 300 Penticton 600 674 Vernon 1,600 900 N. COAST/INTERIOR Correspondence 1,500 920 Creston 200 270 Fernie 250 360 L. Similkameen 500 --- Powell River 500 420 Prince George 200 74 Prince Rupert 300 --- Sunshine Coast 600 35 Trail 700 90 VANCOUVER ISLAND Campbell River 2,000 1,578 Comox Valley 1,400 101 Nanaimo 2,800 1,970 Port Alberni 1,400 327 Victoria 3,200 1,588 - Miscellaneous 2,500 950 TOTAL: 65,700 23,060 Aa)