La | la \§ { J [ Surrey Rally raps no action | on racism Socreds for Organizer Charan Gill told an anti-Klan rally in Surrey Sunday, ‘‘If there are two dozen KKK mem- bers in this municipality, then there are hundreds of others who denounce them.” The rally, organized by the B.C. Organization to Fight Racism, of which Gill is president, drew over 400 people and a host of speakers last Sunday. NDP MLA Emery Barnes slammed the provin- cial government for thwarting the attempts of law- yer Harry Rankin and the B.C. Coalition against Racism to take the Klan to court. “Under the present legislation, the attorney-gen- eral’s office determines whether an act of discrimin- ation is serious enough to warrant prosecution, not the individual involved,”’ Barnes said. “We shouldn’t need permission to prosecute under Section 281(2) of the Criminal Code if our dignity has been offended. gesting changes?”’ “The culprit right now is attorney-general Allan Williams, and, to a lesser degree, because they are political appointees, the human rights commission. Why aren’t they indignant? Why aren’t they sug- Vancouver alderman Harry Rankin said that mu- nicipal governments should be pressed to guarantee safety for their citizens. : Referring to the East Indian youths beaten up near Windermere school in Vancouver, Rankin said, ‘‘this meeting should see Vancouver mayor Mike Harcourt Monday morning and demand a pri- ority investigation of the incident. “See the chief constable of Vancouver. Get him to investigate, get some changes made, make it a pri- ority in the courts. Let’s forget about Sunday shop- ‘ping for a while,”’ he said. “The racists have to know that they can’t get away with that goddamn kind of thing here.”” Joe LeClair, vice-president of the International Woodworkers of America, New Westminster local, called racism ‘‘a cancer which can spread.”’ The rally endorsed two resolutions, the first de- manding that Williams ban the Klan from B.C. and a second demanding that Vancouver city council and city police ‘‘investigate the Windermere incident immediately and charge the culprits.”” - Other speakers included representatives from the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, the Union of B.C. In- dian Chiefs and Citizens for a Better Surrey. The politicians who run the GVRD are putting their heads into a political noose if they agree to be- come a “‘willing partner” with mu- nicipal affairs minister Bill Vander Zalm in his decision to impose an Automated Light Rapid Transit System on the Lower Mainland. Vander Zalm will tighten the knot, spring the trap door under their feet and leave them dangling. They'll be blamed for the mess that we have while Vander Zalm and premier Bill Bennett walk away laughing. What happens to politicians who have misled and betrayed the citi- zens whose interests they are sup- posed to protect when they leave this world and go to whatever land such politicians go to, perhaps isn’t important. What is important is that the taxpayers will have to pay » and pay and pay for decades for their irresponsible actions. It’s clear now that: 1. The GVRD will be stuck with any overrun. Vander Zalm says the system will cost $650 million; the GVRDsays it will be over $800 mil- lion. And that’s only for the line from Vancouver to New Westmin- ster. The spur lines to Surrey and the Lougheed will, according to the GVRD, add another $100 million to the cost. : e 2. GVRD officials state that “the gasoline tax and the power levy will not be sufficient to finance the local share of transit whether we have a rapid: transit system or not.’’ This is another way of saying that we will havea further big boost in the gasoline tax and surcharge on our Hydro bills just to keep our present bus system going. 3. GVRD officials now admit that, “if rapid transit is to proceed, the property tax will be required in the intial 10 years.”’ Until now this was denied or ignored. Now they admit what we in COPE have charged all along — that once the GVRD took over the bus system on terms laid down by the provincial cabinet, property taxes to finance both the present bus system and rapid transit would become inevi- table. 4. Vander Zalm claims that his automated system will be cheaper to operate. The facts don’t bear this out. First of all his automated sys- tem costs $98.2 million more than the conventional system that the GVRD had agreed to before it cav- ed in to the pressure from Victoria. Secondly, operators and/or attendants are essential even if the system is automatic. They are needed, as the Amalgamated Tran- sit Union points out, to assist the el- derly and the handicapped, to take care of the intoxicated, to assist rid- ers during periods of delays or breakdowns, etc. The city planner, Ray Spaxman, also pointed out to city council that the BART system in San Francisco was designed to be automatic, “‘but they had to install human attendants.” 5. Vander Zalm and his sup- porters claim that only the auto- mated system will create jobs for Canadians. This is a lot of crap. This sudden concern for Canadian jobs by a representative of a gov- ernment that is giving away our re- sources to foreign multinationals instead of developing them at home: and creating jobs here in- stead of in Japan, has to be taken with a grain of salt. As the city planner told city council: “Ttis also claimed that the system if success- ful would create jobs for Canadi- ans -and earn export dollars. It should be noted that the conven- tional system could also be built in Canada and create jobs.”’ In view of all this, why is the GVRD so supinely going along with what is obviously a bad deal? I don’t know all the answers. I know that great pressure is being put on the top brass of the GVRD and that many of them are Social Crediters to begin with. One ex- ample is alderman Kennedy of Vancouver who was appointed to the GVRD board of directors by ‘mayor Mike Harcourt and who jumps through the hoop like a trained dog every time Vander Zalm cracks his whip. Asto why Vander Zalm chose an automated system when the GVRD wanted a conventional type, I have no doubt that behind the scenes some developer and bus- iness interests, who are closely con- nected with the provincial govern- ment, are going to make a bundle out of it. What else can we expect froma government run by car deal- ers and developers? Now GVRD officials, sensing Transit deal ‘a disaster’ the mess they’ve got into because they haven’t the political guts to stand up to Vander Zalm, are tell- ing him they will be his ‘‘willing partner to build Automated LRT,” if he will only agree to a few - concessions so they can save face. Vander’ Zalm may make a few mi- nor concessions or he may slap their faces again. In any case noth- ing much will be changed. _ We do need a rapid transit sys- tem in the Lower Mainland, of that there is no doubt. The provincial government has consistently op- posed it. Now realizing that it can’t be delayed any longer it is forcing it on usin such a way that we will pay the costs through higher taxes — gasoline, property, etc. That road spells disaster for citizens. Over 10 years ago COPE pro- posed that a rapid transit system be built as follows: © “The bulk of thecost to build and subsidize a rapid transit system should not be placed on the prop- erty owners and tenants . . . these costs should be met by grants from senior governments.” e Aprofitable means of raising funds for rapid transit is through land assembly along the route. The land at bus terminals will become extremely valuable because shop- ping centres, apartments and com- mercial areas will be built around them. As a source of revenue this could replace increased taxes. @ All decisions about rapid transit should be made by the GVRD, not the provincial govern- ment. That’s still the way to go. Wy ith every passing week, the numbers of reader complaints about poor mail delivery has been growing — and so has our frustration at producing a paper that often doesn’t reach readers for weeks after publication. Some people, particularly in New Westminster, but also in SR eae Eee received an issue yet in An indication of what the problem is was received this week from Lioyd Ingram, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, who says that the backlog of mail, bad as it is in New Westminster, “‘is ona much, much larger scale in Vancouver. In fact, he adds, it has be- come so bad that it has become effectively impossible to catch up and so much mail is being stored “that it’s creating a fire hazard.” Every mailed copy of the Tribune goes first to the central Vancouver post office before being sent out to other local area postal stations. And considering the backlog, that some papers are being received at all is just slightly short of miraculous. But it is clear that postal workers are performing those miracles — in spite of the actions of post office management. Ingram says that t has been devising organizational schemes to move the mail that “‘have been plucked from tthe script writers of ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’.”” ‘ : But the chief problem is lack of adequate mail staff and no re- ization or re-scheduling can compensate. And as Ingram em- phasises, ‘There can be no resolution of the mail crisis until manage- ment adequately staffs the Post Office.” In the meantime, some pressure from readers on post office customer relations departments could go a long way towards getting some official action — and, perhaps, faster delivery of your Trib. If PEOPLE AND ISSUES * phone calls aren’t your forte, we suggest you drop a note to the Post Office Supervisor of Claims and Inquiries, 349 West Georgia St., Van- couver, B.C., V6B 1Y9. But often the direct approach gets faster results. Here are phone numbers for post offices in the main problem areas: Vancouver, customer service 666-3531 or second class mail department, 666-2801; Surrey, 581-5241; Delta, 946-4014; Maple Ridge,463-3651; New Westminster, 524-7155 or 524-7121; Coquitlam, 936-9717. : * * Ai Ts peace movement in B.C. will take centre stage in late February with the B.C. Peace Council’s province wide conference for peace . action. Invitations are now out to trade unions, churches, peace groups, ethnic communities, environmental groups, political parties and pro- fessional organizations for the conference Feb. 21-22 at the Plaza 500 Hotel in Vancouver. The Peace Council has appointed Vancouver lawyer Carmela Allevato to chair the organizing committee and the conference which will divide into workshops on four themes. ; On Sunday, Feb. 22 the conference will adjourn to Kitsilano High School auditorium for a major rally featuring Gus Newport, mayor of Berkeley, California and a leading member of the U.S. Peace Council. Tax storm| gathering By FRED WILSON There is a storm of resent-} ment forming over Vancouver in anticipation of rising proper- ty taxes in 1981. The finance department has been. predicting about a 14 per- cent tax increase for general city purposes and another 15.6 per- | cent for schools, totalling about 24 percent or $150 for the aver- age homeowner. We know now that the school tax increase will have to be larger because of the restoration of NPA budget cuts by the new COPE school board, and be- cause the provincial contribu-} tion to school costs in Vancou- ver this year will be minus $2 million. - Thesituation is aggravated by a. 2.6 percent shift in the tax bur- den away from industry and business on to homeowners. The shift is the direct result of the 60 percent average increase in the assessments of single fam- ily homes in 1981 — from $73,- 014 in 1980 to $115,598 in 1981. However industrial property in Vancouver inflated on the 1981 assessment rolls by less than 25 percent on the average. Even after the new assess- ment base is applied, the result will have been a shift in the tax burden from those with the ability to pay and to those with the least ability. The property tax system in Vancou- ver is becoming more unfair, more regressive. And when the present appeal process is completed, the in- equity will be worse still. There are presently over 800 appeals before the Assessment Author- ity’s court of revision, and about 90 percent are corporate appeals. Last year the appeal process resulted in reducing the assessed values of industry by five percent, or $60,000 per pro- perty. Single family homes were reduced by less than one per- cent, or $665 per property. No one is challenging at the court of revision the mysterious and sudden appearance of 246 additional ‘‘seasonal resorts”’ in Vancouver in 1981. They are most likely downtown hotels and rooming houses escaping the higher rate of taxation they should pay as a business prop- erty. Businesses cheat the system through appeals and classifica- tions by hiring lawyers to find the loopholes in the system. But the city of Vancouver, which }- should be protecting the rest of us taxpayers, completely ig- nores the process. . Neither the city nor school ‘board can afford to ignore the process any longer. The system has built-in features which will continue to shift the tax burden to homeowners and away from industry and business. It is wide open to abuse and corruption. . Fundamentally, the property tax itself is unjust, based not on the ability to pay, but on the quirks of the real estate market. Homes should pay taxes only on the direct services provided to them. There should be no tax on homes for school purposes. In the short term, council and school board should begin ex- plaining the real causes for in- creasing property taxes to en- sure that the gathering storm clouds dump their load where it belongs, in Victoria. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 30, 1981— Page 2 We'll have more information about the conference in future issues.