payer?’ ’’ he asked. Blacklist slammed Members of the Greater Vancouver Renters Association staged a © dramatic confrontation with the newly-formed and as yet unlicens- ed Western Landlords Association last Friday in the first of a series of actions planned to prevent the ‘‘tenant witch-hunting organiza- tion” from gaining a foothold in Vancouver. The three business partners who make up the WLA have set up an office on Broadway and are in the process of compiling lists of tenants deemed as irresponsible by landlords. For a fee, landlords will be given access to the complete blacklist. The sleazy enterprise will also offer a rental referral service where tenants can pay a $5 registration fee, ‘hoping to find accommoda- tion, all the while not realizing that he or she may have been blacklisted by the same organization that has taken his or her funds,” GVRA president Tom Lalonde charged. - Lalonde slammed the service as ‘‘a blatant attack on the rights of all renters in Vancouver. ‘‘Is a tenant who legally deducts overpaid rent from future rents to be blacklisted as a ‘delinquent rent Although the WLA claims to be a registered company in B.C. and have a business licence to operate in Vancouver, neither city hall nor the Companies Office in Victoria have heard of them. The GVRA will be appearing before council’s community ser- vices committee Thursday to demand that the city deny the WLA’s application for a business licence. : COPE alderman Bruce Yorke pledged the support of the COPE aldermen in the GVRA’s bid to have the organization banned. The debate at city council on June 16 over the demolition of the old Simon Fraser school provided a good example of TEAM aldermen can play cheap politics and be sancti- monious political hypocrites at the same time. At issue was the request of the school board fora demolition permit to tear down the old Simon Fraser school on Manitoba street to make way Harry Rankin for a school playground. The facts are these: : e A new school was built right beside the old one, in fact only 12 inches away. The new school had to be built because some time ago the provincial government turned down a re- quest of the school board to have the old school renovated. @ The old school has to be torn down to make space for a school playground. No other _ space is available on the school grounds. The parents of the children want their children to have a playground in theschool- yard. You would think this was a straightforward case, one that council could endorse. No one likes to tear down an old build- ing that might still be useable, but it was a clear choice between tearing it down or leaving the school kids without a play- ground. Then TEAM aldermen; May Brown, Marguerite Ford and NPA alderman Helen Boyce moved into action. A presenta- tion by the Heritage Advisory Committee provided them with the opportunity and the political ammunition for a broadside against the school board where COPE has a majority. The Heritage Advisory Committee asked that the old building not be demolished and instead be turned into co-op housing and further suggested that the child- ren could find a playground ina park across the street. how some of our NPA and | 1 sors of this proposal know quite Heritage Cttee. plays TEAM game Can you imagine more un- realistic proposals? That a hous- ing complex should be estab- lished right next to a school — only 12 inches away? The spon- well that no provincial depart- ment of education could or would ever agree to any such proposal. Can you imagine a school without any playground for the school kids? And going across the street to a park to play? There isn’t a school in Vancou- ver that has such a ridiculous situation. These are not realistic pro- posals aimed at solving a prob- lem. They are political argu- ments provided to enable un- principled politicians to attack a COPE school board. We had a situation where -| these three aldermen, none of whom support any proposals for providing affordable hous- ing in Vancouver, and all of whom voted against a COPE anti-demolition bylaw motion in council which would have stopped the demolition of old, but useable, housing to make way for luxury housing, sud- denly became champions of co- op housing in Vancouver! It seems there is nothing some al- dermen won’t stoop to, to make cheap political capital. The Heritage Advisory Com- mittee had several years to pre- sent its case, years in which the NPA dominated the school board. But it waited until the last moment, when all the plan- ning had been done -and deci- sions already been made; and when we had a COPE majority on the school board to launch a last minute attack on the school board that can only be described as political. The loser in this case will be thecredibility of the Her- _itage Advisory Committee. With over 60,000 vehicles per day heading north and south from North Vancouver and the 401 Freeway on Cassiar St., and with over 32,000 vehicles per day heading east and west on Hastings St., the corner of Hastings and Cassiar has acquired the dubious distinction as the most congested intersection in Canada. For the commuters it is a daily frustration, at least for 30 minutes, but for the residents who live in the adjacent Hastings Sunrise and Vancouver Heights community the traffic problem is a continuous hell with literally tens of thousands of cars using their residential streets as bypasses aroung Hastings and As the problem grew worse over the last 10 years, the long suffering residents sent countless delegations to their city and provincial representatives, passed petition after petition, and finally, about a year ago, began blockading streets. It was at that point when something finally began to happen. Eastbound turns off of Cassiar St. through. residential streets were — blocked and two major bypass routes, the Cambridge overpass and the Skeena underpass, were- temporarily closed. However they were almost immediately re- opened on the order of the provin- cial government. The city and province also agreed to commission a study to find a fundamental solution. The study is still not complete, but local residents organized in the Hastings Sunrise Action Council and the Vancouver Heights Residents Committee have made their choice. They want a tunnel connecting the 401 Freeway and the mouth of the Second Narrows Bridge which will — ___VANCOUVER — = Hastings East mobilizes — to win tunnel connector remove about 50 percent of the traffic from Cassiar St. The tunnel is clearly the best choice, but it is also expensive. And the provincial government, the NPA aldermen on Vancotver city council, and the city’s engineering department are determined to force another, less effective solution on the community in the form of a depressed, high speed corridor con- necting the freeway and the bridge immediately adjacent to Cassiar on the west. The cut is also apparently supported by NDP MLA’s Dave Barrett and Alex MacDonald. Three weeks ago the Hastings Sunrise Action Council drew about 100 people to a public meeting to mobilize the community around the tunnel. The cost of the tunnel has been estimated at $50 million, about double that of the depressed freeway connector. However, it would not require the expropria- tion of more than a few homes while the Cassiar cut will require expropriation and demolition of 121 single family homes. As the Action Council sees it the real issue is political, not engineer- ing. How much is their community worth to the city and provincial government? After putting up with Hastings and Cassiar and the noise, congestion and traffic from the PNE, for years, they feel entitled to a quality solution now. The entire gamut of traffic issues in Hastings Sunrise were laid out once again last Tuesday before Vancouver city council when the. local citizen’s planning committee brought a series of ‘‘remedial measures”’ to council to improve the present situation, short of a fundamental solution like the tun- nel. A —— The measures were supported by a large group of local citizens and community spokespersons Patricia Coutts and Richard Pedersen, and Committee Of Progressive Elec tors (COPE) president Jim Quail. — Quail stated COPE’s support for the tunnel solution, originally devised by COPE candidate and community leader Jim Cork. Hé called on council to ‘‘make citizet input more than an empl) charade” and to adopt the pio posals worked out by the com munity. = However two of the remedial - measures proposed struck to thé heart of the traffic issue and rani to opposition from the right wil of council. A proposal to ondé again block the Skeena underpas_ and Cambridge overpass, pending support in an opinion poll and pro” vincial approval, passed but not be fore alderman George Puil attack ed it as granting special privilege: The second measure was a pro posal to install a second left hand turn lane onto Hastings from Cas siar St., a measure opposed by tht engineering department on thé grounds that it would only be teil porary and the cost could not bé justified. “ COPE alderman Bruce York who led the fight in council in su” - port of the remedial measures countered that there was no need {9 make the left turn bay temporary: He linked the issue to the choice be tween the tunnel and cut, pointing out that the left turn bay, if insta¥” ed, would take up space that the province and engineering depat ment have their eye on for the dé pressed freeway connector. ““TM is all related to the tunnel. We ne" to do everything possible to bring that about,’’ he added. "| ‘he ‘Peace is: Everybody’s Business’ peace peti- tion campaign is achieving its objective of bring- | (RGAE ee eraanmn rer cree ei a | ing B.C.’s peace movement onto the streets, as the B.C. Peace Council and its affiliated organization mobilize public actions to support their drive for 150,000 signatures in this province. : But as Kathy Gidora of the Kamloops Shuswap Peace Council reported to us this week, the cam- paign brings other benefits as well, not least of which Claude Richmond. When the Kamloops peace group successfully collected their first 1,000 names they decided to send notarized statements attesting to the signatures to Richmond and to their MP, NDP’er Nelson Riis. The idea was to keep both informed about the de- gree of support for the petition among their con- stituents, but the responses it evoked told the peace movement more about the elected officials. If progressives in Kamloops were a bit unsure of what kind of prize they have in Richmond, Kathy’s first encounter with him cleared that up. His re- sponse, she says, “‘could qualify him for the position of U.S. Secretary of State.” Richmond replied to the peace council that he was indeed in favor of peace, but, ‘‘as has been known _ for centuries, if you want peace then you must pre- pare for war.”’ He went on to accuse the Soviet Un- of “‘threatening the very freedom of Poland” and then asserted that because Soviet military strength is far greater than that of the U.S., he must solidly align himself with the current arms buildup by the Reagan administration. Given the Socreds’ penchant for slashing social spending, he no doubt also applauds the U.S. social cuts pushed through by Reagan to pay for their new military strength, adds Kathy. The response from Riis was just as prompt, but refreshingly different. He the peace council for their efforts and asked to be kept up to is getting a handle on their new MLA, Socred 6,000 of the 12,000 documents gathered by U.S. aU | ion of breaking the spirit of the SALT II agreements, - PEOPLE AND ISSUES) Richmond ‘will be hearing from the Kamloops } Shuswap peace council again, as Kathy reports that | they are now well on their way to their second thou" sand signatures, and as soon as it is complete, thé } MLA will receive another notarized statement. * * * * * E or those who have followed the case of Leonard | Peltier through its ominous passage from extra" } dition on trumped-up evidence to conviction in thé USS. courts, the latest developments will be of col” siderable interest — and provide some reason fof optimism. According to the Indian Voice, which interviewed | Peltier recently, the lawyers representing the impris | oned American Indian Movement leader have bee® | successful, under the terms of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, in securing the release of som) thorities on Peltier. i Asaresult, the lawyers contend that they can pro ve that the U.S. prosecutor made the decision to us¢ falsified evidence to obtain Peltier’s extraditio? from Vancouver. They are currently preparing © petition the courts to introduce new evidence. An international audience may also know of th€| enormity of the injustice done to Peltier as noted U.S. actor and Academy Award winning di Robert Redford is contemplating a movie on thé case and recently visited Marion Prison in Illinois = | . where Peltier is incarcerated — to discuss the possi- bility with him. : American writer Peter Mathison is now comple | inga book on the case in which he quotes a FBI age who gathered evidence on Peltier. The agent report” edly told Mathison that when the truth about thé! case became known, he would be made the scap® goat for the evidence which has since been shown t? have been falsified. 2 PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 26, 1981—Page 2 date about peace work in the Kamloops area.