eee Mortgage “ Financing & Consulting Lag 652-5171 NRS Peninsula Properties BUSINESS CALENDAR = A115 CLASSIFIEDS A29 COMMUNITY A13 GARDENING A22 OPINION AT SPORTS A24 OUTDOORS A10 BEYER A7 GRENBY A28 HAMPSON Al10 LANG A22 TOP OF THE PILE A7 SCHOOL FUNDING It’s millions of dollars less than what the Saanich schoo! district needed for improvements Page A4 SINKING OF THE IROQUOIS The captain lost his licence when the fery from Sidney sunk in a storm Page A12 SISTER’S REUNION After 71 years, wo ladies finally get to meet face to face in Sidney Page Al4 ANNUAL INSPECTION The 676 Kittyhawk Air Cadet Squadron gets ready for ifs inspection to mark @ oii anniversary event Page A38 LIFE ON THE STROLL Victoria Weeklies takes a look af prostitution on Review office: hours The Review office, at 97'26-First St. in Sidney, is open from 9.a m. until5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Mail to Box 2070, Sidney, B.C. V8L 3S5. Second class mail registration number 0128. Sidney looks for short term improvement. by Girard Hengen The Review Sidney’s transportation task force is calling on the province to set up its own task force on short-term highway planning. The Town’s task force, which includes chairman Mayor Marie Rosko and Alds. John Calder and Don Amos, wants the new group to study current needs rather than wait for long-term solutions. Rosko told council Monday she met last week with Mayor Murray Coell of Saanich, who has been appointed by the Highways Minis- try to oversee a committee devis- ing a regional transportation plan for Greater Victoria. Work on the Pat Bay and Trans- Canada Highways was delayed two weeks ago pending the outcome of that two-year, $500,000 plan. The task force told Coell another study is essential “to bridge the next five years until major projects can be imple- mented,” Rosko said. She said the task force should be established within six months, with a mandate to include conges- tion and safety. She said it should consider a transit exchange in Sidney between the highway and down- town, and a bus feeder service. She also told aldermen the task force asked for transit ““queue- jumping lanes” at highway sig- nals, giving buses priority, an extra lane in-bound from Swartz Bay and extra policing. These points were developed in conjunction with Derek Wild, the newly-appointed highway consult- ant for the Town. Rosko also highlighted some of the Town’s major concems over the Pat Bay Highway, reading from a memo she penned for the other task force members. She said the closure of the McDonald Park Road intersection “poses a serious safety factor” forcing congestion on Beacon Avenue. She said serious consideration should be given to a two-lane turn signal for the beleaguered Pat Bay and Beacon intersection. “Residents of the Saanich Peninsula will not sit idly by while the Pat Bay Highway becomes an accident waiting to happen, partic- ularly for the unsuspecting tourist and driver,” she said. She said a transportation net- work disperses traffic, while an interchange concentrates it. “The latter is not to be recom- mended for an orderly solution. The McTavish intersection should be looked to as the main inter- change locator, as it also feeds the Victoria-area complex.” Rosko concluded by saying Coell said safety concerns would be addressed “within the next six months.” Hotel trimmed to five storeys — linked to marina expansion by Glenn Werkman The Review A new design for a hotel on property just north of the Sidney Museum was linked to a public hearing to be held next Monday on expansion of the Port Sidney Mari- na by Granville West Capital Cor- poration president Kim Pullen. Speaking to invited members of the Peninsula business community, Pullen said: “What happens Mon- day will set the tone for the hotel. I “sul want to do the hotel but I’m becoming more pessimistic that itll get going. “It’s not the will or the funding (that’s holding it back), it’s the monstrous approval process.” He unveiled the fourth design for a hotel that was last proposed as a seven-storey, 104-room build- ing. It was not referred to a devel- Opment permit process by a 4-3 vote May 6. The new design is five-storeys tall and calls for 96 rooms, a lounge, restaurant and conference facilities. Estimated cost is $15 million, about the same as the seven-storey design. “We've gone back and done two things,” Pullen said. Two floors were knocked off and the building was “sculpted” in a new and more expensive design using glass for a “lighter” look. Pullen will submit his new design to Sidney council after the — marina expansion public hearing, _ he said. The public hearing will seek input into the Town’s rezoning of a water area north of the existing marina to allow the marina to expand. The area must be rezoned to G-2 (marina) before the provincial authority will grant a lease to the Town, which plans to sub-lease the area to Port Sidney Marina. — Pullen is concerned about oppo- sition by residents to the proposed expansion. “A lot of people have never forgiven the government for put- ling the breakwater in there,” Pul- len said. “It all leads from that.” The majority of the business community spoke in favor of Pul- len’s hotel plans. But Doug Men- zies said: “I was so appalled when Continued on Page A2