CIVIC ELECTIONS

Tax reform, contracting-out, privatization key in ‘87 race

In Surrey, a coalition of trade unionists and a teacher are running to prevent the sprawling Fraser Valley municipality from losing all of its wilderness land to private developers.

And in the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the Interior, other progressive candidates, many with the backing of the local labour council, are running to put people’s candidates into civic office and on school board.

Steve Gidora, an aldermanic candidate for the Surrey Coalition of Progressive Elec- tors (Surrey-COPE), cited preserving green zones, maintaining municipally owned ser-

carve an 80-acre recreational area out of the Semiahmoo Peninsula in south Surrey. Meanwhile most incumbents on council, represented by either the Surrey Municipal Electors or the Surrey Non-Partisan Asso- ciation, favour a hotly-contested proposed town centre in Cloverdale, one of Surrey’s five regions. The developer, Cambridge Development, has already received the required zoning to pursue the project which environmentalists say threatens the adjoin- ing Serpentine and Nicomekl rivers: The Concerned Small Business Association charges that the development will make “ghost towns” out of Cloverdale and New-

LAWRENCE SAVARD

vices and stemming the contracting out of municipal jobs as key objectives.

Running with Gidora — who is presi- dent of the Surrey Substitute Teachers Association and labour liaison for the Sur- rey Teachers Association — on the council ticket is shipwright Terry Lawrence.

Gidora said the right-wing dominated council has already allowed 40 acres of Green Timbers, a natural forest stand sim- ilar to Stanley Park, to be cleared for a

“drainage” project that will accommodate further, controversial development on the site.

He said Surrey-COPE also supports community activists opposing a plan to

Bby hospital cuts attacked

Burnaby independent candidate David Fairey has charged that tax concessions to large businesses and commercial properties means thou- sands of dollars in lost funding for Burnaby Hospital.

Worse, Fairey charges, the hospital administration is aiming its $100,000 fundraising campaign at patients who have recently undergone operations at the hospital.

“Burnaby council has said nothing about this tax concession to big busi- ness and industry in the face of hospi- tal cutbacks,” Fairey charged.

The provincial government re- moved the authority to tax machinery and equipment from the Greater Vancouver regional hospital district effective Jan. 1 of this year.

That means individual taxpayers, including those who have been sick, must pick up the shortfall of more than $231,000, Fairey said.

He termed it “nothing short of cruel, inequitable and scandalous” that recently discharged patients are receiving letters asking for contribu- tions to its fundraising campaign. He noted that residential property taxes are increasing while large businesses have enjoyed increasing tax breaks during the past several years.

“It’s time that elected local gov- ernment came to the defence of hospi- tal services,” Fairey stated.

~ KACHMAR MORFORD

ton as small enterprises are either forced to move into the centre or close their doors.

Surrey-COPE also opposes plans by the two right-wing mayoral candidates, Surrey- NPA’s Bonnie Shrenk and SME’s Paul Easton to sell or lease more publicly-owned lands to private developers to raise cash for the municipality, Gidora said.

Gord Savard, a shop steward for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 728, and a district parent representa- tive, is contesting a trustees seat calling fora strong school board that will stand up to the provincial government.

Surrey-COPE notes that per-pupil fund- ing for Surrey is among the lowest in the province, a result of the current board’s financial “manipulations for survival” instead of mounting a strong fightback. The coalition calls for increased funding from Victoria and smaller class sizes.

This year the coalition was denied endor- sement by the New Westminster and Dis- trict Labour Council, which gave its support to a new coalition, the Surrey Civic Electors. SCE is fielding candidates for mayor — former Surrey alderman Bob Bose — and for all of the five council posi- tions open this year, as well as candidates for school board.

That means some conflict with Surrey- COPE. But the organization is calling for the election of candidates from both coali-

tions, and supports Bose’ bid for mayor, Gidora said.

“Hopefully, what happens at the polls this year will illustrate the need for maxi- mum civic unity in the next election,” Gidora said.

Dave Crosby, secretary of the Courtenay, Campbell River and District Labour Coun- cil, has his council’s backing in a bid for an

aldermanic seat in Campbell River.

Crosby said his candidacy is an effort reverse the current council’s anti-labour practices as when it handed a theatre-library complex construction job, valued at more than $1 million, to a non-union firm. The difference in bids with the nearest union firm was less than $7,000, said Crosby, adding that the labour council is investigat- ing “cost overruns” by the non-union con- tractor.

Crosby is pushing a fair-wage package rejected by council earlier this year when community organizations, including the local chamber of commerce, petitioned the city to set rates of pay and benefits matching those of city employees when contracting civic projects to the private sector.

The labour council secretary also hit

2 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, NOVEMBER 11, 1987

council for its “hypocrisy” in demanding a private sign declaring the municipality’s nuclear-weapons free zone status be torn down, after the city has failed to replace a few small signs erected shortly after it voted for the declaration.

The labour candidate is also demanding a referendum which was earlier denied some 2,000 petitioners who were seeking a downtown location for easier access to a new community centre.

And, said Crosby, the labour council is viewing with concern the provincial government’s moves to privatize services and its proposed regional district system of government which is expected to facilitate privatization at the civic level.

Two labour backed candidates are also vying for the district school board. They are incumbent Kathy Shaw and George Camp- bell.

In Courtenay, the labour council backs the re-election of Ald. Erik Eriksson.

Down-Island, unemployment activist Peter Ramsey is contesting a Victoria city council seat on a platform of constructing a Native centre downtown and keeping nuclear-armed warships out of sii city’s harbour.

In the Lower Mainland, oven candi- dates are vying for Coquitlam district coun- cil and school board under the banner of the Association of Coquitlam Electors, with the support of the New Westminster and Dis- trict Labour Council.

- Seeking re-election is Ald. Eunice Parker, running along with Lorna Morford and Phil MacLeod. The ACE platform includes pre- serving the former Crown-owned Colony Farm, tax reform to benefit residential tax- payers, and affordable housing.

ACE candidates for school board are incumbent Anne Kachmar and retired col- lege teacher George Porges.

Tax reformer and economist Dave Fairey is seeking a seat as an independent on Bur- naby municipal council. Fairey, also a member of the community organization Operation Fightback, notes that taxes on residents for city and for school mainte- nance have increased dramatically over the past four years, while corporate property taxes have decreased substantially.

In addition to tax reform to give individ- ual property owners “‘a break,” Fairey calls for a “democratic consultative planning and development process.” He charges that council has replaced consultation “for a far- cical ‘open house’ process” while imple- menting piecemeal a high-density deve- lopment plan already rejected by Burnaby residents.

Fairey also calls for improved, publicly owned municipal services, strengthened municipal government instead of the Socreds’ district system, Burnaby council to become a leader in the disarmament effort, a fair-wage package for contracted work, a land-assembly program for public housing, federal-provincial-municipal public works

upgrading to provide jobs and a municipal —

“strategy for jobs.”

The Citizens Association of Delta, com- monly called Cit-A-Del, is running slates for council and school board. Candidates, backed by the New Westminster and Van- couver labour councils, are, for council, Bruce Stevens, Don Anderson, Emile Nucho, Sylvia Bishop, Jamie MacEvoy and Bruce McDonald. The school trustee hopefuls are John Stevens, incumbent Janet Shauntz and

- Val Anderson. Sharing a program of educa-

tion funding reform are candidates George Hocksworth and Linda Nygard, supported by the reform group, Trustees for the Inde- pendent Management of Education (TIME).

In the Interior Bert Nilsson is running for a council spot in Vernon.

EUNICE PARKER... 3rd term in Coqui-

tlam.

DAVE FAIREY... seeks tax reform.

Burnaby independent

STEVE GIDORA ... development.

end uncontrolled

‘3-year terms -

gin in 87

When voters trek to the polls to elect council and school board candidates on Nov. 21, they’ll be electing many for the first time to three-year terms.

Others, in municipalities and districts where approximately half the council and trustee seats come up for election each year, will be elected for one- or two-year terms, due to changes this year to the provincial Municipal Act.

There will be elections in 1988 to fill seats in those areas, but no elections will be held anywhere in 1989. In 1990, all terms will be finished and new elections for three-year terms of office for all seats in all municipali- ties will be held (except Vancouver which has its own charter).