Saturday, January 18, 1992 OurViEWsS AdrianRAESIDE From trash to treasure he battle against solid waste | is on an it appears Castlegar may be on the front line. Like it or not, the Regional District of Central Kootenay is considering turning the Ootischena land fill site into a permanent wasteland for area garbage. Imagine, by the Year 2000 our fair community could become the Home Sweet Home for everything Nelson, Balfour and Harrop never wanted. Just think of the treasures... broken bottles, empty ashtrays, used tissue papers, discarded paint thinners and, the real. catch, unidentified animal parts. Sounds like a day for the entire family, doesn’t, it? But the prospects of a regional dump aren’t entirely bad. After all, Castlegar could change its slogan from the Crossroads of the Kootenays to the Scavenger Hunt Capital of Canada. Think big, folks! In the winter, we could rope off those hazardous, in-the-darn-way tractors and trucks to make way for Trash Valley Ski Resort. We could market our ski hill as the environmentally-friendly alternative. What’s more, we’d surprise the dickens out of the ski world with our slogan: ‘Trash Valley, grow with us.’ Red Mountain and Whitewater wouldn’t stand a chance. So you see, every dark cloud has a silver lining. After all, one community’s trash could. become another community’s treasure. HERD OF OBESE & THE DANCE ON YOUR ABE YOU NUTS?! | (ones ie ’ Mayor Audrey Moore and the six aldermen can be forgiven if they are gloating a little right now. They have good reason. Castlegar council brought down its 1992 provisional budget which calls for spending increases — but without any jump in residential taxes. In fact — hold onto your hat — residential taxes will drop by two per cent. How is that possible, you Ron NORMAN - Comments from the Crossroads increased construction activity — new homes and businesses — that is a spinoff from the expansion. It all adds up to a larger tax base for the city and increased tax revenues — without increasing taxes for individual homeowners. Council has been trying to tell residents this for-the last few months’ — admittedly not very well. But it became clear with the introduction of the ask? Simple. As I explained in an earlier column, the city is benefitting from Celgar Pulp Co.’s expansion. There are two aspects to the expansion. On the one hand, the city gets more taxes from Celgar — and this will increase every year until the mill is finished and its total assessed value on the tax roll in 1995. On the other, the city benefits from the provisional budget. Included in the budget is-$1.6 million for the revitalization program, $850,000 for the new works yard to be built in the Industrial Park, and $500,000 for the first of a three- phase renovation to city hall. The provisional budget is especially timely as it comes in the wake of last week’s open house at Castlegar council where more than 100 voters showed up ‘ please see NORMAN page 7 Stree TALK Maranda Patterson Castlegar “Yes, it’s hard for students as it is, especially if they pay their own way.” Question: Do think the governme nt.should put a freeze on tuition fees? _ Jim,Watson Castlegar “Yes, it’s hard * enough these days George Sheppard Castlegar “They should freeze everything untilwe . know how much we've got.” : Shimek ecbin seeks gS day, January 18, 19! MheNews | Please address all letters to: — Letters to the or deliver them to 197 Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not longer than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last r Letters tcoWHE EDITOR A tourist trap Recently, after reading an article about resource based industry verses the so-called tourism industry I came to the sudden realization that there are some serious misconceptions regarding the tourism game. : The mere suggestion that tourism is a viable alternative to resource based jobs and especially a renewable resource such as the forest industry is completely irresponsible and economically naive. In 1990 the forest industry generated $9.6 billion of new wealth revenue. This is new money that is brought into the country by foreign exports. Total forestry exports were $12.4 billion. This-money was distributed throughout B.C. to thousands of supply companies, the federal and provincial governments, various industries, contractors, small business and especially to workers and families in resource dependent B.C. In 1988 the tourism industry generated $3.6 billion and $1.2 billion of this was new wealth from outside the country. Most of this money stayed in large urban centers with the travel agencies and large hotel chains. Large amounts of tourist dollars also went to foreign owned tour companies, many of which use our Chinook resources to attract tourism dollars. For our tourism minister to say that tourism jobs will take priority over other land users is just not acceptable. You can determine how tourism is doing up here by the amount of garbage that we see on our highways and if they can limit our fishing, two, or even three times a day you can bet it’s really going well. Very few people benefit from tourism on northern Vancouver Island and even fewer could live from it. One thing remains very clear; tourism is a bonus, nothing more, nothing less. The forest industry is the mainstay of northern Vancouver Island’s economy and to use tourism as a crutch to incarcerate our working forests while in reality doing nothing more than cow tawing to the preservationalist horde is something that we will not tolerate. Valhalla and South Moresby are grim reminders of just that. It’s high time that working people in British Columbia put these eco-dorks in their place before we join the 1.5 million Canadians that are already looking for jobs; jobs that don’t exist, and - never will in our lifetime. Glenn Robertson Port McNeil Other VIEWS New government avoiding old cliches The new NDP government ap- pears determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Dave Barrett ad- ministration which came roaring - in like a lion in 1972, scaring the living daylights out of British Columbians. The born-again, NDP government seems to have learned from the past. Premier Harcourt is proceeding very cau- tiously, too cautiously, in the eyes of some observers. Lest this caution continue at the expense of some badly-needed changes, I would like to remind our new premier of one promise in particular he should keep — the promise to bring in some real sun- shine legislation. When the B.C. Legislature meets again this spring, British Columbians have a right to expect the new government to bring in a comprehensive Freedom of Infor- mation Act. After all, that’s what Harcourt said he would do. “I.can assure you that within the first session we will bring in.a freedom-of-information law, not an access to information law,” he pinstriped © Report from Victoria Hubert BEYER said in his response to the 1991 throne speech. I’m not the only one expecting Harcourt to make good on that promise, and do it quickly. The Freedom of Information and Pri- vacy Association expects some ac- tion on that score early on in the next session. : In a recent newsletter, the or- ization said experience around the world has shown that the best chance of achieving effective free- dom of information and privacy protection legislation is during the first six months of a new govern- ment’s mandate. The Socred government’s pro- posed legislation, which died along with the previous government, was seriously flawed, according to the group. The problem with the proposal was that it wasn't weighed in favor of the public’s right to know. : FIPA says that in contrast the previous government, the NDP administration has quite a number of members who ~are deeply committed to the concept of freedom of information, pains sie Barry Jones, Tom Perry, Darlene Marzari, Moe Sihota, Andrew Pet- ter and, of course, Harcourt. In a comprehensive report last year, FIPA said that governments gather, use and disseminate enor- mous amounts of information, in- cluding political, economic, social and environmental. Few people will disagree that everyone should have access to this information. Information of a personal na- ture, on the other hand, should be protected from illegal or unwel- come snooping. Thus the need for both access to and protection of in- formation. Just how important it is to pro- tect society from government abuse of information became clear after the changes in eastern Eu- rope, where governments had incredible amounts of in- formation about their citizens, none of it for benevolent reasons. FIPA boils down its suggestions to the following points. Access to information legisla- tion, it says, should contain a clear statement providing the general right of access to information held or controlled by government. Ex- emptions should be few and spe- cific. Privacy protection legislation, FIPA says, should protect the pri- vacy of personal information about individuals collected, used or held by government institu- tions, and provide individuals with a right to have access to and correct their personal informa- tion. There you go, premier. The ball is in your park. Let’s see you keep your promise. address and a telephone - number at which the writer can be reached between 9a.m. andS p.m. The writer’s name and city or town of residence only will be published. Only in exceptional cases will letters be published anonymously. Even in those cases, the name, address and phone number of the writer MUST be disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. Norman continued from page 6 with questions about how the mayor and six aldermen are running things. The meeting was democracy at its most basic level: the voters demanding accountability from their elected representatives. It was great to see, although I actually agreed with only a small percentage of what the citizens at the meeting had to say. But while it may have been grassroots democracy, it wasn’t textbook democracy: all neat. and tidy. It was wieldy, inaccurate, rude, biased, tiresome and, yes, entertaining. But then that’s the way people are. And you can’t expect any more out of the system than what is put into it. I thought on the whole that council acquitted itself very well. I was impressed with Ald. Marilyn Mathieson and her extensive knowledge and straightforward responses about planning. Ald. Doreen Smecher had some of the’ more delicate questions — about staff salaries and settlements with former employees. She didn’t handle them well. I understand that she is handcuffed by council policy, but she came across as both evasive and unwilling to be reasonable. ~ Z On this issue, I agreed with the citizens’ group. Voters don’t need to know the exact salaries of city staff or the exact figure of a settlement, but surely we can be told the salary range, or a lump sum figure on settlements. My biggest disappointment with the 100 or so voters was how ill-informed they were. Some of the inaccuracies included: e The fellow who said municipal taxes on his 25-year- old house jumped $600 last year. Give me a break! ° Rose Paszty suggesting the city could be in trouble if Celgar appeals its tax rit — to which it was pointed out that the city can always increase the industrial tax rate to make up for any change in assessment. ¢ Bill Warner blaming the city for not getting the RCMP division headquarters shifted from Nelson to Castlegar when in fact council and other city organizations did everything within their power to get the RCMP here. e All the things involving staff, such as travel expenses, use of city vehicles, call-out times. Obviously,. with so much misinformation circulating, council isn’t getting its message out. Maybe it should consider making the open house a regular feature.