Saturday, May 9, 1992 @ Z 3 Li a A. = Ss S =) OurWiEWS Dave McCullough Bylaw is needed 4 ke Regional District of Central Kootenay is taking a few lumps these days. Cursed up and down the Slocan Valley, the regional district is facing mounting opposition to its unsightly property bylaw. The bylaw, which is one signature short of being put into the books, is being frowned on by Valley residents who believe the RDCK is infringing on personal rights. Hogwash! The unsightly property bylaw is a good one. Already in place in six of the RDCK’s:11 electoral areas, the bylaw is hardly as Draconian as some would have you believe. The bylaw, which has passed three readings, merely asks property owners to clean up their act. It’s that simple. Think about it for a second. How many of us would be thrilled if our neighbor decided to stockpile dead and dying automobiles? What if the same neighbor decided to turn his/her yard or acreage into a wasteland for non-refundable bottles, fireplace ashes or rotting wood? Or if you awoke one morning to discover your neighbor opted to repaint his/her house with graffiti? The RDCK bylaw ensures such eyesores don’t exist. How can we be opposed to that? The unsightly property bylaw doesn’t infringe on individual rights. _ Instead, it helps define them by legislating a socially acceptable standard that is pretty hard to argue against. Recycling one My father always says, w. WERE FAR TOO BUSY PERSECUTING CONSUMERS, TAYPAYERS AND SMALL BUSINESSES. mile at a time So they arranged to “Don’t judge a person until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” I walked the equivalent of a mile — and then some — last Saturday morning in 4 the Safeway parking lot when I sorted paper for the Regional District of Central Kootenay’s recycling program. Boy, did I walk a mile. The event was sponsored by the Regional Recycling Advisory Group (one of oy Comments from the Crossroads borrow a truck from the recycling depot in Nelson. On April 4 the truck was driven to the Safeway parking lot and recycling Castlegar-style was begun. The Scouts and Guides handled that first Saturday, the United Church staffed the May 2 pick-up and the USCC will be providing volunteers on June 6. The group intends to take a break over the summer and then hopes whom is Martin Meyer who writes a regular column in the Wednesday CasNews) and an ad hoc committee made up of people from the Union of. Spiritual Communities of Christ, the Boy Scouts and the United Church. ~~Basically, the group was anxious for recycling of some kind to take place in Castlegar and so decided to start a once-a- month program. But they wanted to make it simple: only newspapers and flyers. other community organizations will staff the truck in the fall — on the first Saturday of each month. But back to my mile. The key to recycling” is one word: sorting. Ask me, I know all about sorting. That’s all I did for three hours Saturday-morning.—.+_—____-..___ I can spot a glossy flyer from a non- glossy flyer from 50 metres away. Not e can, and that’s the problem. plate please Ae NORMAN page 7 S treef WALI Question: ae? Natalie Hipwell Robson “No problem. We’re going to the top.” Can the Vancouver Canucks Nancy. Wolff Calgary “You bet. Since the Flames are out, Canucks all the way.” win the Stanley Cup this year? Mark Gregory Castlegar “No. It’s Rangers all the way.” “Yes they can.” Vi Jack Castlegar Kyle Estabrook Castlegar “Sure.” @@ Saturday, May 9, 1992 dThe News OtherVIEWS Please address all letters to: Letters to the Editor Castlegar News P.O. Box 3007 Castlegar, B.C. V1N 3H4 or deliver them to 197.Columbia Ave. Letters should be typewritten, doubje-spaced “and not longer— than 300 words. Letters MUST be signed and include the writer's first and last names, address and a telephone number at which the writer can be reached between 9 a.m. and5 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 ve disclosed to the editor. The News reserves the right to edit letters for brevity, clarity, legality, grammar and taste. ~ Teflers tcoWHE EDITOR Pulp strike hurts rank and file Once again-it is contract negotiations time for the Pulp and Paperworkers of Canada and this time around its union management cannot ride the coat-tails of the IWA-Canada union since they have settled. Because of that, the PPWC will be hard pressed to secure a contract that is better or even equal to that of the woodworkers. In one of the major Vancouver dailies, PPWC president Stan Shewaga is quoted as saying, “we’re going to try to negotiate a collective agreement”, and he negatively impacts that statement with, “if that doesn’t work, we have no options”. In saying s0, it appears that the union management does not have any faith in its ability to consummate an agreement that will benefit the rank and-file of the PPWC. Succinctly, the union management has effectively tipped its hand and this will, with the greatest of probability, cause a zero contract for the ‘R and F.’ It is patently obvious that the union management has not heard of the time-worn phrase, “loose lips — sink ships” and consequently they have torpedoed their battle plans and the R and MicCory keeps Last week, two key NDP cabinet ministers have issued put-downs of one of their most ardent campaign supporters. Colleen McCrory of New Denver is one of six environmental activists from four continents to receive the prestigious Goldman Award. McCrory has worked with communities, native people and government to bring about the preservation of the Valhalla Wilderness in the Slocan Valley and South Moresby in the Queen Charlottes. She has worked with the provincial and federal governments on contentious environmental problems. Former IWA President, Jack Munro, now head of the B.C. Forest Alliance, has vilified McCrory for trying to shut down F will bear the scars of this type of myopic negotiation. Due to this type of “lip-drip”, the halls of the Pulp and Paper Industrial Relations Bureau must be ecstatic now that the battle plans of the union have been bared and this costly mistake will, no doubt, cause some job losses and most certainly, wages and benefit losses. A Furthermore, job losses will be coming in the pulp industry due to a new wave of environmentally-aware consumerism and laws that will demand that recycled paper be used in the making of pulp and paper. And has the union management informed the R and F that this is coming — if not, the R and F should inquire of their union management what steps of alleviating job losses they are formulating for job protection. Moreover, the union management does indeed have options and it appears it cannot see the pulp from the paper. In order to seek relief from a “no option” to an “option,” it will require that the union constitution inject a small word into same, but this might cause union management job loss and as such the management will not desire it. It seems that the union management wants. to play “nerdball” in a “hardball” league and by utilizing this type of Cro-Magnon skills the R and F will get batted nine ways to Sunday. It is time that the R & F took back their union and give serious considerations to, the-one-union-in-wood theory. This theory is a viable product from which to effect security in the tri-union pulp, paper and wood industry. Should the PPWC fail to embrace it, it will have only itself to blame for the insecurity that will ensue from it. It is a given that the PPWC will not subscribe to it since it might render its lofty union positions redundant, but that does not have to be the case as all are required for this new wave of unionism that will bell the cat. Incidentally, when the PPWC broke away from the old International Brotherhood of Pulp Sulphite Workers Union, they not only took the bank accounts of the IBPSW, they also took the old constitution, as they, by law, required some form of constitution to operate by. Rank and file take back your union. : Larry Braaten Victoria forest battle in the headlines logging in B.C. McCrory says that it’s over cutting and mechanization that destroy communities and cost forestry jobs, not the environmental movement. Colleen McCrory has used_ her international podium to describe British Columbia as The Brazil of the North because of it’s rapid: destruction of temperate rain forests. John Cashore, our new Environment Minister and Dan Miller, our new Forest Minister, have said they don’t like what McCrory says about the NDP government going back on it’s promises made during last fall’s campaign. Cashore and Miller should reflect upon” the fact that their party. won last fall’s election mainly by default. As some have put it: “the right party lost”. Some of the best real support for the NDP came from people like Colleen McCrory who expected the NDP to implement sound environmental policits. Now that the New Democratic Party government is turning out to be far less than some of its best supporters supposed, their MLA’s should be cautious in criticizing people like McCrory who choose to continue to live with their principles rather than to bend with the winds of political convenience. Dave Cursons Okanagan Green Party Norman continued from page 6 It’s no good just telling the public to sort their recyclables without giving them clear instructions on how to do it; recycling is as much education as cooperation. The easiest way to recycle is if people sort the stuff before they drop it off. That means setting up a sorting system at home. One box for glossy flyers, another for non-glossy flyers and a third for newspapers. If everyone had done that before they dropped off their papers on Saturday, we would have needed only two people: one person to hand the bundled papers up to another person standing in the truck. As it was, we had as many as seven or eight people crowded around two tables doing nothing but sorting, sorting and more sorting. If you’re planning to take your newspapers to the Safeway parking lot next month, sort them first and stack them in paper shopping bags or tie them with string. There’s no doubt people are willing to recycle. The truck transported more than six tonnes of newspapers, flyers, aluminum cans, cardboard and bond paper to the Nelson depot last Saturday. That matched the amount collected the first Saturday — and from all accounts most of the people dropping off their papers were new. One of the more interesting contributors Saturday was the Recreation Department. It brought boxes and boxes of paper. The only trouble was the papers weren’t newspapers or flyers. They were old files. Somebody had obviously cleaned out their cabinets and decided to recycle the paper. Good idea. 1 It’s just that the Castlegar program tea. make it simple for volunteers by taking only newspapers and flyers. We weren’t really set up to handle a whole range of products. You would think the rec department — being a regional district operation — should have known better. That wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was the papers weren’t sorted. We had to go through each box sorting colored bond paper from white bond paper. é Here’s a suggestion for the recreation department: set up a recycling program in your office. If you need an idea of how to go about it, call Selkirk College; it has a wonderful recycling program. The real solution, of course, is for Castlegar Areas I and J to establish our own recycling program. “ It’s not really fair to truck © our stuff over to Nelson, whose taxpayers help fund the program. It’s clear the Castlegar area wants recycling and the monthly truck pickup is a good indication that people are tired of waiting for it to begin. The only stumbling block seems to be the politicians, who, instead of providing leadership, in this case are lagging far behind their constituents.