CASTLEGAR . NEWS “ihtemaltain sumed by” BURT CAMPBELL Publisher RYON GUEDEs, Editor Heenan unbribed by gain” cz CASTLEGAR NEWS, Thursday, June 23, 1977 Commitment or Rhetoric? “Communication between council, the people and the business community is minimal. This situation must be improved.” That statement was made during the cam- paign by a successful candidate, Albert Calder- bank, in Castlegar's municipal byelection over four months ago. “I feel that a strong, active council should not be operating behind closed doors”, “the candidate said. “Committee work should be con- fined to business of a confidential nature, which might be used to the detriment of the city. I will therefore, if elected. do. 8 do all i can to shed more’ light on municipal affairs. Tt was an astute comment which was echoed by other candidates and which held a special significance for the editorial staff of this newspaper. It led us to evaluate our own effectiveness in maintaining a link between Castlegar residents and their elected officials, beyond our regular coverage of municipal affairs and the regular flow of press releases issued -from council. The result of that evaluation was our offer in February of the chance for council members to submit regular bylined columns on municipal activities and interests. Newly-elected Mayor Audrey Moore was offered a. monthly column over a 10-month period while aldermen were - offered a similar opportunity on a rotating basis. A letter of the same nature was also sent to the School District No. 9 board of trustees, and the board of management of the Castlegar Hospital. Council response to the-offer was enthusi- astic. A March 1 letter from the city told the Castlegar News the mayor would submit a press release on a monthly basis and “encourage _council standing committee chairmen to submit © byline columns as we)).”. The first and only bylined column to come out of council, “Mayor Moore Reports”, appeared in the Castlegar News April 7. The school board response was equally A letter from secretary John Dascher said the trustees: were “in agreement to get some sort of rotation system going and submit matters of general interest to the public.” : The letter said anything submitted by an individual trustee “would be his/her opinion and not necessarily the board's.” As it turned out, it wasn't necessarily individual opinion either: there was no further from the board on the subject. As for the hospital board, well members didn’t try to fool themselves or us either. Board members just didn't reply to our offer. One of the most appalling things about this entire affair is not that the elected officials contacted four months ago ignored a chance to inform their constituents on a regular basis, but ° that as politicians they passed up the opportunity to advance their persona! opinions and justify their conduct in office. It indicates a certain complacency as well as a lack of understanding of the role of elected, officials in a democracy. The most valuable quality in any leader is the ability to explain his or her decisions to the people affected by them. Our leaders are not providi Possible Result of Quebec Se; New Kind of Canada By CHARLES LYNCH (Reprinted from Opinion Canada, a bimonthly magazine published by the Council for Canadian Unity. The writer is the chief of Southam News Services.) THE NEW. KIND OF Canada that I see emerging from the present ferment will , We extend the.invitation once more to members of council, the school board, and the hospital board to provide their public with some insight into the activities and decisions which affect our community. Or are statements about “the people's right to know” just hollow rhetoric to be trotted out at election time? Resurrection Resurrected Quote of the Day: novelist George Orwell: “If people cannot write well, - they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them.” —Richmond (Va.) News Leader Going to the Weeds Castlegar is going to the weeds. The city is dirty, shabby, and in need of a concentrated clean-up effort in the downtown Not only is grass growing to quite a height beside curbs and telephone poles, but the city only recently finished repainting crosswalks—a job it usually has completed within a.few weeks of the last’snowfall of winter. Speprree The city isn't. alone, however, ‘in’. sprucing itself up. The Castlegar News only recently cut some long grass at the side of its building. Super-Valu should pull the couch grass growing at the base of its light standards, and H&R Brake and Wheel (occupiers of a building that won a Park ‘and Tilford award for modernization and beautification) have let the weeds take over a small, landscaped plot to the side of the building, Municipal council members must share the responsibility with city employees for the sorry mess. They, after all, have been elected to dictate policies and priorities for city activities. ;(How can Ald. Dave Ferguson drive by the triangular plot at the corner of Front St. and * Columbia Ave. daily and not get a pair of grass shears and cut down the weeds and tall- grass himself, if city crews won't do the job?) ‘The upkeep of City Hall, and the grounds in front of it, are an example to all of the way public—and ~ private—grounds and -buildings should be kept. Batis‘ there a bylaw somewhere + the city can enforce to have the private property, be a more place than the old Canada, if roaly because the people who live in it will be more involved in the political, intellectual process of making it work. Everybody, that is, will feel the sense of participation “that French-speaking Quebec. ers have generated in the last 15 years, relative to what they regard-as their own cultural and political affairs. Hopefully, a way can be found for English-speaking and French-speaking Canadians to participate hand-in-hand, if not hand-in-glove. The aim should not be so much the “serenity” of which Rene Levesque speaks, Voice of the People: as mutual stimulation, which requires mutual respect, The role of provincial government will expand, and the role of the central govern- ment will contract, and the ad- | versary attitude toward Ot- tawa will diminish. Quebec will adopt a republican system of government, while other re- gions that want it will retain the monarchy. The whole-hearted, since it cannot be compel 1 CANNOT. CONCEIVE of a successful ongoing nation without Quebec, any more than Tean see how Quebecers would be better off in an independent nation of their own, viable as such a nation might be. These views, if widely shared, will lead to preserve- tion of the union, with what- may seem, to some, to be too loose to have any meaning—in- deed, it will have meaning only if a majority of Canadians see the merits of making common cause, in recognition of the fact that Canada, blessed with her resources, her location and her: assorted cultures, is one ‘of the most successful political units in the world. I doubt if the illusion of nationalhood (and Canada is one of the world’s oldest nations) can be sustained with- out Quebec's participation—a participation’ that must be A Few Clarifications . Editor, The Castlegar’ ‘News: In response-to your (June 9) editorial” “Belated | Blood- letting”, I strongly feel a td bestowed upon former students by. the graduate schools of prestigious ‘eastern Canadian universities. It is: to question in order. Notre Dame~ Univ sity in ‘its existence asa unique of. the owner next to City Hall fix up the and vandalized building that provides such a terrible eyesore in comparison? Many Castlegar business places have spent considerable sums of money within the past year or two on new store fronts and interior modernization programs, It's a shame if the city, and businessmen themselves, grow so blind to the mess gathering around them that they no longer look at city streets, public areas and private properties with the critical eye of a visiting stranger.” { Let's clean up downtown Castlegar. A Year Ago __ © Parking Areas © Driveways © Tennis Courts, etc. For Free Estimates Call Dennis or George Collect 352-3215 229-5414 June 24, Te ¥ erry Tratfic Down im May Restraint to Meet Budget . Pade sien Vintage Paving But Then so WastheFerry = aie a Thon This Sunday; PWA is Upin Air; To Aid Community Centre Pismarspeees ‘Company Ltd. Down on the Ground” Williston Named Boss; Miss Castlegar Pageant G Ww Headlines from the front $1 Million Housing Project LN ¢ page of the Castlegar News of Begins by. Evin’s Contracting ese Hospital Board Okays Will Pick Queen Tonight Kootenays: has been reviled from the day of its inception. Founded and initially fund- ed by the Roman Catholic diocese of Nelson in a province historically anti-Catholic and traditionally opposed to public support of private education, NDU's ‘financial problems be- came most acute when enroll- ments . soared and. seculari- zation of the institution began. To their discredit, three pro- vineial governments failed to offer an acceptable permanent monetary solution. Despite the editorial in question, the former minister of education, Eileen Dailly, had proposed not to close NDU but into a and service industr . Who can foretell what distinctions the “most recent graduates will attain in the future? The other fallacious argu- - ment brazenly advanced ’ for NDU closure is the high per student cost of. operation. It must be remembered that NDU in its last doomed year gave only third- and fourth-year courses. To compare such costs with the operations of all four. years of study at the estab- lished and stable coastal univer- sities is illogical. By far the © larger classes (hence the lower cost per student) are in the first. and second year programmes, There are numerous prece- dents in Nova Scotia, Ontario and it for example, of 1 of good te . centre under the tutelage of the three’ coastal universities. When that proposal was not favorably received by all, a fourth public university of the interior was. advanced. The first campus was to be located at Nelson. The following elec- tion elevated Dr. Pat McGeer . to the helm of the Education Ministry and destined NDU to oblivion. Unlike the accepted tradi- tion of not speaking derogatori- ly of the deceased, apparently such custom i is not fe aepliee te intention absorbing formerly private affiliated universities and colleges into the public system. Only British ‘Columbia has permitted a private university to flounder and perish, In spite of your editorial : absolution and inspite of any good qualities that he may possess, Dr. Pat McGeer will undeniably be typecast in his- tory as a hatch man. -Thomas Mojelsky of former grad:.-. bear unsubstantiated allegations of below acceptable academic ly ex- PUBLISHED EVERY THUREDAY MORNING AT rm “THE CROSSROADS beetle KOOTENAYS” CASTLEGAR NEWS eu * FOUNDED ON AUGUST 7, 1947, BY L.V. (LES) CAMPBELL BURT CAMPBELL, PUBLISHEA AYON GUEDES, EDITOR RENE BRODMAN, SHOP FOREMAN W.H. JONES, ADVERTISING MGR. {MRS.) LOIS HUGHES, NEWS EDITOR Mall subscription rate to the Castlegar News Is $9 per year. The price by carrler Is 22 cents an Isaue. © Single soples In stores at 25 cen Second-class mall regiatration number 0019. The Gastieger ir New: member of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Canadian Community Ke Hewepesere Associatl ion orrespondence B.C., VIN 3H4, Letters for publication must be signed with the correct name at isted at NDU must be chal- lenged. To imp pugn the academic quality of the university is to assail the achievements © of former graduates who have been awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal for ac- ademic excellence. It is to question the academic honors 1 SALES & SERVICE - Sewing Machines, Typewriters, TV's B&W and Color TV's for rent by week or month Union Peters 1334 Cedar Ave., Trail Telephone 368-6331 © Mobile Homes — also, Just To Let You Know that We * Completely Service Oll-Fired Furnaces’ © Supply and Install Acom Conical! Firep!: ever are necessa! to ensure that whole-hearted participation by Canadians in all parts of the land. What we would then have would be a country less protest- ridden than in’ the past, in which positive thinking would replace the negativism that has put 110. years of accomplish- ment in jeopardy. To some,’ this vision will seem offensive; to others, uto- pian. But perhaps we have to dream large to realize modest achievements. It would be no small thing ‘to preserve. the national. framework within which, our present freedoms, the broadest anywhere, are safeguarded; within which. re- gional identities are respected; and within which. Quebec cul- iture “has bloomed into its present vigor. ‘And the air will be filled wit argument, and debate, finity—the. very. stuffof howe the ooze, unlamented. Every-.": body will have to earn his or + her place—not just French and English speakers, accounting services Timothy G. Cavaghan Box 3403, 105-C Main St., Castlegar Don't Forget to Support the Boy Scouts Kootenay Golumbla District Counall In co-operation with the : Canada Sal Sal way Castlegar Store 5-Min. Shopping Spree ax, $500) Tickets $1 oui July 23, 1977) Proceeds to the developrecreek: SCOUTS/CANADA LOAN-OUT . The Castlegar News "nas two simple-to-op- p> erate loan-out cameras (complete with film) which it is pleased ‘to allow groups to use for taking pictures for use in the Castlegar News. Arrangements for the use of these cameras should be made throdgh our news editor, ‘Mrs. Lois Hughes, at 365-3517. . - CASTLEGAR NEWS ' News Department : 365-3517 TROUBLED BY HIGH PRICES ? ‘STAY AND SAVE AT THE MAYEAIR HOTEL downtown, spacious & modern rooms, cable color T.V., direct * dial phones, all with view bat- ‘contes, free parking, . compli.” coffes & THE MAVEAIR HOTEL 845 Hornby St., Vancouver, B.C. VEZ 1V1 or Phong tren 604-687" 6751 Suto Colour Portrait, : only: S88 © a - CHOOSE FI FROM aur SELECTION OF EIGHT. SCENIC AND COLOUR BACK: cae SELECT ADDITIONAL PORTRAITS. ‘AND SAVE 10 Vs ¢ SOMPARED TO 1978. See ee LARGE DECORATOR PORTRAIT. AC Au REFUNDED. “No obligation to ra ditional portraits Tuesday, June 28 9:30 - 5:30 p.m. - Wednesday, June 29° 9:30 - 5: 230 | Pim. Cake Mixes SE eee et Se cae a SS ELE led replaces "Pen" names will be used on request, but the correct name must be submitted. * Have the Largest Stock In Staintess Steel Chimneys reserves the right to edit latters in the Interests of brevity, good taste, etc. — So Easy to Install - The Castlegar News will not be responsible for any errora in advertisements after one Insertion. It Is. the responsibilty of the adveriiser to read his ad when It is flrat published. ¥ It Is agreed by the advertiser requesting space that ihe adverlisement is accepted on the condition ‘ur furnace could be wasting oll tt tt heont been that in the ‘event of fallure to publish any advertisement of any description, or in the event that errors serviced in the past 12 months.: ‘occur in the publishing of an advert! that portion of the advertizing epace occupied by the erroneous item, together with ressonable allowence Tor signature, will fol’be charged Tor bey the KOOTEN AY FU RN ACE eens : balance of the advertisement will be pald for at the ‘applicable ra Inthe event of an error, advertising 3 ‘ONE SITTING PER SuBJECT—s1 PER‘SUBJECT FOR ADDITI goods or services at a wrong price, ihe gi not be sold. Is merely an offer [BB sects, GROUPS, OR INDIVIDUALS IN THE UBIECT FOR ty pen ara ais “ices etective Tues. June 21 to Sat, ube 25 in all Super. to sell. The offer may be withdrawn at any time. 821 - 16th Ave., Geneile 18 MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY. PARENT OR GUARDIAN. ey poe i : : i alu stores in Trail, Rossland, Castlegar, Grand Forks, Nelson, 24-Hr. Emergency Service us i j = a. / oy Sea : 7 me — SRE a Cranbroot, Ent and Fetnie,