Editor,
Last week's announcement of next year's school district funding estimates certainly challenges the Howe Sound Teachers association claim that corridor schools have been under funded ("Get informed, say teachers," Letters, March 18).
According to the Ministry news release, Howe Sound School District's funding will increase from $30.2 million this year to an estimated $31.2 million for 2005/06. Since enrolment is expected to fall over this period, when you do the math, funding per student will jump by $531 or 7.5 per cent to a total of $7,575. Since 2001, province-wide school operating funding has increased by more than $305 million while enrollment declined by more than 30,000 students.
Next year's increase of $150 million is the largest in more than a decade, including those years when the NDP was in office.
Since there has been no cut in education funding, it should be no surprise that average elementary class sizes in B.C. have remained virtually unchanged for the past decade, with 23.2 students in 2004/2005 and 23.5 students per class in 1995/96.
The government has also, for the first time, introduced legislative limits on District-wide average class sizes: 19 students in kindergarten, 21 in grades 1-3, and 30 in grades 4-12.
Student performance has reflected this stability. Provincial high school completion rates have remained at record levels of 79 per cent, British Columbia students scored higher on the latest provincial exams, and no one outperformed B.C. in reading and math on the latest international test of 15-year-olds. When you also consider this government's additional commitment of $40 million for literacy, including $10 million for 285,000 new textbooks, it should be clear that a vote for the B.C. Liberals in Howe Sound is indeed a vote for education.
Joan McIntyre
BC Liberal Candidate, West Vancouver-Garibaldi
Smart Growth not put into practice
Editor,
I am curious to know when the District of Squamish will actually carry our own torch for Squamish development and start leading the way for smart growth practices and greenways approaches!
Along with many others in the community I have been a willing participant in numerous Smart Growth workshops, Regional Growth Management Strategy meetings, and most recently have been invited to participate in green space protection and restoration. Since 1998 I have been involved with delivering no less than four presentations to District staff and council on balancing watershed management with community growth, Smart Growth initiatives and, most recently, stormwater, flood management and streamside protection.
I have yet to see the District at any turn actually embrace any of these principles and put them into practice. The District had a shining opportunity to be proactive with the RCMP facility and failed miserably at every turn, even going so far as to infract on fisheries channels. Now there is the Adventure Centre that from the get-go has been an environmental nightmare that could have been avoided if they had just followed best management practices. At present, Block R is being cleared before there is any chance to develop fish-friendly waterways - by the time the clearing is complete many opportunities to make this a shining waterway will be all but lost. Why the rush?
We have an Environmental Co-ordinator and the question that nags at me most is why she is not involved at the initiation of all of these processes and why her expertise is not utilized to actually enact Smart Growth principles. We are not talking rocket science here but basic common sense and best management principles. Talk is cheap but it is the actions by which this town is being judged.
I beg of the Mayor, Council, and District staff to once and for all become the leaders that we elect and hire them to be and make this community proud by setting the example! We need role models in this community. Is the District prepared to bear this torch for us?
Edith B. Tobe
Brackendale
Stop the 'Sea of Blue' in Valleycliffe
Editor,
I am writing to say that I and many other residents of Valleycliffe are outraged over the town-approved location for the recycling centre. It is not only an eyesore coming into our neighbourhood but a hazard at an already complicated intersection, within a school zone. What were the planning department and Carney's thinking, I ask? Definitely not about the safety of the school children who walk down that hill every day. Could there not have been a quiet, hidden location somewhere in Valleycliffe that would have not caused congestion?
There has been a hue and cry over the possible loss of a slim strip of trees along Hwy. 99 in the proposed Wal-Mart location and yet on a sunny afternoon, a bulldozer came into our neighbourhood and simply ripped out 60-80 trees without any public notice or consultation.
Now when you drive down the hill into Valleycliffe you will see a sea of blue containers in place of a green stand of trees!
If you would like to let your feelings known these are the contact numbers: Mayor Ian Sutherland 815-5030; Public Works (Gord Prescott) at 815-6868 and Carney's Waste Systems at 892-5604. We cannot return the trees but we may be able to stop the "sea of blue" and the safety of the children should be the first consideration on everyone's mind.
Donna Rice
Valleycliffe
Clear-cut Capital of Canada?
Editor,
Here we go again; wholesale, wanton destruction (read "extreme vandalism") of floodplain forest. Scorned by man, the floodplain forest is important only to bald eagles, songbirds, black bears, deer and countless other disenfranchised creatures we humans seem determined to expunge from the Squamish landscape. Nicknamed "the Fish" (fish too are on notice to vacate this valley, given current development and regulatory trends, but that's another story) because of its shape, the wetland in question lies between the railway tracks and the dike just south of the railway bridge over the Mamquam River.
Every speck of vegetation has been stripped from the land. No longer will bald eagles perch and roost in the mature cottonwood trees in winter; the joyous spring song of purple finches (rare now in metro Vancouver and significantly diminishing in numbers in Squamish) will no longer be heard from the tops of the alder trees. Fewer hummingbirds, who time their arrival to feast on the flower nectar of the salmon berry bushes, will delight Edgewater residents with their antics; our local nightingales, the Swainson's thrushes, who arrive when the salmon berries are ripe, no longer will fill the warm summer evenings with their song because their homes have been destroyed.
Lest you think there is lots of forest and songbird brush left, just try moving in with your neighbours because a troll has stepped on your home - not a recipe for long-term health for humans or wildlife. Perhaps it was cleared so the Edgewater development could have a view of the river (fancy marketing such a charming view - no need to go to the moon to see a moonscape, come to Squamish, Clear-cut Capital of Canada). Or perhaps the plan is to fill the filleted Fish and eventually build millionaire's houses on the riverfront. It may be that the plan is to ultimately fence the dike and stop the plebs from walking or riding what is one of the most pleasurable, family accessible, public treasures in this valley.
Perhaps it was cleared to make a few bucks, a few days' work. It will take upwards of 40 years to recover, and that's assuming it is not filled and paved like that largest of BC clear-cuts, metro Vancouver - what a sad, sad future for this beautiful valley.
Ride your bike or take a walk and check it out. Talk to your neighbours, write to the papers, shout from the rooftops, the treetops and the mountaintops that this is no longer acceptable in Squamish. Demand the establishment of robust green corridors throughout the Squamish Valley; secure public access to green space; stop the needless, wholesale clearing of land and filling of wetland. Urge the mayor and councillors to reject development applications that come from such short-sighted, old-fashioned, dinosaur developers - we, as a community, deserve better.
Meg Fellowes
President, Squamish Environmental Conservation Society
Keep battery eggs out of EasterEditor,
This week many consumers will face a real Easter egg hunt if they're looking for humanely produced eggs.
People who want to ensure their eggs come from chickens that aren't raised in tightly-cramped cages face a confusing array of choices. Some cartons are labelled "free-range," others say "free-run" and many say nothing at all.
In fact, only eggs labelled "certified organic" are guaranteed to provide hens with the most space, time outdoors and opportunities for natural behaviour. Producers of these eggs are audited by certifying bodies.
Most eggs sold in B.C. are from hens kept in "battery cages," which allow only 64 square inches per hen. If consumers want to make a more humane choice, they should avoid eggs from battery hens.
More information on egg labelling and certification is available at www.chickenout.ca/Alternatives/index.html.
Bruce Passmore
Farm Animal Welfare Coordinator, Vancouver Humane Society
Letters policy
The Chief welcomes letters to the editor.
Send your letters:
BY EMAIL to [email protected]
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BY MAIL to Box 3500, Squamish, B.C. V0N 3G0
DROP OFF at 38117 Second Ave. (downtown Squamish) during business hours.
The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. Tuesday for Friday's edition.
All letters must be signed and include a phone number for verification.
