Hard lesson for letter writer

Re: "An Alexandra Road old-timer writes," Letters, Oct. 25.

Letter writer Mr. Mike Pavelich was concerned that Coun. Harold Steves was not paying full attention during the last council meeting. He said Coun. Steves was actually sleeping.

Sometimes hard lessons are learned. Remember the Teachers Federation protest, and one protester who remarked he had seen an official shaking in fear. That protestor learned just such a lessonthe official was suffering from Parkinson's disease, the shaking not in his control.

Coun. Steves has been attending council meetings as well as the daily committee meetings, in horrible pain. He has a crushed disc between his vertebrae and is in agony most of the time. He is in most pain if he is required to sit any length of time. That is what Mr. Pavelich witnessed from the comfort of his television set.

Mr. Steves has only missed one week of meetings, despite the wishes of his doctor, and his family.

He is one thing, that is dedicated to Richmond.

We may not always agree with the positions taken, that is a given. But you may not criticize this councillor's drive, dedication, or certainly, his work ethic.

You are on the wrong track, sir.

Watch out for Wal-Mart

As a recent graduate of the University of B.C., with a major in geography, I have spent the past several years doing extensive research into the impact Wal-Mart has on a city, and I am well aware of the kind of damage it can do.

With that said, I strongly oppose the construction of a Wal-Mart in Richmond.

As soon as Wal-Mart opens up the doors with its low prices, smaller businesses will not even be able to compete, and most will be forced to shut down.

By placing Wal-Mart in the centre of Richmond, it will draw even more people there, increasing traffic and pollution, not to mention frustration.

When Wal-Mart plotted to open a store in Surrey, the city council conducted a traffic study that estimated an increase of 7,000 vehicles in that neighbourhood a day. If anyone has driven down No. 3 Road lately, they know that more traffic is the last thing we need.

There is talk that opening a Wal-Mart here will be useful in creating new jobs. But what about all the jobs it will destroy in the process?

Smaller and family-run companies are likely to go out of business and many will be out of work. Studies show that over a three-year period of the opening of a Wal-Mart, more jobs will be lost than created. Besides, the jobs created by Wal-Mart will be mostly part-time, minimum wage jobs with little benefits.

In order for Richmond to win the fight against this big box retailer we must stop city council from rezoning the land. We must voice our opinions.

On a more personal note, I recently finished traveling through Europe and Thailand, and cannot help feeling distraught that the unique and traditional cultures of these countries are being bombarded by "Americanization." There are McDonald's, Starbucks, and 7-Elevens on each corner. It is sad to see how globalization is slowly diminishing the distinctive qualities each country has to offer.

I think the City of Richmond should be proud to say we took a stand against Wal-Mart, and all it stands for.

I urge you to educate yourself on this issue by visiting Web sites such as: www.walmartwatch.com, or by going to the local library and reading the books In Sam We Trust, or How Wal-Mart is Destroying America.

Tarnished premise

Re: Council Update advertisement"Planning decisions should be consistent," Richmond Review, p. 6, Oct. 30.

In her recent submission to the city's Council Update entitled "Planning decisions should be consistent," city Coun. Evelina Halsey-Brandt makes a number of statements as matters of fact that are simply not factual and are untrue.

She states that the original zoning change proposed for the Riverport Landing project was in conflict with Richmond's regional context statement.

In fact, the zoning change and the Official Community Plan amendment were not in conflict with Richmond's regional context statement.

In a lengthy review of the facts concerning the Riverport Landing application, Richmond's own lawyers who happen to be the top municipal lawyers in British Columbia, stated "we have not identified any direct collision between the Regional Context Statement and the current proposals to amend the OCP."

Halsey-Brandt makes the further incorrect assertion that Richmond needed to apply for an amendment to its regional context statement to accommodate the proposed Riverport Landing development. Richmond's own lawyers and the developer's lawyers both independently concluded that, in fact, the city did not need to apply to the Greater Vancouver Regional District to amend its regional context statement.

When Riverport Landing's new application was submitted, city staff correctly dealt with the rezoning and OCP amendment, in full compliance with the powers granted to the city.

Halsey-Brandt incorrectly states that in June 2003, the developer abandoned the initial rezoning application and simultaneously submitted a new application that was virtually the same.

In fact, not only is her timing incorrect, the new application was made in Maythe original rezoning approved at third reading by Richmond city council in June 2002 was still on the books until council voted to abandon it in July of this year. The developer did not abandon it.

The new application was not virtually the same, as Halsey-Brandt incorrectly states.

A new application was filed because a number of material changes were made to the proposed project in an effort to address concerns raised during the public review of the first application. The fact that these changes were material dictated that a new application had to be filed.

Finally, Halsey-Brandy twists the truth in stating that the GVRD Board passed a motion requesting the province review this unilateral decision by Richmond. This is not the motion the GVRD board passed.

In fact, the board passed a motion requesting that the province discharge its responsibilities under the Local Government Act, none of which powers give the province the authority to review Richmond's decision-making on land use matters.

This series of incorrect statements tarnishes the credibility of the entire premise argued in Halsey-Brandt's submission.

Telus about it

Attention all B.C. citizens! Telus has thrown us into third world status.

They have taken an essential service and corporatized it into a profit-oriented entity where the emphasis is on raising the value of the stock at the cost of decimating the service.

A few at the top are getting very rich while the ordinary citizen is paying for a service they are not receiving.

We are helpless because they have a monopoly. They are being allowed to practice extortion by refusing to remove cancelled services from customers bills. This is criminal.

Where is the government with all this going on?

The CRTC is "monitoring" the situation and will "think about perhaps levying a fine." This is not good enough!

Many have lost access to 911. How many people will there be who will die, before some real action is taken?

Uniform learning

I am a grade 12 student studying in McNair Secondary School.

I notice a lot of students in school wearing a lot of clothes that are not appropriate for the learning environment, especially for Grade 10, 11 and 12 studentssexy clothes always seem to be their desire. They often wear clothes that are too exposed of their bodies.

Because younger graders can learn from it, fashion often becomes a popular topic for a lot of students.

Learning is the main purpose of school; therefore, students should concentrate on their studies. Having a "fashion show" in a school will loosen students' concentration, because they need to spend so much time earning money to buy new clothes to show off to other students.

I have gone to schools where students wear uniforms; I found out they concentrate better because there are no fashion competitions. Students learn to collaborate faster, since everybody thinks they are all equal (no rich and poor).

I strongly suggest students should wear uniforms in schools in the future. Not only can people concentrate more, poorer students can also be treated equally by other students so they will not get teased by richer students if they are wearing "old fashioned" clothes.

Furthermore, parents don't need to worry about the budget of buying a lot of clothes for each school year. We can see that many parents spend more than $400 on clothes for back-to-school. We need to do something about it. It can affect the next generation of rulers in the world.

To lead the children to the successful path, people should think about this option.

For a dollar more

I have just read your article on AirCare fees ("AirCare fees reduced", page 8, Nov. 1) and it reinforces to me how farcical this system really is.

As it stands now older vehicles must pay the $24 fee to be tested once a year while new vehicles pay $48 to be tested once every two years. The fees are exactly the same but AirCare does only half the work on new vehicles!

Now AirCare proposes to drop the fee by $1 from $24 to $23 and from $48 to $47 which means that new vehicles actually pay $1 more to be tested over the two year period than older vehicles. The fairest thing to do would be to charge new vehicle owners $23 every time they have their vehicle tested which is once every two years! Why should AirCare be getting money for a service they don't perform?

The planes! The planes!

The front page on The Richmond Review's weekend edition (Oct. 25-26) had a "very scary" skeleton and shrew depiction with the headline "Plot in search of an identity" just underneath. Both are scary.

Policy planning manager Terry Crowe intimates that neither the city nor planning know how to zone land uses under thundering jets whose noise blows our noise bylaw all to h--- (It is OK to write hell in a newspaperEd.).

The city might allege that its bylaw permits aircraft to violate the well-being of residents in its way because the airport is a cash cow and comes first.

I find nothing in the Municipal Act that lets council enact zoning bylaws that harm and injure the lives of our people. When planning coloured our city plan, what use did they deem appropriate in the footprint of the flight approaches? To allege that residents should have known better? Why better than city hall?

I was involved in our airport developmentand that projected "third runway" was for DC3s! Not 747s.

YVR dodged the payment of damages awarded to residents under the flight path as if they could not pay, but now they will cough up $300 million to RAV that will never be recovered because they just ding everybody just a wee bit as they go by to fly. Can they not add another buck and buy out all of Bridgeport in the noise footprint, have it rezoned airport and related uses (which it should have been), then sell/lease it for more!

Good Samaritans

What goes around, comes around and I hope that kindness comes to those unidentified people who went out of their way to comfort my dog, Nellie.

Nellie had been hit by a car on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 25 somewhere on Steveston Highway near the Buddhist temple.

These kind souls are the three young teenagers at the nearby bus stop and the woman who stopped to help them and call for help. Thank you so much.

I am grateful for you all in being with Nellie while she was hurt and, likely, very afraid.

And to Nellie's other heroes, Yiannis, Florence and Bill, thank you for being so kind and giving her company, comfort and affection while being attended to by the wonderful people at No. 3 Road Animal Hospital. I have great neighbours and now a new vet.

This rail is heavy on cost

Further to Rafe Mair's comments on the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver rapid transit line ("Why no vote on RAV," p. Oct. 30): Indeed it's a done deal, done when George Puil originally signed the TransLink agreement!

Remember, Puil only signed the TransLink deal when the then NDP provincial government, desperate to build the now grossly under-used Millennium Line, promised to pay two-thirds of rapid transit (SkyTrain), including subway construction, west of Commercial Drive.

Regional taxpayers from the start were going to subsidize hugely expensive subway construction only for Vancouver.

And why subway construction for Vancouver? The creme de la creme, mostly Liberal and civic NPA supporters didn't want trams running along the former rapid-transit interurban route, the Arbutus Corridor.

And let's not forget the powerful SkyTrain lobby, which wants only to build with SkyTrain, which in today's world is a hugely expensive museum piece. Why? Simple, SkyTrain construction can be up to 10 times as much than simple light rail andyou guessed itthat extra money goes into corporate pockets. That's why Vancouver's Board of Trade loves SkyTrain so muchit's a cash cow for their well-heeled members.

Subways and elevated (rapid) transit systems have a very poor record in attracting new ridership, as customers want transit to be on the pavement not in dark holes or windswept stations. That's why light rapid transit has outsold SkyTrain by almost 30 to 1 in the past 25 years.

RAV is just another expensive rapid-transit project that will be a financial albatross for regional taxpayers. Only a judicial inquiry into RAV will unravel the RAV debacle, but I'm not holding my breathe.

The moral of the story

From many of the letters found in The Richmond Review, the issue on whether schools should have dress codes or uniforms or neither is ultimately based on individualism versus collectivism.

Individualists oppose uniforms or dress codes because it infringes on their right to expression. Collectivists believe that schools are a place of learning and decency, and thus should look that way.

What the Education Ministry should consider first is whether uniforms or dress codes align with the kind of country Canada is. What do we base our laws onfreedom or morality? While the Canadian government has encouraged the exercise of many freedoms, it has also restricted citizens from certain rights to expression.

The laws that our federal government makes often reflect what Canadian society wants. Our government has accepted things such as multiculturalism, aid for the less fortunate, the use of marijuana (at least to a certain extent), and same sex marriages. At the same time, the government also limits racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.

Such an inconsistency in the freedoms we have show that our government does not make laws based on freedombut on morals. The pattern in our laws sends a message to us and to the world what kind of nation Canada is.

According to the laws that we make, Canadian society is one that tolerates and embraces all kinds of people, one that cares for the less fortunate, and most importantly, one that does not allow the spread of hatred or gross indecency. Although not all Canadians support all of these values, these laws govern what Canada is about.

Therefore, because the laws that we make for our society are based on our values rather than on freedom, the laws the Education Ministry makes for our school system should also be based on what they believe in.

Hence, the existence of restrictions on offensive or revolting school apparel would be most appropriate for our society, one that accepts individualism but rejects hatred and indecency.

Neighbourhood of unpleasantries

I have lived in Richmond for 63 years on Alexandra Road.

Originally living on a farm was luxury. Then came the airplanes of which we were on the flight path for 60 years.

Then came the taxes for sewers, although we are still on smelly septic tanks that we pay to have cleaned year as well as the ditches that have never been filled in.

Then came the deterioration of the street with absentee landlords, abandoned houses and overgrown empty lots.

With the proposed convention centre and the added traffic on Alderbridge and Garden City, it will not be a pleasant residential area. With my parents now deceased and my siblings and myself retired, we must move on.

If Wal-Mart doesn't come in and clean the place up, what does the city intend to do for this area?