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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1979-09-05, Page 2WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 1979 ONTARIO • Serving Brussels and the surrounding community. Published each Wednesday afternoon at Brussels, Ontario By McLean Bros. Publishers Limited Evelyn Kennedy - Editor Pat Langlois - Advertising Member Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Weekly Newspaper Association Subscriptions (in advance) Canada $10.00 a Year. Others $20.00 a Year. Single Copies 25 cents each. BLUE RIBBON AWARD 19 79 de°.IAILO MII*INiumminmiWWID 4Brussels Post A sense of pride A friendly place An appeal was sent out for aid for the Southeast Asian refugees and the people in the Brussels and Wingham area responded as only the friendly people of Huron county can. Asked for help in the sponsoring of two Southeast Asian refugee families they came back with the offer of food, clothing, furniture, two houses and $18,000 cash. With a fair number of people worried about what bringing these refugees in, will do to Canada's unemployment situation, it's good to see some people responding with their hearts instead of their prejudices. Through the efforts of the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in Wingham and its sister church St. Ambrose in Brussels and through the help of Brussels and Wingham area people who responded to the appeal, two families from Laos will be coming to the Brussels area to live. But it is to be hoped that the spirit of charity won't just stop at providing these families with food, clothing, furniture and a place to live. These will not be the only thing thee people will need. They will also need to feel that they are wanted and accepted as a part of the community in which they live and that's where Huron County's friendly spirit can really be shown. Behind the scenes by Keith Roulston Brotherhood About 30 people showed up at the meeting on the Walton library last week—a good indication that the people of Walton and area don't want to see their library close. And it doesn't look like they have anything to fear in that direction due to the fine efforts put forth by the Morris, Grey and McKillop Township Councils, the Walton Recreation Committee and the people themselves. Last Monday night's meeting was fruitful in at least deciding what actions were going to be taken on heating the present library for the winter and also in some steps getting started in the progress toward building a new library for the people of Walton and the surrounding municipalities. And building a new and bigger library building should mean better quality books and probably an increase in circulation. Not only that but new buildings that were put up with a lot of hard work and effort always give people a sense of pride in their community. A fine new library incorporated within a community centre will be just one more thing that the people of Walton and area will be able to view with a pride of accomplishment. Sugar and spice By Bill Smiley Run for dog catcher What with higher, ever higher wage demands, marches to protest the rights of this or that minority group and a general trend toward self-gratification it sometimes looks like the good old values of brotherhood and extending a helping hand have been forgotten. But now and then an emergency arrives that seems to bring out the best in people. We've seen a few examples of that recently, examples that show us that the human race isn't completely losing the things that set us above the animals. Probably the best example of helping our fellow man has been the recent tornado disaster in the Woodstock area. People from this part of the country have been very free with their time and their money in helping people of the disaster area clean up and rebuild. Much as their fathers and grandfathers helped each other out in the past when disaster hit. On a wider scale this kind of warm-hearted assistance has been given to the plight of the boat people of Southeast Asia. The help hasn't been so universally give n to this cause. To some people the plight of the boat people isn't nearly as important as the plight of the people around Woodstock, but the reaction has been heart-warming just the same. We had an example of how neighbourliness is still alive and well in o ur own household recently. We had a minor family crisis in the form of a car accident that brought calls of concern and offetsof aid from family, friends and neighbours. Everyone was so helpful. People sometimes mourn the passing of the old-fashioned kind of neighbourhoods but when conditions call for it, the old neighbourliness is still there as strong as evet. I was watching a television program recently that showed just how important this habit of sticking up for each other has been to the human race. Archeology has shown that early man wasn't nearly as well equipped for survival as many of the animals that have become extinct over the long history of the earth. What made man successful in surviving and taking a dominant place in the world was not so much his intelligence, (because early man wasn't all that intelligent) not so much his skill in hunting, as his tendency to stick together. By hunting' in groups the early men got game they wouldn't have gotten alone. By living in groups they had strength in numbers to protect them fromtheir larger, stronger, more vicious enemies. This forming of societies has been an important part of human living ever since. We start with the primary unit of the family, then the community and the country. I suppose we're making progress in a way. We've learned to live in harmon y beyo .nd the family unit, beyond the community to the country level (though in this country one sometimes wonders). We have yet to live in harmony on a world-wide basis, to care for all mankind as we would for our neighbour but at least we're beyond warring on a tribal level as primitive man once did. But in our western society we've been growing away from the ideal on a personal level at the same time we've been growing towards it on a broader scale. .'be extended family has broken down. Todat the family consists of parents and about two children and the size is dropping all the time. The ideal now seems to be just h us.band and • wife and even the institution of marriage is giving way to looser living arrangements that can form and breakup and reform without the expense of divorce. Community spirit too is breaking down especially because More and more of the people live in larger and larger cities: To replace the helping hand of a friend or neighbour we've come up with the helping hand of the state: the welfare state. (Continued on Page 3) If you have never • been involved in municipal politics, you should have a go. Run for anything from a dog-catcher to mayor. If you lose, it' will be good for your ego. If you win, it will be good for your humility. I speak, as always, from personal experience. For twoyearsl served on a town council. It was illuminating, if not very enlightening. I was elected, of course, by acclamation. As was everybody else on the council. So keen were the citizens to serve, that some years, on nomination eve, we had to go down to the pub, drag a couple of characters out, and guide their hands while they signed up. When I was elected, I was present as a reporter. There were only five other people in the council chambers, so it was decided that I would be elected as the necessary sixth. Since I had already served on the executives of various moribund organi- zations which had died forthwith, I agreed. It didn't die, as I'd hoped. The next year we were all re-elected. By acclamation. It was pretty heady stuff, at first. As a partner in a printing plant, and a newspaperman, I was immediately appoint- ed Chairman of the Printing, Advertising and Public Relations Committee of council. This meant that our firm automatically received the contract for the town's printing and-advertising, which we already had. The public relations part meant that I had to stop suggesting in the paper that the town council was made up of nitwits, nincompoops and nerds. Another chap, with a pretty good heating and plumbing business, was named Chair- man of the Interior Municipal Modification Committee. Heating and plumbing. A third, who had a tractor, a back-hoe and a snowplow, was appointed Chairman of the Public Works Department. He immediately introduced a by-law raising the rates per hour of such equipment. It passed, four to two. The opposition was from another councillor, a retired farmer, who also had a tractor and a threshing-machine, which he thought could be converted to plowing snow. His brother-in-law voted with him. But these moments of power and glory soon faded. The conflict of interest became apparent, arid there was no way out for a man of honour except to resign. It took me only two years to reach that conclusion, You May think that a fair time, but it's not easy to walk away from a $75.00 a year stipend, The mayor made $150.00. As a reporter, I had been more interested in the coriflibts than the interests. I had delightedly heard, and printed, one council- lor call another councillor a "gibbering, old baboon." Arid watched the victim of the pejorative, a stripling, of 78, invite the name-caller outside, stripping off his jacket during the exchange. Cooler heads pre- vailed. It was thirty-four below outside. Well, as you can see, as a member of that august body, the Town Council, I couldn't print that sort of thing. I had to report that the two councillors "had a difference of opinion." When I wrote that phrase and had to omit that one of the councillors was obviously in his cups, I knew I had to quit. All of this is a preamble to a thickish document I got in the mail the other day. It is a new by-law printed and dispersed (at what enormous cost I shudder) by our local town council. There are 39 numbered pages of legal inanities, and about an equal number of pages of maps of the town, equally unintelligible. As I said, the mailman delivered it, regardless of expense. A dozen kids could have covered the town in two hours, or stuffed them in the sewer. Despite my wide experience as a municipal councillor, or perhaps because of it, this by-law completely baffles me. The first thirteen pages are definitions. They tell us what is a lot, a yard (front) and a yard (rear), a garage, a building. They also inform the ignorant citizenry what a school is, a person, a restaurant, a motel, a boarding-house. All alphabetically. There was no mention of "brothel" under the B's. The by-law tells us how high our fences or hedges can be. It tells us how high our houses can be. How many square metres of`- floor space we must have if we decide to ask Auntie Mabel, crippled with arthritis, to share our dwelling. How many parking places we need for each establishment. Again no mention of either brothels or bootleggers. For most of the document, the by-law dwells in metres, squared and decimaled. I know very few people over thirty who would know a metre from a maskinonge. Somebody on council must have cornered the market on metre sticks. Then this baffling by-law moves into "hectares". What the heck is a hectare? To me, it's an ancient French (Canadian) piece of land about as accurate as an acre, which nobody understands either. here's an example: "RM2 uses are permitted as specified to a maximum of 550 persons per hectare.',' Is it a square mile? Is it a "Hl acre" wit' an accent? This is crazy. When I was a councillor, we could knock off three or four by-laws in a meeting, and everybody understood them. "Moved and seconded that there shall be no loitering in the cemetery, except by those who are among the dead, not the quick." That sort of thing: This big fat by-law is for the birds. Or the lawyers. Not for Os old municipal politicians. Remember what. I suggested at the beginning of this colUmn? Forget it. Otherwise you might end up in a "Detached dwelling Unit", which allows"3.2 persons per unit standard." Not two. Not foul'. 3.2.