HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2007-04-25, Page 4Page 4 April 25, 2007 • The Huron Expositor
Opinion
Proprietor and Publisher, Bowes Publishers Limited, 11 Main St., Seaforth, ON, NOK 1WO
Closing the barn
door after the
horse is gone
The phrase "closing the barn door after the horse
is gone" comes to mind after Monday's discussion
by the Seaforth Community. Hospital Local
Advisory Committee.
While the LAC wants to see negotiations
reopened between Huron East and the Seaforth
Community Development Trust on one side and the
Seaforth Community Hospital Foundation and
Hospital Trust on the other concerning a home for
the Seaforth family health team (FHT), a sod -turn-
ing ceremony held last Wednesday for a new build-
ing for the FHT seems to negate that possibility.
After attempting to negotiate for months with the
Seaforth hospital trust, the municipality and the
development trust have agreed to share the invest-
ment of $50,000 a year over a 20 -year period for a
new building next to the CCAC building and
behind the Seaforth clinic.
While negotiating to use the Seaforth medical
clinic to house the FHT, the two sides reached an
impasse over accountability and openness when
sharing financial information - while the munici-
pality and development trust wanted the books to
be open to taxpayers - especially when property
taxes were being used to fund improvements to the
building - the hospital trust insisted that they were
not compelled to do so and therefore would not.
While the LAC is now complaining about the
municipality's involvement in the FHT, they should
remember that Huron East was initially a reluc-
tant contributor to healthcare, wooed by hospital
administration and the hospital foundation to help
with clinic upgrades that could provide a more
attractive environment to recruit doctors.
In fact, the municipality was passionately petit-
tioned to get involved with the FHT when closed
door planning between Clinton and Seaforth orga-
nizers seemed to be threatening Seaforth's ability
to retain its original proposal to set up a county-
wide community -run FHT in town.
It was through the dogged efforts of Huron East's
economic development officer that Seaforth even
has a FHT to find housing for.
While strong arguments can be made that
healthccare is a provincial responsibility and
should not be funded by property taxes, you can't
have it both ways.
You can't invite the municipality to the party and
then complain that they accepted the invitation.
Susan Hundertmark
Exi5ositor
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It's tough to protect kids in a
world that's crazier every day
The first I heard of
threats to students at
Central Huron Secondary
School came surprisingly
from my fifth grade
daughter.
She had heard rumours
of someone writing on a
washroom wall that they
were going to bring a gun
to school and start shoot-
ing from friends whose siblings go to high
school in Clinton with her brother and want-
ed me to keep her brother safe at home last
Thursday.
When asked for confirmation, my son
shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yeah, peo-
ple were talking about it," but wasn't too
fazed by the story.
And, while my first reaction was to treat it
as a prank, 32 college students were killed by
a crazed gunman the next day at Virginia
Tech and suddenly the threat seemed far
more real.
After a phone call and a letter from the
school outlining the school's plans to have
police checking backpacks at the door on
Thursday, my husband and I chose to send
our son to school.
It seemed to us that there would never be a
safer day at school with the visible police
presence.
My son continued to be blase about the
whole thing but as he left that morning for
the bus, I know I felt a twinge of fear, hoping
by Susan Hundertmark
we'd made the right deci-
sion.
Many parents chose to
give their kids a day off that
day and I can't fault them
for their decision either.
Attempting to keep our
kids safe in a world that
seems crazier by the day
seems to have no clear
guidelines.
Who would have ever predicted that in
rural Huron County, parents would be wor-
ried about the possibility of their kids getting
shot at school? Or, that the kids would be
going through a police check at the front door
to combat that possibility?
While the threat to rural teens has always
seemed to involve one or more of them travel-
ling on the roads, once they arrived at their
destination, parents have always imagined
them to be safe.
Ironically, we are living in a time when kids
have never been more protected by legisla-
tion, insurance concerns, school safety pre-
cautions and parents themselves.
Gravel is measured for size and depth
under playground equipment, if that equip-
ment is even allowed at all.
Helmets and protective gear are either leg-
islated or recommended to be legislated at a
steady rate.
Issues like bullying, violence against
women and sexual assault - while they still
See WRAPPING, Page 6
Ron & [Dave
Well...I guess - -
It'll be summer Yep -
soon. Hey, Remember
those summers
when we were
kids?
Yeah I sure do
Goofing off aII
day. Doing
�_nothing ntall.
And Mom
always yelling
at us for being
so lazy.
IF YOU TWO CAN'T
FIND SOMETHING
USEFUL TO DO...
THEN I'LL FIND IT
FOR YOUI
by bavid Lacey
She never
gives up
does she.
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