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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1994-9-7, Page 4Page 4 Times -Advocate, September 7, 1994 Publisher: Jim Beckett News Editor: Adrian Harte Business Manager: Don Smith Composition Manager: Deb Lord CCM* Advertising; Barb Consitt, Theresa Redmond /News; Fred Groves, Catherine O'Brien, Ross Haugh Production • Alma Ballantyne, Mary McMurray, Barb Robertson Robert Nicol, Brenda Hem, Joyce Weber, Laurel Miner, Marg Flynn Transportation: Al Flynn, Al Hodgert Front Office & Accounting; Norma Jones, Elaine Pinder, Ruthanne Negrijn, Anita McDonald • • inion EDITORIAL Childish and petty Exeter is once again embroiled in a dispute with County Council, or more specifically, the planning depart- ment. At the heart of the issue are the "user fees" the county wants to charge those who make use of the planning depart- ment. Several municipalities, Exeter included, agree those fees are absurdly high. For example, a simple severance would be billed to the property owner at $735 A minor variance (to extend, say, a patio deck near the property line) would be billed at $510. Those fees are "only" half of what the planning depart- ment says it costs to process the appli- cations. Observers have suggested a planning consultant in the private sector could do the same work for one quarter or one fifth the price. Exeter, Wingham, and Clinton have all refused to approve bylaws allowing those fees to be charged in their respec- tive towns. Although the plan is to div- vy up the fees between the county and the municipality, depending on who does the bulk of the work, they still -argue the price is too high. The fees are high. It is not clear whether county planning is overstating the amount of time needed to process its paperwork, or whether they divided up their yearly budget - meaning that other planning operations are being subsidized by the fee schedule: hardly what "user pay" intends. Other municipalities with less forti- tude passed bylaws calling for reduced fees, agreeing to pay the county their original share and taking less of a cut for themselves. Exeter, on the other hand, has a histo- ry of arguing with the planning depart- ment - the most serious incident being a dispute over an industrial park just out- side the town's borders in the mid- 1980s. The town went its own way, put- ting a professional planning officer of its own on staff. An agreement in 1991 patched things up between the county and the town somewhat. Since the town was paying taxes to the county anyway, the agreement specified what planning matters Exeter could rely on them for, and which ones the town could handle on its own. This agreement is Exeter's "get -out -of - jail -free card" now that this user fee is- sue is on the table. It clearly overrides any attempt to make Exeter property owners pay up for planning services, ac- cording to town council. Trouble is, county council has developed amnesia over the agreement, and wants to re- interpret it as not applying in this case. Since Exeter (and Wingham and Clin- ton) won't play ball with the county, they now want to take away the whole playground. Ye , e county has the le- gal power to depriv the town of its abil- ity to administer and approve its own lot severances, but to do so is a childish and petty response to the situation. It needs to be resolved sensibly, recognizing the rights of the municipalities involved, and considering the possibility that the planning user fees, might actually and truly be exorbitantly high. Yes, the town may get involved in an expensive legal battle, but this is one that deserves to be fought. The user fees are too high, an agreement is already in place, and the county should not be re- sponding with threats of taking away planning controls that have been proper- ly used for years. A.D.H. What's on your mind? The Times -Advocate continues to welcome letters to the editor as a forum for open discussion of local issues, concerns, complaints and kudos. The Times -Advocate reserves the right to edit letters for brevity. Please send your letters to P.O. Box 850 Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S6. Sign your letter with both name and address. Anonymous letters will not be published. A View From Queen's Park Ontarians are in no mood to go on bended knee trying to persuade Quebec to stay in Cana- da and this has been seized on happily by those who want to break up the country. Parti Quebecois leader Jacques Parizeau has chuckled at what he calls 'unity fatigue' in On- tario, a condition that Ontarians will have no difficulty recognizing all around them. The dominant questions most of them have asked in the past 30 years of fairly continuous constitutional debate have been: What does Quebec want? What do other Canadians have to do to make Quebec happy? But most are now saying in conversations, open -line radio and TV shows and letters to newspapers that they no longer have much in- terest in accommodating Quebec. Many of their comments are even hostile: "Quebeckers get more than they deserve from Canada already." By Eric Dowd Publications Mail Registration Number 0386 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: CANADA Within 40 maks (85 km.) addressed to non letter carrier addresses $30.09 plus $2.10 O.s,1t\ Outside 40 miles (65 km.) or adv letter carder address $30.00 plus 830.110 (total 60.00) + 4.20 O.S.T. Outside Canada $88.00 (Includes $88.40 postage) Published Each Wednesday Morning at 424 Main St., Exeter, Ontario, NOM 1S8 by J.W. Eedy Publications Ltd. Telephone 1-5192351331 O.S.T. •R105210835 Hold that thought... A couple of years ago at a trade show, I watched a guy take another fellow's driver's li- cense photo, scan it into his computer, and then begin to re- move the fellow's beard, mak- ing him clean shaven. It looked like fun, but I couldn't see much use for it in the newspaper office. The trouble is, some people are finding digital image manip- ulation very useful indeed. There are the obvious special effects photographs that end up on the covers of the supermar- ket tabloids. We've seen the devil's face in the smoke cloud above Waco, Texas, and this week we've got a 59 -year old Elvis speaking out about his daughter's marriage. Yeah, right. But there are much more sub- tle uses of the technology to . stretch the bounds of what we see as "real", or what we think is ethical. Nature photographers are in a real fuss these days. A digital scan can remove the highlight from electronic flash in an owl's eye, or superimpose a bald ea- gle flying over a mountain peak in a picture that looks very, very real, but is actually something concocted from two separate images. Since nature photographers pursue the ideal of capturing images of real wildlife in real By Adrian Harte Almost real settings, is it ethical to alter the photo even the tiniest bit? Na- tional Geographic even got em- broiled in the controversy when it "moved" a pyramid to get all three to fit on the front cover. With computer technology getting cheaper and more effec- tive, you don't have to be a huge national magazine with a three- month deadline to fall prey to manipulation. The other day, I was sent an offer for a CD- ROM from which we could eas- ily download all kinds of photo- graphs to accompany our arti- cles - rather than take our own. Better yet, we could use these great "stock" photos, and then put your heads on them. We could even get the Pope, Jean Chretien, and Bill Clinton playing volleybait in front of the Exeter Town Hall. It could be done. Last week, we were looking at a good photo of the Zurich Bean Festival, except in the back- ground was a woman blowing her nose or something. Rather than leave it as is, we simply trimmed off the side of the pic- ture, along with her and her nose - that was our only option using our current chemical pho- to process. But two of our other papers have already made the leap to digital, and their computers could have conceivably erased her from the complete image, creating a new piece of back- ground where she stood. Who would know? Who could tell? But would it,be right? These are questions all of us have to face, not just those of us in the news and truth business. Photographic evidence is al- • ready highly suspect in the courts. The clumsy attempt to splice Lee Harvey Oswald's head on a photo of a guy hold- ing a rifle would be truly perfect if done today. I once paid a visit to the Vic- toria and Albert Museum in London, England to view their collection of art forgeries. Among them were a few works by Alceo Dossena, whose abili- ty to mimic the styles of Renais- sance sculptors was so good, a few may be on display in other museums around the world, still thought to be genuine. What a surprising turn of events, that in the late 20th cen- tury, when we believed science and forensics could tell us what was real and unreal, our ability to fake reality may be going well beyond what Dossena could pull off. So far the tabloids have resist- ed it, but how easy it would be. to have a sinister looking O.J. standing with a knife in front of Nicole's house. The trouble is, could you prove it wasn't real? 'People have had enough of all these conces- sions being made to franco nes'. 'Quebeck- ers are holding Canada to rat om to get more out of this country.' 'Quebeckers are always yelling. They are never satisfied. They would be crazy to separ- ate, because they would only hurt themselves - but if they want to go, let them get on with it. We should not kiss their butt to try and get them to stay.' Ontarians are concerned that Quebec is rais- ing the constitution again at a time when issues they consider more urgent, notably the reces- sion and unemployment, remain to be dealt with and they worry that talking about the con- stitution diverts attention. Some are complaining that they already have heard too much about the Quebec election and the latest threat to separate, that news media are devoting far too much space to it and that they 'Unity fatigue' strikes Ontario find.it boring. A few even are rejoicing in what they see as benefits from separation, including the prospect that some Quebeckers will move to Ontario and this will be good for business. A poll also has found that only one in five Ontarians now feels Quebec should be offered designation as a distinct society and only one in 20 believes it should be offered more powers or areas of jurisdiction than it has. Ontarians ironically were preparedoffer both concessions in the Meech Lake and Char- lottetown accords that failed. Parizeau said this poll will not help those ad- vocating in the election that Quebec should stay in Canada. He implied that Quebeckers who seek more powers have no alternative but to vote for the PQ and separation, because the biggest Eng- lish-speaking province is now against offering any. Ontarians' new hard line against concessions to Quebec may not be as rigid as it sounds, however. Many feel blase about separation at this time, believing that after many false alarms it will never happen. They feel reassured because, if the separatists win, they have promised a referendum in which recent polls suggest most Quebeckers would vote against separating. Ontarians also have been through a 30 years war on the constitution. They were appalled by the bullying attempting to push through the Meech accord and endured more intense ago- nizing before narrowly supporting the accord of Charlottetown. But Ontarians have been dutiful Confedera- tion -builders and some time in the future they will ask again what Quebec wants; -- they are just fed up with the issue at this time. J, 1 4