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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1980-04-09, Page 4BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1979 Second class mail registration number -0716 BI fr+S',h'AR, Wg•DNESD4Y, APRIL 2,,1980.. 1.8 S PO T FOR GODIRICH DISTRICT Founded in.1N9 gnrpubilsbed� every Wednesday at Goderich. Onterlo. Member of the CCNA and OWNA. Advor- Alsing•rates an request. Subscriptions payable In edvance'1i.90 In Canada.15.00 to U.S.A.. •56.90 to all ether cogen- tries, single copies 01'.. Display advertising rates available on request. eleaRe ask for Rata Cord No. 10 effective Sept. 1.1070. second.closs moll ReRIMtratian Number 0110. Advertising Is accepted on the cenditlon thatfn the event of typographical error; the advertising :space occupiedby the erroneous item together with reasongbleallowance for signature. will not be charged for but Aha balance of the odv,rtlsement•w111 be paid for at the applicable rote. in the event of a typographical error advertrting goods or services at o wrong price, goods or service may not be said. Advertising Is merely an offer to salt^ and may be withdrawn of any time. The Signal -Star Is not responsible for the loss or damagee of unsolicited manuscripts, photos or other materials used for reproducing purpose►. PUBLISHED BY: SIGNAL -STAR PUBLISHING LIMITED ROBERT G. SHRiER - President and Publisher SHIRLEY J. KELLER - Editor DONALD M. HUBICK - Advertising Mpnager DAVID SYKES - Assistant Editor P.O. BOX 220;- HUCKINS ST. INDUSTRIAL PARK GODERICH N7A 4B6 FOR BUSINESS OR EDITORIAL OFFICES please phone (519) 524-8331 Should backtrack When it comes to planning and development in almost any township, town or city in the province, there's usually some discord and heartache. But when it comes to planning and development -of prime property, tempers grow even more hated and tensions mount to the peak. It isn't unusual to see major battlelines form, and normally quiet, agreeable citizens grow bitter and resentful. That's just the kind of ugly situation that is brewing right now in Goderich over a piece of development land in the very southwest corner of the municipality. It's prime lakefront land owned by Suncoast Estates and coveted by nearly everyone who loves this picturesque community known lovingly by many as The Prettiest Town in Canada. On March 10, Bylaw 29 to rezone the land came to council from Goderich Area Planning Board with a recommendation to approve it. The two ladies on council, Reeve Eileen Palmer and Councillor Elsa Hayden, asked that the bylaw be tabled until all council members had had ample opportunity to study' it. Palmer and Haydon reasoned the bylaw had reached council late, and insufficient time had been available to councillors to peruse the document. Their motion fell on deaf ears. The bylaw was given a third and final reading and the order was given to circulate itto homeowners in the area. Last Wednesday, two meetings were held in Goderich that dealt with Bylaw 29. - At the Goderich Area Planning Board meeting, former planning board chairman 'Dave Gower asked that the bylaw by rescinded until further investigation of the bylaw was, complete. Gower argued there were four major differences between the draft plan and the one presented in the bylaw. He said these were a change in the road pattern and subdivision layout; a deficiency and change in the parkland location; a change in the set back along the bluff;and an upward changein the number of lots. At the same meeting, Councillor Elsa Haydon asked to be informed "when, by whom and for what reasons beneficial to the town, the 'park plans were so drastically changed that the 150 metres buffer zone needed between the pollution plant and. the Returning The squeaky wheel still gets the grease. As an experiment, The Goderich Signal -Star rex noved the Channel 5 listings from the second sec tion of the paper. The listings had been inserted without the request Of roaders. There was no indication the listings were being utilized by readers or that they would be misse d if they we:re withdrawn. With, the cost ofproducing the material each week s tacked against the need for more space for news, ti le decision was reached to pull the listings to _...-._._._...---- Someb ody noticed ... and took the time to call the newspapi°r office to voice a complaint. The Signal -Star appreciates this interest in the communit y newspaper and is making every effort now to reinstate the Channel 5 listings , at.. the earliest possible date. Keep watching for it. And happy readi ng. -SJK • housing development became the main part of the park, with only a 10 -metre access to the lake". Simultaneously, about one dozen residents in the 4unroast Drive neighborhood met to pour over their copies of Bylaw 29 which called for an apartment building between them and Lake Huron, and to begin plans •to object - and object firmly and strongly. Initially, the meetings dealt with somewhat different concerns about the same bylaw. But there's little doubt that the concerns are legitimate. Several formal complaints about the bylaw have already been lodged and as the debate continues, it is likely many more objections will be evident. : Why was the bylaw passed so quickly by town council? Was there an urgency known only to those who voted for it? Surely the reeve and Councillor Haydon knew nothing of it. Did councillors who voted in favor of the bylaw feel that because the bylaw had been studied by the planning board and because i. was the planning boa'rd's recommendation to pass it, that their decision was correct'? If so, why isn't the planning board autonomous, able to make final planning and development decisions without the sanction of town council? Wouldn't that then put the responsibility on the decision makers? ^ Or were council members simply asleep at the switch? In fairness to town councillors, the average citizen has no, comprehension of the amount of time and effort it. takes for attentive councillors to remain informed about all the matters which come before them. Being a town councillor in today's society isn't a spare time job. It takes many long hours off study and preparation each week to stay abreast of the myriad of. details which need sifting and sorting for proper, effective decision making. Nonetheless,. every member of town council' has an obligation to expend the time 'and the effort necessary to give thorough and thoughtful deliberation to every decision. That's exactly what he or she promised to do at election time, and that's what the people in this community have a right to expect. In this case, Bylaw 29, 1980 has too many unan- swered questions, too many inaccuracies and too much importance to have been pushed through hastily and carelessly as appears to have hap- pened. It now behooves council to backtrack and to take the time to find the answers to the questions, correct the inaccuracies •and deal with the concerns of citizens who feel they have been duped by their elected officials. SJK April is cancer month. Ride in the bike-a4hon- _ _ for cancer or sponsor a rider Spring fever by Cath Wooden } Government to investigate Ministry's role in fire whichkii•iedseeri-peo le BY JACK RIDDELL, M.P.P. The Legislature's standing com- mittee on resources development has voted to investigate therole of the Ministry of Natural Resources in the aftermath of the fire which killed seven young'people - one a 25 -year-old and the others teenagers, who were -part-time employees. The tragedy occurred last August when these people were helping to set a prescribed fire near Geraldton. • An O.P.P. report has suggested that negligence on the part of the govern- ment fire technicians was a likely cause, and lists seven pdssible reasons: assignment of inexperienced people; failure to teach proper ministry procedures; too many people (22) assigned to the burn; possible misunderstanding between the senior fire technician and a full-time firefighter about where the latter was to set his fire; the possible intensity of the ,fire being underestimated before the burn started; an apparent change in wind direction; and too many inexperienced people assigned to one full-time firefighter. An internal Natural Resources Ministry report, which hasn't been made public, apparently reached the same conclusion that human error might have been the cause of the fatal fire. A special Liberal4motion, introduced by .Mike Bolan, MPP for Nipissing - which has been approved by the committee - makes an -investigation into the fire the first priority of the committee for this session, TOXIC HERBICIDE Liberal Leader Stuart Smith has urged the 'government to add Ontario's 35,000 gallons of the toxic herbicide 2,4 5-T to the 800,000 gallons the United States government plans to burn at sea. However, the Minister of the Environment, Harry Parrott, has decided ' to 'spray the chemical this summer, in the belief that it is safer to use the herbicide than to try to destroy it. __._-Last:-y-gars'-the--M.i.nister_ban. ne.d-..i,ts— use in response to fears that it can't be stored without dangerous leakage and to an American study Linking its use to abnormally high miscarriage rates. However, he lifted this ban last month by allowing the herbicid'e's use on a strict permit basis to drain • existing stocks. He maintains that there's a good deal of confusion as to whether the U.S. burning will be done properly: some countries have decided to simply dump the chemical out past the 200 -mile limit, it seems, ASBESTOS IN SCHOOLS A controversy is raging about the use of asbestos in schools. The Toronto Board of Education has closed a downtown high school so that its ventilation system can be modified to allay the fears about potential con- tamination. However, board officials believe that no danger is posed by the 280 asbestos - coated air dampers which have been installed at the school, Harbord Collegiate Institute. It has been reported that the asbestos -fibre levels the Ministry measured at the school were up to half the permitted occupational safety level. Guidelines for occupational exposure are 200 times the guidelines for the public. Toronto City Coun told that asbestos use 'o insulate the City Hall could pose a health hazard and it could cost more than $1 million to correct the problem. as also been WELFARE PAYMENT INCREASE Some 22,000 single, able-bodied, welfare recipients will not receive a 10 percent increase in Ontario welfare payments recently announced. -About $54 million more a year will be spent to give higher payment's to some 170,000 welfare recipients. However, the in- creases will be limited to "those most in need and most vulnerable". Some examples of the increases are: a single mother with two children between ages 10 and 15 on family benefits will get $474 a month, up from $431; a single mother on welfare' with children the same ages will get $436, up from $396; while a couple with such children will get $500 instead of $454; a single disabled recipient's payment increases to $315 from $286; the maximum allowance to maintain 'a severely handicapped child at home increases to $175 from $150; and a couple•withone disabled spouse will get $501 compared to $456. These increases will be reflected in cheques issued at the end of April for family benefits, and at the beginning of May for welfare recipients: Payments under family benefits this year will be $407 million and under general welfare $175 million. MORTGAGE RATES_ The Minister of. Housing, R- aude Bennett, has proposed a one-year program •using federal and provincial money to help homeowners faced with escalating mortgage costs. Banks and trust companies would be used to identify those most in need of aid. At present it is not known how much provincial funding would be necessary '. but the Provincial Treasurer recently said the province would be willing to contribute a "reasonable" amount if the federal government also pitches in. STUDENT ALLOWANCES The Minister of Education, Dr. Bette Stephenson, has announced that the jiving allowance for students receiving grants from the Ontario Government will go up $7 to $72 per week next fall. She also said that students whose parents have gross assets in excess of $250,000 will not be precluded from applying for assistance, as they have been in the past. Only parents' net assets will be considered when the expected parental contribution portion is worked out. The grant increases will cost the Ontario Student Assistance Program an additional $7.9 million. Consumer complaint found valid by Goderich store BY SHIRLEY 3. KELLER Consumers are wonderful people. They have to be don't they? After all, each of us is a consumer of something or other some of the time. Actually, Signal -Star gets very few consumer complaints about local merchants. There are always a few suggestions from consumers when they are pressed, that merchants here and there in the community could be more friendly, more obliging, less in- dependent and less 'pricey'. But we take those kinds of consumer complaints as normal. Everybody has some niggling little problems as a consumer that every once in a while blossom into full-blown complaints'. when conditions are ripe. It's expected. A few years ago, this newspaper was receiving a barrage of consumer complaints via letters to the editor. To he sure, the complaints were usually about the•same few merchants, most of whom are no longer in business in this community. At that time, The Signal -Star decided to make a consumer complaint column available to readers. The column was established with great fanfare ... and a complete t,et of rules. The rule was that if a letter of complaint from a consumer was received, a copy of the letter would be sent off immediately to. the merchant involved. The merchant would have one full week in which to decide how the complaint was to be handled. There were three ways. The mer- chant could ignore the letter which would then be printed in the consumer complaint column; the merchant could satisfy the consumer who made the complaint in which case the letter would never appear in print in The Signal -Star; , or the merchant could have equral 'space' in the newspaper during the same week the letter was published to explain his side of the story. The rules, it was thought, were fair. It gave the merchant fair warning that someone was unhappy about his business tactics , and offered him several ways to deal with the situation. In all cases, no matter what the businessman decided, the consumer's complaint was recognized either through action by the merchant or through satisfaction in having spoken out in a public forum about the problem. Oddly enough, the system has rarely been used since it was established. There haven't been many consumer complaints about local merchants. But when there were, the system worked admirably. Actually, we're quite proud of it here at Signal -Star, just as we're proud of all the merchants and consumers in this community who understand and ap- prove of our complaint formula. - This week, a consumer complaint surfaced for the first time in a long time: It concerned a well-informed shopper who claimed at one certain store she was being charged tax on individually priced bottles of pop under 49 cents. She came to the newspaper office a"i-med with an Ontario Sales Tax brochure which she says, she carries in her purse now as ready proof when she is challenged on her rights. A call went out from this newspaper to the store involved. The manager there agreed there should be no tax charged on individually priced candy, confections and soft drinks under 49 cents. He said he wasn't aware that tax was being levied unnecessarily in his store but admitted the possibility that some cashiers may not be fully ap- prised of this exemption. He volun- teered to remind staff one more time at the first opportunity. Problem solved. Amicably and to the satisfaction of both the customer and the businessman, we hope. Consumers are important people. They do have rights. And their com- plaints are worth listening' to. Why, at Signal -Star right now we are assessing one consumer complaint that Cath Wooden and Dave Skyes' columns on the front page of the second section are pure garbage and should be stuffed inside in future. What do you think about that?