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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1976-12-02, Page 4PME4-r-GODER1CH SIGNAL -STAR, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1976 Your vote counts Every time an election rolls round, this • newspaper and• every other newspaper it seems - feels duty-bound to stress the" fact that . voting •is . a privilege . . . and that ratepayers should get out to the polls and exercise that privilege. Vote.as you like - but vote: That's the worn-out slogan. ' During this election campaign,. it hes become increasingly clear that some people across the.municipalities do not intend to vote. They Will stay'home not because they do not value their right to vote-r•but rather beca'ii e they feel there is no choice of candidates. That, of course, could only be remedied if more citizens bad been encouraged to declare themselves as candidates before the November 15 deadline:, It has also been pointed out that people in the area, particularly in the town of Goderieh, may not realize it is not necessary to make one selection from the list. of candidates for every position open. Voter are perfectly within th,ir rights to enter the polling booth and vote for only one person named on the ballot.. In fact, •if voters :5l li cannot honestly support more than one ortwo candirdates on the ballot they should be extremely wary about voting for a full slate. People who really do take their voting seriously will weigh many factors before entering the polling booth. They will want to know as much as possiI le about the candidates; they .. will want to decide which of them have the best decision-making ' abilities; they will make their selection ac- cording to each candidate's demon- strated municipal interest and con- cern. How you vote is your own business. Since it is a 'secret ballot, you may make your own persona:,. opinion felt when i►he final tally is made. Your choite or choices may be popular or unpopular, but you will have had the satisfaction ' that you voted, in sin- cerity, accoFding to your conscience.. Your vote counts. It has a bearing on the outcome for the next two years. Make absolutely certain you have your say :.:.'in the way you believe it must be. said:-SJK P0 days good value As pareints of school aged children• in classrooms refreshed and inspired. and around Goderich will 'already . But it isn't naive tostate that 4the know,. last . Friday was another majority of teachers require some professional development day for area time to draw from the experts and Huron County Board of Education other resource people their opinions teachers, and for . Huron -Perth about all aspects of education; that the ''p Separate School Board teachers. majority of teachers make wise use of . These "PD" days have become a big 'their time on professional development joke With taxpayers across the county, days; -that students reap the benefits of many of whom seem convinced the professional development days; and time is. not being spent profitably. It ' that taxpayers get their money's worth has even been suggested that "PD" from professional development days.. . days -are nothing more than: convenient ' Contrary to what some people a days off, allowing more long weekend's believe, teachers MUST.pa.rticipate in for teachers, adding unnecessary expenses to an astronomical education bill, and depriving students of many hours of classroom instruction. Let teachers develop on. their own time, and at their own expense, some people wail. This may well be one. of those oc- casions when uninformed ratepayers or display of special significance to tendto make incorrect assumptions to , their subjecf''. areas; , some may get ' ®:suittheirown ,narrow views, or fuel, involved-. in county • educational their own private grievances. They, workshops; some may use the time for believe what they want to- believe ...,. discussions at their •local school about' andtheywon't be confused with'•fact ., specific problems and. concerns. But. The fact is that by far the majority of ' ALL teachers are required to use teachers in any school system are professional development days and dedicated, highly trained personnel -ALL teachers undoubtedly gain who;like theirjobs, and want to do knowledge': and understanding in a them to the very best of their abilities. variety of ways from. these days. The fact is that by far the majority of • There maybe some worth in 1 a teachers right here in Huron County suggestion that interested parents and are vitally interested in the young taxpayers should be invited to observe people they teach and want 'toprovide at.some.professional development day the best possible learning experiences activities throu-g-h_out the county. for them. •The fact is that rated,ayers Educators know from experience the would have more reason fo complain if response from 'the publ'lo-'would be teachers were. not interested in minimal, yet many of them are L developing their professional skills and prepared to open their deliberations to - attitudes if teachers were conterhit those few who would 'attend, hoping to go into the classroom day after day," that in so doing their professional skills k ` year after year, with the same skills and attitudes would be recognized and and attitudes they had•when they came appreciated, out of school themselves. If such .professional 'development, Professional development days can days become a reality in the county, it be most productive. Certainly it would is -to be doped that the c•iti=tfics of PD be nonsense to believe that all "PD':' days would be arriong the first to attend days are . exhilarating experiences ' the sessions. It is always best to be which send the teachers back to their informed before picking holes. — SJK. professional development days. They cannot choose to ignore this respon- sibility and go shopping or stay at home for an extra bit of shut -eye. 'True, the extent of participation varies. Some teachers may travel to another . school system to observe; some -may visit a particular. exhibition Ile oberith SIGNAL -STAR -,•0— The County Town Newspaper of Huron • —0— Founded in IMO and published every Thursday at Goderieh, Onlacio. Member of the ('W NA and OWNA, Advertising rates on request. Subscriptions payable in advance $1.2.ao in Canada. 515.30 to U.S.A., l20.90 to all other countries, single copies 25 chits. Display advertising rates available on request. Please ask for Rate ('ard No, 7 effective Oct. I• 1976. Second class mail Registration Number 0710. Advertising is accepted on the•con- dition that, in the event of typographical error, the advertising space occupied by the erronenrfki item, together with'reasonslhfe allowance for signature, will not he charged for huf the bola nee of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate, In the event of a typographical error. advertising good's or service- at a wrong price, goods or sei:vice may not he sold. Advertising is merely an offer to•sell, and may he withdrawn at any ti The Signal -Star is not responsible for the loss or damage of unsolicited manuscripts tr photos. Business and Editorial Office TELEPHONE 5244331 area code 519 Published, by Signal -Star Publishing Ltd. ROBERT G. SHRIER president ent and pub sher SHIRLEY.). KELLER - editor EDWARD J. BYRSKI — advertising manager Mailing Address.. P.O. BOX 226, Goderith Second class mall'' registration number-•-O7T6 L. N1nterfligh.t BY SHIRLEY 1, HELLER On Wednesday evening Iasi week, I turned on • the television set in the family's living room to' watch Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Joe Clark and Ed Broadbent discuss ` their feelings concerning the recent election outcome .intbe Province of Quebec. But I must admit I turned the set off ' midway through- the presentation -. partly because.. I felt I had the gist of the program; partly because I doubtthat the people •of Quebec will ever separate from the nation; and mostly because J wanted to watch one of those •American comedies Canadians aren't supposed to see too much of. ," 1 didn't even wait -around to see if one of the country's top political analysists would comment on. what Mr.. Trudeau and the others had to say: To. be truthful, that annoys ;me more than anything about such By Dave Sykes EAR READERS television appearances by political persons, either here or in the .U.S. The networks all seem to assume that the listening and watching public isn't wise enough to 'un-" derstand- what it has just heard. They feel it is thei duty to review the statement of the prime minister, the Ieader of the opposition, the president or whoever . • and tell the viewers what it was that was said. • That always angers me, and I usually end up madder than a wet hen because someone. in • Toronto or Ottawa, pr' Washington really .believes he orshe needs to interpret precisely what .was meant .by the.speakef•. More. times than not, in my opinion, the analyst misses the point ' of 'the. presentation and completelytwists the intent of the speech, confusing the issue. One of the most 'vivid cases in -1 point was a' • speech delivered by Trudeau earlier this year in which the Prime Ministertackled the question of why government in- tervention was necessary in a free enterprise system. I heard the speech and un- derstood what Mr. Trudeau said I thought: That is,. until some analyst came on the tube and told me he thought Mr. Trudeau had said something entirely different Apparently, the analyst's interpretation :: caught fire, because some of you may 'remember the hooplathere was over that situation ending tip with the Prime .Minister sending out copies of his speech (or at least por- tions of it) to the media so members of the press could actually read for themselves from the Prime Minister's text concerning' the . whole affair. That was one time when the analyst screwed everybody up .... and the whole country would have been better off if nobody had tried to tell us what we had just heard the prime minister say a moment or two earlier. -r + -1- But what, you may'ask, was I doing sitting.•down in front of the television screen at 8 p.m. on a weekday evening? Why wasn't I ironing (you've been peeking) Or cleaning or baking or something? We11, ours is one of those ' automated, electronic households and I'm sup- posedly one of those modern Canadian housewives who do nothing at •all tut ^watch. television: It's great. But women like . me women who sit in front of the. television while the gadgets do all the work are a ;the decline. According to . a release I got last week from the University of Waterloo, more and mare housewives are usingthe tone saved by household gadgets to get a university education. The University of Waterloo offers correspondenc.e. courses in everything from psychology, sociology, languages andhistory, to the sociology of.. the sex roles, family and kinship, utopian communities, personality theory, -learning • and motivation, early childhood education, the history' of French Canada, German- thought ermanthought and, culture, poetry and song in , Quebec and. Ancient Rome. Each course is four months long and enrolment. takes place in mid-September, mid- December and mid-March. The University ofWaterloo ''pion, Bred the .taped= lecture system used by their correspondence students. Students are sent packages:of cassettes of taped lectures, along with lecture notes, textbooks and -' set of assignments.They listen to • the tapes (they must get their own players), read the notes and texts, and work on their, assignments which they return .to their professor for. marking, according to a pre- ar ranged`scheduie. _ - After markingthe assignments, the :professor prepares a "tutorial" tape in which he eitplains how the students are doing and where (conti•nued on page 2 1) OPEN,LETTER'. TO THE TAXPAYERS My name is Eileen Palmer and I am a candidate for deputy -reeve • in the December 6 Election..I was born on a farm in the Township of Kenyon, in the County of Glengarry in Eastern Ontario and taught elementary school for four years. I have six children, Janice R.N. a graduate of St. Mary's School of Nursing. Janice has recently become Mrs. Jim McCormick and Jan and Jim live in Guelph. Karen has an Honors BA in Urban Planning University of DEAR. EDITOR Toronto: Karen is married to a Goderich lad Marty Baechler and they live • in Toronto. Tanya is in her third year Honors Physical'Education at Western. Mike is in his second. year Civil Engineering at ` McMaster._ Steven is a Year 5 student at G':D:C.I, and Sandy also a student at G,D.C,I. is in, year 2. When I decided to stand for office at this time I did so because • of my concern' regarding: the Municipal financial situation. •. We presently have . a debenture issue totalling over 2 million dollars and running 40YEARSAG'O' Only one new candidate qualifiedfor a seat on local council next year, Mr. Harry Salkeld throwing his hat into ,,,the -ring by stating definitely in his nomination address that he was in the running. His. Worship, Mayor H. J. A.Ew Mac aa was returned for ' his ninth term by •ac- 'clamation despite the fact that he had .proffered the seat to other members of the council and Would willingly step aside for anyone who qualified for the position. I to 1990. The Ontario Municipal Board has advised the Municipality that the future debenture load . is limited to one million dollars. And already Town Council has proposed projects amounting to over four (4) million dollars. This is cause for concern. The handling 'of the Borg- Warner situation leaves a lot to be desired. Council was advised by our Town solicitor, by our Town engineer and by'..the .Ministry Of the Environment that it would be unwise to'enter any agreement with Borg-Warner until all issues were clarified. The , main issues: being "financial and' en- vironmental," andboth issues are of great con- sequence. Neverthelessmy opponent; Leroy Harrison, proceeded with a motion to accept the Borg-Warner offer to pur- chase. This type of heady and poorly analysed decision making is the last thing the Municipality of Goderich needs at this tihh'e. I -agree with one point -that the employment situation is bad and may get worse so creatingemployment is necessary, but I disagree that the Townshould give Borg.-. • • Warner a gift, wrapped package deal to bring them here. Industry we need, but industries locating in Goderich must assume some of the financial expenses .� incurred in establishing their plants here. Borg-Warner has refused -1:o reveal to Council what their 'product will be. Surely the Municipality is entitled to know just what we are getting, in order tb assess the environmental influence on the community_. In a two-page letter dated November 23, 1976 the Ministry of -the Environment (continued on page 2 1) LOOKING BACK The Bell Telephone Company, according to one reporter, $15,000 in Goderich, according to another $30,000 and according to yet another who, incidentally is looking for a job elsewhere now, $80,000; surely a staggering sum for such a small city. JudgeCostello, in an ad- dress to Goderich bandsmen, displayed . his contempt for reporters in no uncertain terms. "There is one class of the community I would like to see exterminated, placed up against a wall 'and shot at daybreak or poisoned," he stated somewhat. facetiously, "and that is reporters. They are like jackrabbits, far too plentiful. My dog can't bring home a neighbour's milk, . neither can 'T climb into my Office through a window when I have forgotten my keys, but it promptly rom tlY ppear a s in the papers.' • - " 5 YEtiRS AGO Picket lines went up outside the' Sheaffer Pen Company plant here in Goderi thj as 65 employees' of the plant, members of the local 2135' of • the Union of Machinists and Aerospace Workers walked off their jobs in support of, wage and other demands included in contract negotiations which broke off two weeks ago. A well-known Goderich police officer has been suspended pending a hearing of his case under charges of neglecting his duty. Con- stable Tom Fortner was suspended afterhe left what local Pollee Chief Fred Minshall explained was "the area in which he had been ordered to patrol." The chief further ex'p'lained that Constable Fortner was or- dered to patrol the. pickets Industrial operations begin at the Canadian Forces Base, Clinton, by the . end of February, 1972. Principals of therine BLuggage c � Company were in Clinton last Wednesday and said that once this operation is established, • another manufacturing plastic panel building systems, will also be introduced to the ba Gil.