The Times Advocate, 2008-08-20, Page 44
Times—Advocate
Wednesday, August 20„ 2008
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Editorial Opinion
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TIMES ADVOCATE
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Deb Lord — Manager
Scott Nixon — Editor
itf( The Times -Advocate is owned by
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Doug Rowe -General Manager, Southwestern Ontario Division
EDITORIAL
Time to
save up
Call it a temporary reprieve, or call it just
delaying the inevitable, but a decision at
Monday night's South Huron committee of the
whole meeting to not put into effect new
water/wastewater rates until Jan. 1, 2009 at least
gives ratepayers a little more time to prepare for
the increases.
While the proposed new rates (still not adopted by
council) were originally intended to go into effect
July 1, that proved impossible as council held sev-
eral meetings to discuss the issue and recently
asked its consultant to re-examine the proposed
rates effecting apartments in the municipality, thus
delaying the process even more.
The original July 1 date was rushing it, and didn't
allow the public enough time to get used to the idea
of the much -increased rates, which, if passed as
have been so far presented will see the average
water/wastewater bill in Exeter rise from the cur-
rent $758 annually to $1,123. The initial July 1
date also apparently didn't give the municipality
enough time to prepare for the rates because coun-
cil agreed Monday night with operations manager
Don Giberson's suggestion to put off the new rates
until the new year, a decision that keeps a little
more money in our pockets for the time being.
The proposed water rate increase shouldn't be a
surprise, given the fact South Huron just construct-
ed a $13.5 million water pipeline from Lake Huron
that has to be paid for, but a delay in installing the
new rates might temporarily ease the burden on
some of the ratepayers concerned they can't afford
them. No one wants to pay more for water, and the
increase is more than any of us wants, but the
increases are coming, like it or not.
When all is said and done and council eventually
passes the bylaw, it can't be said there wasn't
enough discussion on the issue — indeed the new
proposed rates have dominated the talk at South
Huron council for the past three months and the
issue has been the prime reason council has met so
many times this summer.
WNATS CNADAS
COUNT UP TO?
Distributed by Canadian Artists Syndicate
Time takes its toll
Kicking and screaming, it looks like I may
finally be about to enter, if not the 21th centu-
ry, then at least the waning months of the 20th
century because it looks like my solid steel,
have to pick it up with two hands, pop-
up Video Cassette recorder, manufac-
tured circa 1978, is finally passing into
history.
It was 1983, a time when not every-
thing was made in China, although most
of it was made in Japan, when the
magic of the VCR came to our house
We finally had something else to watch
other than home movies and Tommy
Hunter and on the really bad nights,
Tommy Hunter's home movies.
It took a while to figure out how to hook up
the new gizmo and then the lights went down
for the first showing of an old fashioned family
classic and we (mostly I) enjoyed watching
Rocky get tossed out of the ring by
Thunderlips, Thunderlips get tossed by Rocky,
Clubber pound on Rocky and finally as the
music reached a crescendo, Rocky pound on
Clubber.
It was the first of many movie nights although
they weren't all classics, at least not watching
"Revenge of the Nerds" with the parents, com-
plete with sorority house scene and Booger's
commentary.
Others such as "Escape from New York" met
with disapproval from the aunt who
didn't feel that watching two guys with
nail studded boards wailing on each
other was appropriate viewing and did-
n't mind saying it repeatedly.
Over the years, other family members
moved on to newer and better technol-
ogy but somehow the heavyweight VCR
OLEN remained on my cabinet.
But time, as it tends to do, has
marched on.
Almost 30 years of service and a few
too many bachelor party movies have taken
their toll and the wheels have ground to a halt
on the steel beast.
The odds of finding a VCR repairman for less
than the cost of several new ones is slim, so it
looks like it will end up on the work bench, a
disassembled repair project, never to be
returned to.
All isn't lost, though. I still have the record
player, although that one last needle that's
been on since 1979 is getting a little dull.
PAT B
BACK 40
VIEW
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