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The Citizen, 2009-07-09, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JULY 9, 2009.EditorialsOpinions Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie GroppAdvertising, Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429,BLYTH, Ont.N0M 1H0Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152,BRUSSELS, Ont.N0G 1H0Phone 887-9114 E-mail norhuron@scsinternet.comWebsite www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels,Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc.Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $34.00/year ($32.38 + $1.62 G.S.T.) in Canada;$105.00/year in U.S.A.and $175/year in other foreign countries.Advertising is accepted on thecondition that in the event of a typographical error,only that portion of the advertisement will becredited.Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth.PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141PAP REGISTRATION NO. 09244RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: norhuron@scsinternet.com July 8, 1965 Grade 7 and 8 students from Brussels Public School, along with teacher Ken L. Ashton and trustee George McCutcheon left Brussels on Ralph Pearson’s bus for a trip to Niagara Falls. Points of interest visited along the way were a pioneer village near Peter’s Corner, Brock’s Monument at Queenston, the Niagara Power Development and the Niagara Gorge and Falls. Slightly over $2,000 had been raised to date to build a memorial chapel at the Brussels Cemetery. Dianne Turnbull and Linda Wilson, voice pupils of Mrs. Thompson, sang two songs at the Brussels Evening of Music. Dianne’s selections were A Bouquet of Rosemary and He. Linda chose Saviour Teach Me and I Believe. Organ solos were given by Mary Gibson and Ann Oldfield. The former presented an Elfin Dance and Bells Across the Meadow, using the carllonic system in the church. The later performed The Rejoicing from Handel’s Fireworks Music and Canaries’ Cake-Walk. McKillop Twp. ratepayers approved beverage rooms for men and women in a vote. The question of men’s beverage rooms was given a 74 per cent majority, 348 in favour and 122 against. On the question of men’s and women’s beverage rooms, 348 were in favour and 199 were opposed. The Dublin Hotel had started a rebuilding program and would include beverage rooms in the plans. Three years prior, residents rejected beverage rooms in a plebiscite. It was Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello and Deborah Walley in Beach Blanket Bingo, playing at Wingham’s Lyceum Theatre. Cousins Dairy cut house-to-house milk deliveries to twice a week due to increased labour costs. Deliveries were made north of the river on Tuesdays and Fridays and south of the River, Wednesdays and Saturdays. July 10, 1974 Village council won its fight to secure a motor vehicle licensing office for Blyth. Faced with a growing number of complaints from residents about reckless late-night driving, Blyth council voted to investigate hiring a special constable to police the village on weekends. Progressive Conservative Robert McKinley won the Huron- Middlesex riding in the federal election by 7,000 votes over his closest opponent. This was, however, a significant drop from the 10,000 votes he received in the 1972 election. The Sting, winner of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Robert Shaw was playing at the Park Theatre in Goderich. Starting mid-week, Butch (Newman) and the Kid (Redford) were back “just for the fun of it” in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. July 2, 1986 Blair S. Dickson was the new manager of the Brussels Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce branch. Brussels EMA celebrated its grand opening with a number of specials. Paper towels were on for 79 cents and chicken legs were 69 cents a pound. Maxwell House instant coffee was $5.99 and large green peppers were selling for 79 cents a pound. Large eggs were 99 cents and a pound of wieners cost 79 cents. The kindergarten graduates at Walton Public School were: Barbara Kenney, Craig Somerville, Trevor Newman, Kerry Blake, Carol Ann Gamble, Robert Kenney, Derek McClure, Erin Siemon, Loni Horst, Jason Badley, Brent Hazelgrove, Mathew Shortreed, Mark Beuerman, Kelly Boven, Chad Voogel, Melissa Pinkney, Stephanie MacDonald and David Henderson. The teacher was Joan Vandendool. Gregory Hines and Bill Crystal starred in Running Scared at the Mustang Drive-in in Goderich. July 3, 1996 The quality of the hay was so poor it couldn’t even be called a crop, said an OMAFRA soil and crop advisor. The very wet spring had spoiled most of the first cut hay, leaving farmers to rely on the second and third cuts for milk herd or beef cattle needs. In its efforts to save money, the Ontario Provincial Police moved area administration offices, including the one in Wingham, to Goderich. Blyth Public School students participated in a poster contest for the upcoming Morris Twp. 140th anniversary celebration. Amanda Bearss, Grade 3, won first place for her age category. Noreen Gnay was returned as chair of the Wingham and District Hospital board of governors. The Brussels United Church community and the village bid farewell to Rev. Cam and Barb McMillan. The couple, who were moving to Palmerston, received a framed print of the church and manse as a gift. The family of Joan Bateman donated a pitching machine to the Ethel ball park. Independence Day, “The question of whether or not we are alone in the universe has been answered” was on the playbill at the Park Theatre. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright Fighting invisibility While the short-term problem for the Blyth and Belgrave communities is loss of their schools, the long-term issue for these, and communities like Brussels too, is to fight becoming invisible. The root of the whole school issue is underfunding of rural schools and a bias to consolidating schools to create urban-sized facilities: hence the promise of $8.8 million for a new kindergarten-to-Grade 6 school to replace Blyth, East Wawanosh, Turnberry and Wingham schools. The school funding issue for rural schools is just one example of the invisibility of rural Ontario to Queen’s Park decision-makers – the sense that rural areas should be remodeled to copy as close as possible the city way of doing things. So for 40 years the provincial brain trust has tried to reshape rural into bigger units. The schools to be closed in Blyth and Belgrave were erected and paid for by the communities they served. At one time, each school had its own trustees to run the school according to the community’s desires. But in the late 1960s the province forced through county school boards, removing that local control. At least under the county system boards were large enough that your local trustee might come from your own community. Through the phobia of the Harris government about too many local politicians, county school boards were amalgamated and the number of trustees reduced. Now people often don’t know their trustee. Similarly, in the past four decades Queen’s Park has sought to force rural municipalities to fit a city model, first through regional government, then reorganized counties and finally, amalgamation carried out with the threat of a gun to the head by the Harris government. The result is that the ability of small communities to control their own destiny has been removed. Now you must convince municipal staff and a council in another community that your community’s needs are important enough it should be partially supported by taxpayers outside your community. Local communities have less control over the future of their hospitals since the Liberal government of Dalton McGuinty brought in the Local Health Integrated Networks (LHINs). The problem is compounded locally because the administrators in charge of our schools, LHINs and county and municipal governments are often hired from outside the area and carry the same urban-based thinking. They see the larger communities like Goderich, Clinton, and Wingham, but the smaller villages become invisible. Here at The Citizen, for instance, we’ve had to battle county and school board officials to convince them our readers deserve the chance to be informed, through advertising, about jobs or programs available. Small communities are going to have to fight to keep from being invisible. It may mean we must be noisy and impolite. We cannot afford to be complacent and watch all our community infrastructure lost. — KR & EDITOR’S NOTE: — Newspapers are always looking for ways to help their readers understand how to properly prepare a letter to the editor. The following appeared in a recent edition of the Rocky Mountain House (AB) Mountaineer. One of the best read parts of any newspaper is the letter to the editor column and there are usually more than enough to make issues lively and interesting. Rules of writing letters are quite simple. Stick to these and we will be quite happy to print them, if not one week, then the next. • Address your writing to the editor. With "Open letters" to someone else, we always get the feeling of snooping in someone else's mail. • "Thank yous".Please use our card of thanks column in the classified section, or have your group budget for display advertising space, rather than using a letter to the editor. Letters are the place to express opinions and carry on debates. • Bad taste.This is a family newspaper. People can make their points without vulgar language. • Libelous material.To bad mouth someone in public is slander, to do so in print is libel. If we allowed someone's character to be unduly attacked, we are just as subject to a libel suit as the author of the letter. • Illegible and incoherent letters. Our typesetters are renowned for their ability to read bad handwriting. However, the most ideal situation is to have the letter typed and double spaced. Some letters ramble and make no sense, no matter how nimble our mental gymnastics. If we can't make heads or tails out of the letter, we won't make our readers try. If we can edit the letter to make it clear, we will. • Length.This is not the place for a textbook of personal opinion. We suggest that most people can get their point across in fewer than 750 words. Keep it short and to the point. It is in the best interest of the writer for the letter to be interesting and understandable to other readers. • Prose and poetry.We are a newspaper and not a literary magazine. There are places for short stories and poetry. The only time we will publish such material is if the item is, in itself, newsworthy. Winning a competition with a poem or story is a good reason. On occasion we will invite such material as we do annually for our Christmas edition. • Anonymous letters.If the writer doesn't believe the letter is worth signing, we can't believe it is worth reading. The opinion is more valid if the writer is willing to stand behind it. If a person does not want his name to appear, he must make a strong case to us in person. • Unsubstantiated facts.If you want to quote "facts" in the letter, tell us where they come from so readers can check on them. • End of Debate.After we feel all sides of a debate have been thoroughly aired and letters on the subject become repetitive, we will put an end to it. • Local Interest.Any topic is fair play, but letters should be of interest to the people of our community. EDITORIAL POLICIES