Huron Expositor, 2007-11-14, Page 4Page 4 November 14, 2007 • The Huron Expositor
Editorial
Opinion
Proprietor and Publisher, Bowes Publishers Limited, 11 Main St., Seaforth, ON, NOK 1WO
Welcoming openness
It's been interesting to watch the indignation of
local councillors recently as changes to the
Municipal Act create a vehicle for ratepayers to
complain about closed meetings and to have them
investigated.
Unveiling plans to change the Municipal Act, the
provincial ombudsman lashed out at municipal
governments, saying ratepayers should be furious
at the number of important decisions being made
behind closed doors by municipal councils.
As of Jan. 1, citizens will have the right to ask for
an investigation - either by a locally -hired investi-
gator or the provincial ombudsman's office - if they
believe a municipal council is withholding public
information.
Faced with those changes, councillors at both
Huron County council and Huron East council have
expressed some offended disbelief that anyone
would assume their limited right to meet behind
closed doors has been abused.
While rule -abiding councils can have closed meet-
ings to discuss issues dealing mainly with legal
issues, property issues and personal matters deal-
ing with employees, the closed meeting has long
created frustration for media, mainly because there
is no way of knowing whether or not the rules are
being followed.
As councillors cite a "property issue" or a "legal
issue" to justify going into closed sessions, the lack
of any further detail makes it impossible to deter-
mine how those unnamed issues impact local
ratepayers and their tax dollars.
For instance, Huron East council spends a cer-
tain amount of money every year on legal issues
but even after those issues have been to court and
received a ruling, there is. no reporting on what
happened or why.
Reporters are hard pressed to ask about out-
comes of legal issues when there is no public dis-
cussion about their most basic facts or that they
even exist. There is definitely room for more open-
ness.
We have observed that most councillors are a
courageous, hardworking bunch who act with
integrity and express their opinions openly, even
when they know their opinions are unpopular.
As champions of democracy, municipal- councils
should be welcoming the new changes, if only as a
chance to prove that all complaints - even the most
frivolous - are unfounded.
Susan Hundertmark
Your Community Newspaper Since 1860
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High tech hide and seek has
me GPSing through the area
I may be hooked on a
ridiculous game of high
tech hide and seek now, but
for awhile there on a trail
outside Mitchell with
Christa recently, I almost
hated it.
The activity involves
using satellite technology
to search for small items that have been
hidden by others.
Satellite reception was spotty, so the
Global Positioning System I carried said
the coordinates we were looking for were
eight metres to our right, then 20 metres
behind us, then seven metres this way
and 10 metres that way.
The distance and direction changed
every few seconds, so it was hard to keep
straight.
It was confused and we were frustrated.
"I don't like this game," I thought, but
wisely kept it to myself.
This was my idea, after all. I'd heard
about it on the radio.
Called "geocaching," it's a game that
combines two kinds of technology into an
outdoor activity: the Internet and Global
Positioning Systems.
Originally developed for the military,
GPS units have been available for civilian
use for years. The handheld devices tap
into a network of satellites circling the
planet to pinpoint the location of the user
and plot it on a map on the unit's screen.
In geocaching, "geocachers" hide
Aaron Jacklin
"caches" and then post the
longitude and latitude of the
location on websites devoted
to the activity.
Other geocachers then plug
the coordinates into their
GPS units and set off in
search of the cache.
A cache is usually a water-
proof container large enough to hold a
couple of small items and a logbook.
When you find a cache, you record your
name (your real name or the name you
use on the geocaching website), a com-
ment or two, the date of the find and
whether or not you take something from
the cache.
If you take one of the small items,
you're supposed to leave something in its
place.
Having been raised on hiking, camping,
hunting and a variety of outdoor activi-
ties and being a technophile by tempera-
ment, this sounded like a lot of fun.
Christa - a long-time hiker, camper,
birdwatcher and seeker of snakes, turtles
and amphibians - thought so too.
We already had a GPS unit, so all we
needed to find were some caches.
We took a quick trip to geocaching.com
and searched a map of the surrounding
area.
Imagine our shock when we found
caches in Seaforth, Dublin, Clinton and
See GEOCACHING, Page 6
Ron & bave
HEY...This cartoon
is a rip-off from an
old Peanuts cartoon!
It's based on the theme, but
I've put my own spin on it
we call it "borrowing"
by David Lacey
I "borrowed" this from
Alley-Ooop, and put my
own "spin" on it.
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Susan Hundertmark
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