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The Citizen, 2018-03-29, Page 5Top down's t was only a small item from one of The Citizen's community correspondents but it illustrates what makes living in a small community special. A couple of weeks ago Brenda Radford wrote a few paragraphs about the death of a quiet Londesborough man who lived alone and had no relatives in Canada, yet would have been surprised at how many people attended his funeral. After reading the item, many local people probably knew more about the gentleman than they had during his life. It's the sort of thing that correspondents from villages and hamlets have been reporting in community newspapers for more than 150 years. It's also the sort of feature that has been mocked about small town newspapers for many years (I remember the jabs by professors when I went to journalism school 50 years ago). So it's easy to see why a decision maker for a newspaper chain who doesn't actually live in a small community might decide that such reporting was a waste of space in their modern newspaper. The irony, of course, is that it's exactly the sort of item people post on social media sites like Facebook which are the greatest threat to the future of newspapers. Brenda's little story also appeared just as the scandal broke about the misuse of data about Facebook users to try to manipulate voters. On one hand, you have the personal touch of a community resident making an individual better known to his neighbours. On the other, you have a mammoth corporation able to collect information on its millions of users as its huge computers collect every bit of information about what they look at, then sell information that can be used to influence what they buy or how they vote. The community correspondent is the ultimate in the grassroots approach. Facebook is the ultimate in Other Views replacing grassroots Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk centralized control. At the moment, people are re -thinking their devotion to Facebook — a poll this week said 73 per cent of users are planning to change how to use the service. Given the addictive features built into these social media services, I somehow doubt users' resolve to use it less will hold. Besides, people seem to like dealing with big, anonymous corporations. While many people stew over the widening gap between the ordinary citizen and the ultra -rich, we adopt habits that make the situation worse. Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, is so rich that when the shares of his company plummeted after the scandal he lost $6 billion in net worth (the poor guy's down to his last $60 billion). He gained this incredible wealth while contributing to the demise of thousands of newspapers around the world, the money that might have been distributed within communities that were home to those newspapers going to his California company instead. Similarly ordinary Canadians and Americans keep making Amazon founder Jeff Bezos ever richer by ordering online. Rather than spread the wealth among millions of shop owners and their employees across the continent, we're concentrating the wealth from our purchases at Amazon's Seattle headquarters. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 2018. PAGE 5. We seem quite happy to go along with reshaping of society that leads to all decisions being made by a relatively few people at the top instead of millions at the grassroots. That's not the way the free enterprise system was supposed to work. In fact we used to mock the Soviet Union's centralized control as bound to fail. Now centralized control is the preferred business model in the so-called "free world". The secret to this sort of centralization is so-called "big data", where so much information is collected on you and me that computers can predict how we will behave under all circumstances. The secret to big data is giving us things for "free" while collecting information on who we are, what we read, what we buy and so on. As one commentator said about the Facebook scandal, "if you buy something from a company you're a customer. If you get it for free you're a product to be sold." The large newspaper chains long ago bought into the top-down strategy, dispatching orders to their individual newspapers from corporate headquarters. They are branding newspapers as part of the corporate entity that is distributed locally rather than a local newspaper that's part of its community. They are watching Facebook, etc. and wondering how they provide an alternative for advertisers. But as they cut costs by making all the decisions at the top, they are also blind to opportunities at the community level because there are no decision makers at the grassroots. Each of their newspapers, given wise decision makers equipped with local facts, might be more successful if given that freedom. I worry that we're losing our grassroots touch — and the means to understand our neighbours through people like community correspondents. Separating a believerfrom the belief Part of some of the structural changes in having a new publisher here at The Citizen is the fact that I'm now doing more proofreading in hopes of less mistakes getting through. I say less because pobody's nerfect and sometimes these things happen. As a result of that change, I'm now reading a lot of the paper before it's in print. In practice, there's very little difference between reading stories from Huron East or Central Huron Council on Monday and Thursday. Seeing the stories ahead of time, however, almost makes me feel obligated to reference to them in this space. And just so everyone realizes, I do have a little skin in the game when it comes to Central Huron and Huron East. As an example, my wife works in Central Huron and I spent a good portion of my formative years in Huron East, so I like to keep tabs on that. This week, for example, I wanted to point to the Huron East Council discussion about the Tuckersmith Day Nursery. I could (and, if it continues to be brought up, likely will) fully express my opinions on Huron East looking to change the centre which, as Councillor Ray Chartrand points out, provides as much of a community service as the Seaforth and District Community Centre which receives significant funding despite running a deficit. However, when reading the story, I had to pause at the support that Mayor Bernie MacLellan found in his drive to have the site re-evaluated. It reminded me of an important lesson that I learned awhile back that may not always be apparent through the issues I tackle in my column: you have to separate the individual from the belief. When I write about how upsetting to me Denny Scott Denny's Den some of the changes local councils are making are, there needs to be an understanding that I don't think less of them because of it. I disagree with the decision, and possibly the motive behind it, but it doesn't mean I think the people making the decision are evil. The Tuckersmith Day Nursery situation, for example, has found support from Councillors John Lowe and Bob Fisher. Now, I could point out that John, Bob and Bernie don't use the daycare because they don't have children or don't have children of an age to be in that system so they may be a bit removed from the necessity of it, but that's a discussion for another day. No, my point in naming John and Bob is that I know both of them. I didn't know John until I started working at The Citizen, but, through his own volunteer activities, his family and now his time as a municipal councillor, I've come to know him and I think he's a great guy. Bob and I go way back. I worked at Pizza Train in Seaforth for a number of years when he owned the restaurant and, if you're not familiar with the place, you should be. In my humble opinion, it continues to serve some of the best pizza in Huron County. Trust me, when my wife moved her horse to just north of Seaforth, I immediately realized how great that could be for our family pizza nights. Anyway, I was a teenager when I started working for Bob and earlier this month I marked my 33rd birthday, so, like I said, we go way back. So while it's frustrating that two people with whom I have personal relationships would throw support behind an initiative I disagree with, I have to separate that belief from the believer. If not just for the fact that I will have to continue to write about and see these people, then for the fact that both John and Bob are reasonable individuals with whom I have developed a good deal of history. When you forget to do that, when you forget to balance the entirety of a person against one opinion they have, you start responding to things in an angry manner. As any married man can tell you, the second you get angry, you've already lost the argument no matter how right you may be. The belief to be separated from the person can be something as minor as musical taste or as major as core religious belief. Don't believe me? Well, jump in the way -back machine to shortly after I started at The Citizen and a local pastor took exception to my stance on cohabitation before marriage. This pastor was and has continued to be a great guy and a stand-up member of the community in my opinion despite our differing opinions on a potentially messy and major issue. It's an important life skill to have not just for a journalist, but anyone in a small town and especially anyone in a religiously -diverse small town like Blyth or Brussels that has more churches than restaurants. We all have bad ideas every once in awhile and we all need the chance to move past them, as long as we learn from them. Unfortunately for politicians, their bad ideas are public record and can often colour people's views of them for a very long time (or just a long enough time in an election year like this one). ir-/a4S- Shawn Loughlin Shawn's Sense DIY village betterment The people of Brussels often feel as though their municipality has turned its back on them. The municipality is based in Seaforth and, unfortunately, a lot of the time it feels as though that decision is symbolic of a lot more than a nice location. Hearing Huron East Councillor Alvin McLellan speak last week, it seems as though members of the community, whether it's Brussels, Morris and Grey Recreation Committee members or service clubs, feel they need to pay for improvements to their local arena themselves. With an influx of girls playing hockey in the community, the facility's change room situation is no longer adequate. Councillors have known that for years, however, it feels as though some councillors have chosen to ignore the situation, hoping it will go away. I understand that local municipalities are strapped for cash. I have written numerous articles and columns to that effect. I get it. However, what sticks in my craw in this particular situation is what McLellan raised: that $150,000 from the sale of the former Brussels Public School would have provided a great foundation on which the community could have built upon. That is, if council hadn't snatched that money away from Brussels about as quickly as it came in. Late last year, the municipality realized $225,000 from the sale of the former school, which was sold to a local Mennonite community so it could live on as a school. The staff recommendation at the time was that $150,000 from that sale be allocated to the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre reserve. However, on the strength of arguments, largely from councillors from the Seaforth area, the money was placed in the general reserve, washed away with all of Huron East's other money. (Don't ever tell me that we don't need wards, because tribalism is alive and well in our small communities.) This now leaves Brussels in the unenviable position of having to almost "re -apply" for general funds for this project, which, I don't have to tell you, will be difficult. Long-time Brussels Optimist and decorated volunteer Doug McArter wrote a Letter to the Editor chastising council the week after the decision. His points were hard to doubt. Now, the community is on its own. The committee has had to organize its own meeting to discuss its own funding. If a plan is in place and the community commits to raising a good chunk of the funding, perhaps council will come to the table. Perhaps not. In (maybe) unrelated news, we're waiting to see if council will authorize $10,000 for the Seaforth and District Community Centre's new viewing room floor, despite the fact that the centre has over $68,000 in reserves. Hey, I hear the municipality has $150,000 it's not using, maybe you can get some of that! Brussels has a remarkable record when it comes to fundraising, undoubtedly the best I've seen in my time here. However, the residents' willingness to dig into their pockets when required shouldn't be exploited either. Chief Administrative Officer Brad Knight, at the time, said that losing the school was a major blow to the Brussels community. And, while it was with general Huron East funds that the school was purchased, he felt the profits from the sale (after the purchase had paid for itself) should go back into that community. Seems hard to argue against that. Keep fighting Brussels. Things will happen in your community, even if you have to do it yourselves. (Spoiler: You probably will.)