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THE HERALD Wednesday May 3 Page Opinion Page 30 years ago Hunters Realtors were official tagged OHA Intermediate B champions of Monday night and they looked every inch the part in powering their way to an 11 1 final Win over a badly out classed team at Thorold to end their long treak to the title Wayne son of Mr and Mrs G W Victoria Ave was presented with his Queens Scout certificate by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario Hon J Keiller at a ceremony at Brantford on Friday April 17 where one hundred and twenty five Scouts from all over Ontano received similar honors Playing at the Brampton movies were Money Women and Guns and Desert Legion and coming soon were Juvenile Jungle and Young and Wild 15 years ago After insistence by Acton Trustee Tom Watson the Halton Board of Education approved its million budget this week Mr Watson who is the chairman of the Finance Committee for this board wanted the proposed amount ap proved without any deductions He reported that the average cost per pupil had increased in the schools by ten per cent over last years figures Saturday morning one thousand Georgetown and area residents were expected to turn out for the eighth annual 28mile OXFAM walk Starting time for the Georgetown area was scheduled for am at Holy Cross School Maple Avenue and all walkers should have been finished the route 30pm A number of Acton residents en joyed the third annual recital by two music students at the Music Centre Sunday evening Julie Smith and Joe Petnc who have just completed their third year in honors bachelor of music arrange the free concerts at the end of each semester to keep family and friends in touch with their pro- Dont allow obstructionist position to stop development Haltons from files 10 years ago Initially added to the tour to boost ticket sales in his current hometown of Halifax former Georgetown resident Kevin Head performed at Torontos Massey Hall last Wednesday night open ing a show for Irish folk rocker Chris De Burgh Three Georgetown District High School students were among the prize winners in the typing contest held at Lord Elgin High School April 25 The team from Georgetown were Ann Chris Nagel Lucy DeFraga Heather Donaldson and Lucy came first typing words per minute Heather placed third in the junior division with words per minute and plac ed first in the novice division at words per minute Bill Crawford manager of Union Gasr was elected president of the Georgetown Chamber of Com merce at the annual dinner April Mr Crawford took over the position from George Gray who had been president for several years 5 years ago Stewarttown Senior Public School students carried off a two- anda half hour play at the John Elliott Theatre entitled A Murder In A Nunnery A few of the many students who took part in the ex tensive memorization of the lines included Andrew French Jackson Trena Mackey and Richard Carman MacKenzie Smith Public School swimmers dominated the second annual North Halton Invitational Swim Meet held last Tuesday in Acton EDITORS NOTE The fallowing letter to Environment Minister James Bradley was filed with the Herald for publication Re Development in Georgetown I write on behalf of the Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce with regard to an important issue in our community I know that in your capacity as minister of the en vironment you regularly and fre quently hear from the environ community but I am not so sure that you hear all that fre quently from the rest of the community about environmental issues My letter relates specifically to the development of the Georgetown community of the Town of Hills and the re quest by the Isaac Walton Fly Fishermans Club for a bump up to a full environmental assessment for Regions proposed water takings to service develop ment in Georgetown Mr Minister we take no excep tion to the protection of the en vironment Our members live work play and Invest in our com many of us for many many years and we have as big an interest in protecting our environ ment as anyone We have a con cern though that the protection of the environment be balanced against our communitys need to grow in a planned and tally conscious way As businessmen and residents of our community we have great con fidence in the Regional Municipal of Halton and its attendance to environmental issues We think has an enviable record in those areas and one which your Ministry should not take lightly We have considerable concern with the campaign being mounted by the Isaac Walton Fly Fisher mans Club and its impact on the development in our community It has been a long time since there has been new growth of any conse quence in Georgetown and an equally long time that Region has been exploring the water and waste water treatment options to enable that growth to happen For a relatively small group of people to take what we consider to be an unnecessarily obstructionist position at this point in a very long process we find ir responsible It is extremely important to understand that Halton Region has already accepted the fact that the proposed water taking might have an Impact on the environment hence Haltons willingness to im plement extensive monitoring pro grams to ensure that there is no harm to the environment With the Regional commitment in place we object and object strenuously to the request by the fishermans club for a bump up to a full environmen tal assessment Your acceptance of their request in our opinion would result in nothing more than a very lengthy delay to those peo ple who want to live in our com munity Mr Minister we urge you to take into consideration the views of the residents of our community and to deny the clubs request for a full environmental assessment Halton Region is a responsible government on environment issues and we are completely satisfied that the Class En vironmental Assessment process together with Haltons proposed monitoring program will afford our community ail the protection it needs Yours truly Murray President HUls Chamber of Commerce Strike could have been avoided Dear fair Every strike is a disaster that could have been avoided if com munication channels between management and the workforce had been kept open Everybody loses in a strike The workers lose most The community loses because the strikers will have less money to spend in the local stores The factory loses business And the management of the factory involved loses in trust because a strike points out to the community that something has gone wrong inside the factory that only management could have put right but for some mysterious reason didnt Like a country a factory has a history The conditions that bring about a- strike do not appear over night they are not brought into the piant by outside agitators they slowly grow over the years and if not checked they eventually will rise to the surface and bring about such a massive discontent that normally goodnatured and easy to handle workers will throw all cau to the wind and vote for a strike in spite of the grave conse quences Its a cry from the heart The reports in the press will in variably stress that money was the reason why an agreement couldnt be reached And the readers of the news not themselves showered with riches will in their minds blame greedy workers for the labor trouble The real reason however is always a breakdown in com As long as we are hap py with our jobs money is not unimportant but secondary When our jobs become hateful money becomes paramount I have worked at Bell in Georgetown since 1962 and I have seen this present strike building up steam for at least three years I have tried to warn everybody of the looming disaster but un fortunately nobody was in a mood to listen PG Bell was sold several times in those years Our old manager quit or got fired and new managers came and left like people caught In a revolving door Our supervisors became the real movers and shakers in the plant at least thats what it looked like to us and we had less and less input into the work process Attempts were made to under mine the contract and safety in some instances became an object of derision The union tried hard in my opi nion to bridge the widening gulf to make management aware that problems were developing on the We got brushed off Messengers of doom are seldom appreciated Now we are at war Will somebody have the courage to mount an investigation why we are at war Or will the people who brought this on cling to their jobs hoping that the storm may blow itself out ant the strike end at the expense of the workers The future will tell Georgetown hand wor will throw all cau managers Terror can come in No res for Mr Weir familiar places Korner Donna Kel Herald Start Terror can come in the most familiar of places Just last weekend I was covering my ears unable to listen to any more talk about French fry related deaths But no sooner had my shivers subsided from the death of two little boys who first hid a flam pot of grease and then themselves from trouble with their parents when the next tragedy struck The radio was filled with the hor rible of another tragedy that befell a Toronto family Two small boys and their grandfather were killed when a pot of grease was left unattended on the stove But this time it was not childish curiosity that resulted in a flaming error It seems Mother God help her fell asleep while cooking French fnes Can anybody want to eat the things so badly that they would risk a pot of bubbling grease on their stove I dont know about anybody else but echoes of my mothers inces sant warnings ring through my ears when I even think about cook ing with grease Its tragic to lose one life because of a faulty action Its selfish to be an adult and to do the very thing all mothers warn against Too bad this mother who received burns to her face but who survived the greaseincited infer no will have to bear the burden of killing her two sons and their grandfather For the boys and the man the horror was painful but now it over The mothers horror lives on Weirs View What sick individual would put sharp objects in a baby food jar It seems someone in England has a beef with Heinz Fine Blackmail Heinz in some creative way that does not put innocent lives in joepardy Get pictures of someone with someone else wife or find out whos selling what under the table But dont put inno cent lives in Jeopardy Boo to the copycat crime in the US over the weekend Yay to the babysitter who the food before giving the pulpy green stuff to her little charge finding the metal objects inside What some demented minds will contrive It makes you wonder Healthy foods are getting a bad name After the tainted grapes from Chile and the spotty black orange eaten by a Toronto woman I find myself looking more and more at those tags above the fruit that I used to ignore But I still find myself disregar ding the produce of Chile signs Dare I say you only live once I Its a terrible thing to say but its true For the first time in history today s kids have lost all proper respect for their elders Oh I know I know Adults have been moaning that kids lack respect ever since Cam broke curfew and told Adam to get off his back A few years ago indeed adults were forever lamenting that the kids of my own generation lacked respect But this was absolutely untrue We had all the respect in the world claim that we didnt was just a silly falsehood spread by a bunch of old stuffedshirts No its the present generation of kids that lack respect Trust me I am an adult now And I am not getting enough respect Just for starters lets address the dismal truth that I wax born one generation too late and as such will be forever denied one of my fondest dreams 1 am never in my life going to be called Mr Weir Now granted this may not sound like a big deal Lots of people will never be called Mr Weir par ticularly those whose name is something else But its a question of principle spent my formative years calling people Mr and Mrs And I consoled myself with the knowledge that the tables would one day be turned So what happens As soon as I hit 30 the entire society decided to shift to a first name basis Nineteen yearold dental recep tionists call you by your first name Twenty one year old policemen for Pete s sake call you by your first name as they re writing out the ticket Admittedly one doesnt get too upset about the policemen I don t much like being called by a policeman but I will concede that it beats all heck out of being called thedefendant But overall it just isnt fair Wheres the point in putting up with the woes of adulthood if you dont even get to be called Mister Surely there must be more to maturity than lower back pain As such you imagine how much fun I had last Sunday when I spent two hours at a birthday party with a bunch of four yearolds Let us pause briefly and consider certain possibilities Its certainly possible that I am a failure in life A disappointment to my parents a source of wry amusement to my friends a man who richly deserves to be con descended to by 19yearold dental receptionists But do I really deserve to be call ed Ian by a fouryearold Granted should try not to take this sort of thing personally One should simply accept that modern liberal society has decid ed that adults and four yearolds should be on a first name basis This is quite understandable considering that modern liberal society has loads of other dumb ideas as well And perhaps its hopelessly old fashioned to assume that kids should approach you with lowered eye and hushed voices murmur ing things like Tell me Mr Weir about how hard was in the Old Days All the same do we really need to settle for Hey Ian wanna grab me another Theres a decorum to be ed as I tried to explain to one of the party goers a particularly precocious little charmer named Andrew The timehonored agreement I explained was that I would call him Andrew while he called me Mr Weir But If he insisted on dropping me a notch down to Ian then the rules of etiquette demanded that I drop him a cor responding notch down to something like sonny boy or perhaps you runny nosed little begger This is the point at which his mother intervened calling me something unprintable under her breath so the issue never got resolved But Ill probably see Andrew again sometime and then well set things straight Its darned well time to take a stand here Your mother I shall tell him gently but firmly can call me what she likes This is her right as an adult And as a miserable old