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Opinion THE HERALD 2 IMl Page 9 Building inspectors are essential to community Its and this years municipal tax rate increase is on the minds of many In Hills The general consensus among Town residents is that an acceptable tax rate Increase will fall somewhere in line with the in flation rate or between five and seven per cent Several times during the last few months town councillors have acknowledged this fact and in response have taken steps to keep the Town operating costs down One method council has employed to achieve this goal is not replacing vacated staff posi tions Indeed according to a re cent council report the town has so far saved by not replac ing four staff positions Ive found public reaction to be supportive of this approach Why shouldnt the Town operate like any other business and cut back during tough economic times people say Despite various interpretations of some of the previous columns Ive written on the subject of staff positions I support Councils ap proach I dont support however the idea Council apply this ap proach to all staff positions more specifically when It comes to building inspectors Building inspectors are essen tial to the Town and its residents Their work provides needed funds to the town and protects people from having to live in housing The town however has yet to fill a building inspector position that was vacated in the fall Town Building Director Ron suggests the hiring of a new building inspector could pay for htm or herself The Town col lected In excess of from people who only ended up paying for a building permit after being ordered to by a building inspec tor In not refilling the position Mr Shettell predicts building In fractions in Town will probably go uncorrected because the cases wont be taken to court in time The end result a loss of revenue from fines and more importantly unsafe buildings Mr Shettell says six of the 30 cases involve il legal apartments currently oc cupied that may be presenting a safety hazard to the occupants People argue an additional building inspector is unnecessary now because the slowdown in the economy has meant little or no construction activity However according to Mr Shettell there are currently 15 industrial and commercial applications that cant be processed due to lack of staff Translated this means a loss of much needed Town revenue The Town should be run more like a business people say mean ing in tough times cutbacks are- the rule than the excep tion At the same time Town cut backs should happen in non essential areas of which con struction Media must keep themselves in perspective OTTAWA One of the medias greatest problems particularly in times of economic difficulties is keeping themselves in perspec tive Take newspaper closures for instance When one folds and say 500 people are thrown out of work it becomes a nationally sensational story Were in variably treated to tearful pic tures quotes about the breakup of a loving family accusations that management was cruel and uncaring In short an unqualified catastrophe Now an industrial plant down the road can close 1000 lose their jobs and its a oneday incident Its just a sign of the economic times or in this case the reces sion It wasnt long ago that 2900 Air Canada employees lost their jobs And as I recall CBC television ran a brief item on its national news with some stock film on ticket agents at work and some mechanics checking an aircraft It was one of the major stores of the day taking up about seconds of air time But when the announced that 1000 of its own employees would lose their jobs in a 10-per- costcutting initiative it was not simply a major story The networks national news devoted no less than minutes to the story The Persian Gulf crisis was made to look by com parison like a schoolyard spat The subject dominated the Commons question period for a couple of days Our constitutional crisis was pushed to the backburner A visitor from another country would surely think that at the very least an atomic bomb had been detonated in downtown Toronto BIG IMPACT This is in no way to suggest the CBC cutbacks are merely in cidental A loss of jobs in any field is extremely painful often devastating to those involved And in cases like this when a par ticular layoff is grossly over- covered perhaps there is an up side it might help us focus on the hundreds of others who lose their jobs every day in other fields Many dont even make their way to newspapers or TV One thing is certain If President Gerard Veilleux wanted the cutbacks to attract maximum attention and create a stir in Parliament he clearly went about it the right way Hes Stewart MacLeod Ottawa been around long enough to know how the media feast on themselves and that nothing more infuriates MPs than the closing of local offices by some Ottawa or Toronto bead- quarters Mr Veilleux knew for in stance that every major newspaper in the country would have lead editorials about the Joss of 1100 jobs at the CBC just as he knew that outraged MPs would be demanding that local programming and employees be reinstated He also was probably aware that most of the public anger would be directed at the MulrOney government not the Even though only about of the cut back is directly attributable to government restraint the prime minister and his followers are the natural lightning rods But even Mr Veilleux must have been pleasantly surprised at the journalistic and political reaction LONG EXPECTED That the CBC was forced to make cutbacks comes as no sur prise although few expectd such a swift and stunning blow mediately after the Mulroney government assumed office in 1964 Finance Minister Michael Wilson sent out the message And his budget signalled the government would no longer give the corporation annual increases to cover inflation Then last year he announced government funding of the CBC wouldbe reduced by million over three years Of course everyone knows that advertising revenues have been dropping in the recession The has projected that ad revenue this year will be down by million Given the inevitability of cut backs where should they have been made In national enter tainment programs National news International news Sports coverage Local and regional programming Its unlikely there could be unanimity on any of them So Mr faced with a nowin situation did the best he could The axe fell heaviest on local TV operations while the na tional programming schedule was left relatively intact One supposes he was influenced the CBCs mandate to provide na- programming as an alter native to American imports Its a darned shame that so many people will be losing their jobs in the process and that so many viewers will be losing favorite programs and per sonalities But then a lot of jobs and services were lost with Air Canada cutbacks VIA Rail cancellations and the recent demise of the World University Services of Canada just to name a few Unfortunately were going through tough times And its not always easy to keep things in perspective particularly not when a subject is treated to a staggering 12 minutes of prime- time television news Close contact with the Feds can be dangerous OTTAWA Close contact with the many arms of the federal government can be a dangerous thing Just ask the thousands of Cana dians who received compensation last year for lost or damaged pro perty or personal injury caused by federal departments Ottawa paid out million in damage claims according to the Public Accounts the annual tally government spending Payments for accidents involv ing Crown vehicles made up a big chunk of he total But there were plenty of more exotic incidents Like the payment made to the Port Renfrew Hotel in British Columbia after Environ ment Canada employees started a fire in one of the rooms Or the paid by Environment after a collision involving an escaped bison A nursery received for the loss of plants detained by the Agriculture Department Canadas armed forces manag ed to do a lot of damage in defence of the realm The Defence Department apparently forgot to call before it dug and it had to pay Bell Canada after damaging an underground cable SONIC BOOM A sonic boom during an air show cost in damages while air force overflights brought a wave of claims in cluding paid to a fur farm Compensation for a con taminated well totalled and the District of got for a damaged Damaged bndgework of another kind also cost the department money A civilian dental clinic was pa id 3350 Our fighting men and women cat also be a danger to allies The Royal Bank of Scotland received for a collision involving Fisheries and Oceans caused more than damage to fishermens nets Another was paid for lost or damaged rented equipment Public Works chipped in with for damage caused by ice falling from a government building The same department handed over to the for water damage to exhibits In turn the paid 4015 to Indian and Northern Af fairs for property damage Mean while someone stole a rented cellular phone from Cor rectional Services Transport Canada had the usual runins with trains and boats and planes last year There was paid to Pacific Western Airlines and Air Canada for aircraft damages American Airlines got 11109 for disturbance to operations SALES LOST An accident to the vessel brought a 50000 claim CN Rail got for damage to the Grand Narrows Bridge on Cape Breton Island Even the benign beancounters at Statistics Canada got into the act A photographer was reim bursed 1500 for lost future sales after StatsCan irreparably damaged a transparency The government also made a number of nugatory payments described as those for which no value or service has been receiv ed but for which a liability is recognized These included such oddities as paid by Parks Canada damage to exercise mats The Fisheries Department pro vided to a fisherman whose vessel was damaged while assisting in a whale rescue Then there were ex gratia payments that involved no government liability but were made as an act of benevolence in the public interest This means such things as the compensation Agriculture Canada paid for sweater which disappeared over the weekend Or the Immigration Depart ments 6000 payout to a client accidentally struck on head by a flagpole An Energy Department employee received for items stolen during a trip to the Soviet Union Transport paid out for food spoiled in a defective Crownowned freezer Even Parliament Hill proved to be no safe place A tourist receiv ed 100 for emergency medical services after an accident on the Hill