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Oakville Beaver Weekend, Sunday, July 18, 1993 = 6 467 Speers Road, Oakville, Ont. L6K 354 845â€"3824 Fax: 845â€"3085 Classified Advertising: 845â€"2809 Circulation: 845â€"9742 or 845â€"9743 s The Oakwille Beaver, published every Sunday, Wednesday and Friday, at 467 Ian Oliver PublLsher is ane of the Matroland Prinfing, Publiching en en en on Robert Glasbey Advertising Director | gg',,mn E“”?‘fif‘w“g“m i Acion Free ston leck, ai on t ang on on conedten Campon, i 7 i auga News, rora ngr, Geoff Hill Circulation Director Heaver. Orilia Today, Oshawa/Whitby This Week, Peterborough This Week, i/ Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirro Teri Casas Office Manager Richmond HilThomt Liberal, roug r. All material plublshed in rt|he Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Any Tim Coles Production Manager M e r part of this material % strictly forbidden will the consent of the publisher. EDITORIAL Hot potato fâ€"you play with fire, you‘re going to get burned. And that‘s just what Oakville Lfown Council is doing with its recent decision to cut the number of firefighters it ires to operate its new Glen Abbey fire station. When the town looked at its 1993 budget, there was a request for 21 new fireâ€" fighters for the new station. But then came Bob Rae and his Social Contract and the resultant reâ€"opening of the budget process. In order to hit the new budget numbers, cuts had to be made and town council decided to slash the 21 person request from fire chief Wayne Gould, to 13 firefightâ€" ers. In making the decision, various councillors said the move, while unfortunate, was more the doing of the province than town council. Rae may have made the rules but their interpretation was clearly up to council. The situation is just about the worst possible scenario for the fire department and the Glen Abbey area residents who were counting on the new station to give them an added sense of protection in the event of a fire or other related emergency. Further, and of more immediate concern, are the comments and dire warnings of the chief himself in looking at operating the station with just eight people on a 24 hour basis. Gould told councillors that "injuries, fatalities and dollar loss" may result from the cuts. His words are as chilling as they are real. The problem is this: under fire department regulations, there must be 10 firefightâ€" ers on the scene of a house fire to allow any firefighter to enter a single family dwelling. Given the number of such units in the Glen Abbey area, chances are good, if there‘s a fire, that‘s where it will occur. Gould said that with 13 firefighters assigned to the station, what residents can expect is nothing more than an emergency medical team and it will take a lot of shufâ€" fling of personnel to try and deal with servicing the community. ~Even Ken Janisse, president of the Oakville Professional Firefighters Association, was on hand Monday to plead for more staffing at the station. He warned of the needless risk to residents and firefighters working on underâ€"staffed vehicles. Gould said he would have to look at tapping existing surplus salaries, using overâ€" time and backâ€"up from other stations to try and fill in the holes. After approving the deal to hire only the 13 firefighters, Gould left the chambers and councillor Sean Weir got up to ask where all the money was going to come from to pay overtime to these firefighters. Suddenly a light went on and so now Gould will have to again return to council on Aug. 9th to tell council how he can staff the new station without going over budâ€" get. When that meeting convenes, council may well have to consider alternative fundâ€" ing cuts, rather than slash the number of new firefighters. For as it stands now, just about nobody winsâ€"the firefighters feel unsafe, the residents have a false sense of security and town council is hedging on a policy of possibly. putting money ahead of people‘s lives. It should be a very hot meeting. $ What‘s in a name? own council has, in its wisdom to call the new Upper Middle Road I bridge, the ‘Smithâ€"Triller‘ Viaduct‘. The names come from two early Oakville industrialists, Philip Triller and Thompson Smith. Of course the four person committee chosen to come up with the name was at odds over the choice, having discarded such gems as: River Glen Bridge, the Old Open Trussel Bridge, Unity Crossing and Abbey Oaks Bridge. And what will the ordinary Oakvillian call the span after its official openâ€" ing on Aug. 20th? Why the Upper Middle Road Bridge of course. What could be simpler? QUESTION OF THE WEEK Do you think the town should hire eight additional firefighters to bring the new Glen Abbey fire station up to full compleâ€" ment? s Give us your opinion on this topic by calling 845â€"5585, box 5012. All callers are allowed 45 seconds to respond and must provide their name, address and phone number for verificaâ€" tion. A sampling of the best answers will be published in the next Weekend edition of the Oakville Beaver. CALLB45â€"5585 T T == a a d 6 4 606 4 4 % 4) o # W ce is Cl s a a 4 4 [ I W N i N 8A W ( j j N NK w \‘\\ \ j \ N N -;\‘ N N // # _â€"When it comes to dumb, there‘s nothing like a crook The most common question | ~ people ask when they find || . out that I scribble for a living is "where do you get your ideas?" I always tell them that I steal them. Which is true. I steal my column ideas from books, magaâ€" zines, TV programs, things I see on the street, conversations I deliberately overhear in the supermarket. Unfortunately, sometimes even theft isn‘t enough. Every once in a while a guy will find himself hunched over his word processor, a deadline dangling like a Damoclean switchblade over his neck, his fingers poised like twitchy talons over the keyâ€" board and... Nothing. No inspiration, no ideas, not even the ghost of a notion to fill the blank gaze of the monitor before him. Scary... but all is not lost. There‘s always the Dumb Crooks file to fall back on. It‘s a manila folder that I keep beside my desk, bulging with news clippings about ruined robberies, fouledâ€"up felonies, heists gone haywire and gormless gangsters gang aâ€" gley. The daily papers are full of them â€" tiny little ‘filler‘ stories about wouldâ€"be crooks whose walk on the wild side turned into a pratfall. Such as? Well, such as the story out of Fort Erie, Ontario last month. A woman working late in an accounting office looked up to see a man armed c with a clqb.‘ He: demanded money, then ordered the woman to get into her car. She did. > He waited for her to unlock the passenger door. She didn‘t. Instead the woman drove straight to the police station. The cops immediately issued a bulletin in which the details were sketchy. Officers were alerted to be on the lookout for a man who was "not too swift." Speaking of Not Too Swift â€" how about Donald M. Thomas? Mister Thomas escaped from jail in California after serving 89 days...of a 90 day sentence. He was captured. He now faces up to 20 years in prison. Ah, yes but he‘ll go down as a Legend of Crime. As the Birdbrain of Alcatraz. and let us never. forget the famous Edmonton Two â€" a couâ€" ple of Albertan Butch and Sundance wannabes who made Canadian criminal history of a sort the night they knocked over the Petro Canada gas station just outside Vancouver. They surâ€" prised the attendant, tied him up and left him in the washroom; escaping with the contents of the till. But they were as I say, from Edmonton, and a little bewilâ€" dered by the bright lights of Vancouver. Whic'h’ is. why 20 minutes later, they pulled into a gas station to ask directions. A...Petro Canada... gas staâ€" tion. The same Petro Canada staâ€" tion they‘d knocked over earlier. The station attendant, just removing the last of the ropes from his ankles looked up to see his worst nightmare happening all over again. "I guess they didn‘t recognize me or the staâ€" tion." He stammered out directions then quickly called the cops. Just as he was hanging up, the attendant looked up and saw... the same two guys coming towards him. Their car wouldn‘t start. Could the mechanic...? Alas, the mechanic wouldn‘t be on duty until 8 a.m. The Edmonton Two were waiting for a tow truck when a police cruiser pulled in and graâ€" ciously offered them a free ride downtown. Let‘s give the last word to Thomas Russell in the San Joaquin County Jail. Mister Russell, who was doing time for burglary, was startled to receive a government cheque for $26,447. Startled, but not paraâ€" lyzed. He immediately used $6,500 to post his own bail and promptly left town with the remaining 20 grand. Which no doubt really ticked off the San Joaquin County tax collector. He‘d sent the cheque to the wrong Thomas Russell. Not exactly a story of dumb crooks, you say? True. But the bad guys have to win one once in a while.