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At 75 a year serving on council a breeze If you have never been involved In municipal politics you should have a go Run for anything from dogcatcher to mayor If you lose It will be good for your ego If you win it will be good for your humility I speak as always from personal exper ience For two years I served on a town council It was illuminating if not very enlightening 1 was elected of course by acclamation As was everybody else on the council So keen were the citizens to serve that some years on nomination eve we had to go down to the pub drag a couple of chara cters out and guide their hands while they signed up When I was elected I was present as a reporter There were only five other people In the council chambers so it was decided that I would be elected as the necessary sixth Since I had already served on the executives of various bund organizations which had died forth with I agreed It didnt die as Id hoped The next year we were all reelected By acclamation It was pretty heady stuff at first As a partner in a printing plant and a news paperman I was Immediately appointed Chairman of the Printing Advertising and Public Relations committee of council This meant that our firm automatically received the contract for the town print ing and advertising which we already had The public relations part meant that 1 had to stop suggesting in the paper that the town council was made up of nitwits nincompoops and nerds Another chap with a pretty good heating and plumbing business was named Chair mon of the Interior Municipal Modification Committee Keating and plumbing A third who had a tractor a back hoe and a was appointed Chairman of the Public Works Department He immediately Introduced a by law raising the rates per hour of such equipment It passed four to two The opposition was from another councillor a retired farmer who also had a tractor and a threshing- machine which he thought could be converted to plowing snow His brother-in- law voted with him But these moments of power and glory soon faded The conflict of interest became apparent and there was no way out for a man of honor except to resign It took me only two years to reach that conclusion You may think that a fair time but its not easy to walk away from a a year stipend The mayor made As a reporter I had been more Inter ested in the conflicts than the interests I had delightedly heard and printed one councillor call another councillor a gibbering old baboon And watched the victim of the pejorative a stripling of invite the namecaller outside stripping off his jacket during the exchange Cooler heads prevailed It was 34 below outside Well as you can sec as a member of that august body the Town Council I that sort of thing I had to report that the two councillors had a difference of opinion When wrote that phrase and had to omit that one of the councillors was obviously In his cups I knew I had to quit All of this is a preamble to a thlckish It is a new by law printed and dispersed at what enormous cost I shudder by our local town council There are 39 numbered pages of legal inanities and about an equal number of pages of maps of the town equally unintelligible As I sold the mailman delivered it regardless of expense A dozen kids could have covered the town in two hours or stuffed them In the sewer Despite my wide experience as a muni councillor or perhaps because of it this by law completely baffles me The first pages are definitions They tell us what is a lot a yard front and a yard rear a garage a building They also inform the ignorant citizenry what a school is a person a restaurant a motel a boarding house All alphabetically There was no mention of brothel under the The by law tells us how high our fences or hedges can be It tells us how high our houses can be How many square metres of floor space we must have If wc decide to ask Auntie Mabel crippled with arthritis to share our dwelling How many parking places we need for each establishment Again no mention of either brothels or bootleggers For most of the document the by law dwells in metres squared and I know very few people over thirty who would know a metre from a maskinonge Somebody on council must have cornered the market on metre sticks Then this baffling by law moves Into Hectares What the heck is a hectare To me an ancient French Canadian piece of land about as accurate as an acre which nobody understands either Heres an example uses are per mitted as specified to a maximum of persons per hectare Is It a square mile Is it a wit an accent This is crazy When I was a councillor we could knock off three or four by laws in a meeting and everybody understood them Moved and seconded that there shall be no loitering in the cemetery ex by those who are among the dead not the quick That sort of thing This big lawisforthebirds Or the lawyers Not for us old municipal poll Remember what I suggested at the beginning of this column Forget it Otherwise you might end up with a Deta dwelling unit which allows persons per unit standard Not two Not four 2 September I 1979 Dear Editor In reference to the latest news of Lord s death quoted as a shock to the whole world I find it too foolish for words in the face of all that has happened and the lives lost on both sides Ulster has been dominated by an alien population with a loaded rifle Discrimination closed the doors of Parliament that was granted Things went from bad to worse Lord Mount batten has lived there for some time and like all the rest has done nothing to improve the situation sensibly We can only hope to reap what we sow Public opinion is building up gainst all this nonsense and the excuse of the IRA is no longer good enough to it on much longer According to a cross country check up most were in favor of sensible changes so the underdog can lift his head and the tyrant sec the light There will be a lot to answer for over Ireland when that day comes Let s follow in the footsteps of Pope John to improve his world to a state of live and let live at least through our faith in the Good Lord as we don live right without it Ireland is a good example of that from countries under British rule ours sincere George Graham R I Lime house The Acton Free Press Wednesday Sept 5 5 Frontier Florist Garden Centre The Canadian Bankers Association soys lhal mure tha per cent of shareholders of thar banks shares are Canadian residents Sis 8222381 Floral Designs Weddings Funerals PLANT NOW FOR NEXT YEARI Evergreens Dutch Bulbs Etc STORE HOURS Sol Friday 9 Sunday AREA Oil PURCHASES more Also HOSPITALS FREE John Currie with customers at Georgetown library John is the new children librarian at both Hills libraries Library hires John Currie On the Two heads not better When former Acton Free Press col and dark room technician Wendy Thomson moved west to Alberta four years ago little did she know she was heading to the wild wild west Got a letter from her a few weeks back to say she was enjoying her sum mer cept for the fact hubby was chased by grizzlies while on a trail ride and Wendy wa3 home holding the fort against a mountain lion that had been killing the stock She doesnt dare stray too far without her shotgun And Ontario folk think they have pro blems battling rush hour traffic Le Lee he League for mothers who are nursing their babies or are con to do so is starting up Its next series of meetings next Monday at 8 atSandyKenzieshomeonlSslde- road west of Speyside The league offers mothe Mo- mother help in a series of four monthly meet based on the manual The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding The discussions include the latest medical research as well as personal experience Other ser vices Include a lending library of books on childbirth and breast feeding Other dates for meetings In this ser ies are October 15 November 12 and December 10 For further information call Marilyn Coxe at 8784803 or Karen Gregory at Hubby and 1 look two con weeks for vacation for the first time last month Usually we take one week at a time However we learned ft is just hard coming back after two weeks as It is one We arrived home Saturday after two extremely lazy weeks at a resort in the Between being pampered by the staff we enjoyed tennis golf motorboaling swimming and just lying in the sun We managed to squeeze in a few visits with Dave and Kay Dills of Acton whose cottage was just up the road from where we were The resort Elgin House was every thing its name Implied very elegant A few days rain did not dampe our spir its any as wc learned the finer points of ping pong and bingo while the rain poured down A lot of the staff attend Guelph un iversity although no one from Acton worked there All thoughts of work and newspapers drifted from our minds until we read about the Dominion Hotel fire Last summer while I was on holidays the Canadian Tire warehouse burned to the ground It will takea while for life to return to normal making my own bed cooking my own meals and doing my own dishes bubble from a near perfect vacation had to burst some time By Christine Two heads are always better than one Not ways For one little piggy born on Lazy Pat Farm two heads were a advantage The piglet owned by Lance Pocock had two heads un fortunately joined at the jaws making it evident that its life would be a very short one On Tuesday August 1070 the last meeting of the 4H Club was held for this year To start the meeting off with a little fun Lance Pocock the host and club leader asked each of the members to guess the combined weight of two The prize a glass piggy bank was won by Treviranus who came within three pounds of the actual weight Next came the Halton This quiz was used to test the members on how much they had learned In the Swine Club The members learned a lot about diseases at this meeting through guest speaker Paul Simmons Swine Specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food in Some of the diseases mentioned were tis Virus pneumonia and Parasites After the technical part of the meeting came the fun part Mr Pocock invited all to enjoy pop cake a dip in the pool and a game of Alt thanked Mr for being of the last swine club meeting for 1A79 j J NUMBERS I I Children arc people That the philosophy of new Georgetown Acton librarian John Resuming duties from past librarian Sharon John will be responsible for the general running of the library ordering plan ning programs and organizing activities for the children John obtained his at bridge University an MA at and WASH GRF For crisp salads pre pare salad greens such as lettuce and spinach ahead of time say food specialists at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food After pur chase thoroughly wash greens in cold water drain wrap in a toweling and refrigerate Then greens will be cool crisp and ready to use any time MtHMMKHB MSUWUMX RITES VITAL SUPPORT small business Mure per cent aging less of the chartered banks each business loans are to Sunflights SakoftheSun lMHavlne Par Coueta St Oct Oct On 6 117027 Hi eg W BO Hi 2S9 BO Jotraon 1J On IS 111 239 239 ido 10 239 120 HO BASED ON DOUBLEOCCUPANCY DEPARTURE TAXES NOT INCLUDED LTD 8533580 Spadafemg In Vacation TraveT his MLS at Western This is his first job in a lib rary John is hoping to get ideas from the children as to what they want their library to be We won be telling them what to do we want to encourage discovering themselves he slid John and his wife recently moved to Georgetown and are looking forward to becoming actively invol In the eommunitv With every purchase of jeans or cords for the month of September CHEST Bonn TOOTHPASTE 123 BODY ON TAP BEER ENRICHED SHAMPOO acton pharmacy CORNER MILLET MAIN STREETS