Georgetown Herald A Division of Canadian Newspapers Company Limited 22 Main Street South Georgetown Ontario WAITER BIIHN Publisher Page GEORGETOWN THURSDAY JAN 11 EDITORIAL COMMENT No Roaring Mice A British movie The Mouse That Roared depicted how a group of average men can successfully challenge bureaucracy With regional government just over the horizon t it be something if fiction could become fact We can see few advantages in the impending regional govern ment and many changes which will contribute little to efficiency when compared with cost At present Halton County has a form of regional government which has worked quite well municipal councils plus a county council composed of two representatives from each of the municipalities Voting In county business weighted according to population of the various towns and townships The county government controls such things as justice old age homes county roads and health Municipalities look after their local roads police fire water recreation planning and sanitation to name some We have in effect a regional government The contemplated set up will At It Again A master of insinuation is at it again A Mail Bag letter from Mrs Joan Smith last week took The Herald to task again for not discussing issues and refusing to check facts She even criticized us for reporting what is heard at council meetings Instead she implies we should report what should have been said what might have been said or even what wasn t said And she slyly quoted part of an editorial which she attributed to issue It was November 24 Mrs Smith as follows Let me qiiote from Mr s editorial of Nov We share concern if The s news columns do not always reflect the facts But The Herald is in the position of reporting what is heard at Council meetings Time and staff limitations do not allow an analysis of a discussion and further checking on the veracity of such news unquote She failed to point out that the editorial also said that if erroneous statements were made at council meetings these could be corrected by councillors or ratepayers at the next council meeting and reported by The Herald as such or Mail Bag letters could be used to set things straight OCONNORS OTTAWA be cumbersome and costly Government already bur dened with hierarchy will add administrative personnel and full time elected politicians to further increase tax rates already straining the home owner capacity to pay How much simpler when changes must be made to alter county boundaries where needed and to shift some areas of concern from county to municipality or vice versa There can be definite ad vantages to of some local services It would not be impossible to have county policing and fire controls replacing individual systems Planning could be coordinated countywidc or extended to em brace an even larger area without imposing a completely new region To put it In simplest terms one doesn t tear a whole house down to remodel a couple of rooms And isn that what govern Is doing today with municipalities If only we had a few roaring mice Sheconcluded by implying that when people asked during her election campaign what had happened to the transit study The Herald was apparently to blame for not revealing what happened And yet Mrs Smith who promoted the study made no further reference to it in council meetings so far as we can recall A case of the pot and the kettle if we ever saw one A ratepayer whose Mail Bag letter started a trail of vituperation could be excused perhaps because of lack of knowledge of municipal procedure But surely a person who has sat as a councillor for two years should have a better understanding of how the press operates A reporter attends every open council and committee meeting of which The Herald is aware and gives as full a report as possible to readers in the news columns If the editor wishes to com ment on a matter of public he does so In the editorial columns Never do we mix news and editorials in the news columns a practice all too common in many dailies And never no matter how much we sometimes would like do we campaign for a candidate in an election of taxpayers money and a tangle of annoying red t Exactly He Napoleon shows the way THE RETREAT TO OTTAWA Almost Happened Sometimes in a pessimistic mood we wonder what would happen if all The Heralds staff members took sick on the same day Last week it almost happened Compositor Dave Hastings was home with the flu the last few days of the old year And when we returned to work Tuesday after the holiday jhop superintendent Garfield and office gals Aileen Bradley and Valeric Caruso were In fhe Mail Bag Says Conservationists Also Guilty of Polluting Georgetown ONT To The Editor In reply a reply by heading my original letter in The Georgetown erald in I he past two or three weeks First of all Mrs proclaimed triumphantly before I could finish Now you ve got It He glowed at so completely making his point I slunk out file In hand problem un solved having lost this battle but rest assured not the war If you have problem Idea comment criticism or if you simply wish to get In touch with me please stop by or call my Hiding office at Road East Oakville questions the act as to whether or not snowmoblling is a sport 1 Mrs Hansen sport means competition and compete all over North America every year for cash money and trophies It also means to amuse oneself Now we will refer to the muscle and strain used in as to the polluting sports mentioned by Mrs Hansen This depends wholly on the terrain or contours of the land where the person Is plus the fact that some people stress and strain all week at their place of employment and may just like to relax on the nice soft seat of a snowmobile In their leisure time 3 Now we will move on to the natural resources used In the manufactures and home with the flu to be joined Inter in the day by ad manager Frank Mullm And news editor Terry Harley and compositor Myles Gllson been feeling too well either over the weekend With Mary Biehn filling in the depleted staff still managed to reduce the paper on time a to those who carried on so nobly We still wonder what would have happened if more than four had been missing operating of the snowmobile Mrs Hansen 1 would venture to say that 95 percent of the naturalists and con that you referred in your letter to The Georgetown Herald drive automobiles of some make or model to the area where they plan to strike out on their hikes or skiing or snowshoeing etc and as a result they are guilty of the offences that you are shoulders and In addition to that the same natural resources are used In the manufacturing and operating of the automobile as well as the polluting of the environment There could be an automobile In your own family and If there is your family Is also guilty of these offences On the other hand if there is not an automobile In your family I offer you my humble apologies One sector of the population cannot condemn or eliminate the other sector of the populations mean or relaxation recreation or sport in order to Justify their BILL SMILEY Now Its Four Times Thanks to The Cat As I recall my last column was a tale of woe relating he dreadful things the gods had done to me In I should have kept my mouth shut The same gods annoyed at my tiny protest decided to show me what they could really do Take a cat Go on Any old cat Take a freshly waxed floor Take a guy with an armful of milk and eggs Take a wife who la upstairs watching TV when she should be helping that guy with the groceries 0 The guy comes in He t make a mess on the newly washed and waxed kitchen floor He is in his sock feet Right lakes two quarts dozen eggs and a case of pop He heads for the kitchen counter At that very moment the cat unfed hurls herself at his legs meowing and Maltese Cross Fire Emblem During the Crusades the Knights of John from the Island of Malta encountered fire used by the Saracents as a new and horrible weapon of knights were burned alive while other knights risked their lives to save comrades A cross similar to the one a fire fighter wears today was awarded the brave knights of this campaign And ever since the Maltese Cross has been a symbol of protection HID YOU KNOW Like Japan Italy lies along an earthquake belt The Bay of Naples with the volcanoes of Vesuvius and literally forms the lid of a vast cauldron own means of same if they are equally guilty If the leaders of our country would cease to sell rubbing He lifts his right foot gently to turf her out of the way spins smartly on left metatarsal and goes down like Niagara Falls He falls to elect grub thing that hits anything is his noggin which tries to tear the copper of the cupboard door handles The next thing that strikes hard pan is his nose which bounces off the floor In a spray of blood and milk Yes he holding onto milk He loses only one quart of blood two of milk His erstwhile wife and protector comes down and finds him sitting In something like a Masai wedding two ports milk to one part blood a cold cloth on his torn scalp eggs oil over the uiace and his nose going up like a balloon being filled with hydrogen But there no fret no sweat had his nose three times before and by far better people than a cot or his wife waxing Sitting there among eggshells and milk and blood he remembers fondly the time his future brother in law gave him an elbow and cracked the old beezer during football practice And then he thinks of that beautiful free for all with the Royal Marines that pub in Wrexham North Wales when the fighter pilots proved only that they could not fight And I remembers almost with pleasure the day he was being beaten up by the German guards and nobody had even broken his nose yet and then the little guy who was engineer of the locomotive came rushing into the and kicked him right in the snoot And Id like to say this mutt sal there happily for ever after thinking about the other limes his nose had been broken But she wouldn let him Her first thought was pure Florence Nightingale Everybody will think I did It Yes I would think they would I Knowing you They 11 think you were drunk wjis her next con Welt that what Id think If someone told mc he d lost a oneround bout natural foreign countries for sup posedly big profits there would be an ample supply for everything and everyone for many years to come I myself enjoy nothing better than a good breath of fresh air to all and enjoy the rays of the sun to look into a nice clean fresh river or stream to hear a bird sing to see our wild life during their dally routines and for them to be healthy and alive but banning the use of snowmobiles in our country alone will not bring this into being It has to be done in totality and there are so many areas I would not know where to begin to list them Most of us are only small cogs in a big wheel and are only tolerated Thank you for paper space As always Hugh Hoot Wylie The other day I strode file In hand into one of the largest government departments determined to solve a problem for one of my Halton constituents As I approached a pleasant lowing civil servant behind the counter I noticed a large a computer like machine corner of the room It was about feet square by 15 feet long and displayed a series of dials and graphs on the front It buzzed quietly What that I tried Co sound casual in case I was supposed to know You noticed He replied his face brightening in satisfaction That our new Red Tape Machine Your Red Tape Machine I somewhat nonplussed Yes that where It all made for this department Much larger and faster than the old models In addition to developed new brand which we call Bureaucratic Red Tape BBT It was actually created as a by product of Ihe space industry It con tains a new type of synthetic material extremely strong almost Impossible to cut even with the sharpest mind or the most pointed questions CREATE REDTAPE You mean you actually work at creating red tape I Inquired dubiously Well the machine does the work now for the whole department At least for the near future But we hope eventually to develop a new branch of the department with full staff to handle the expected increased number of files and matters lhat will require the application of red tape to them But our ultimate goal he confided lowering his voice leaning across the counter eyes darting around for possible eavesdroppers Is an new department to serve the needs of all government agencies The Department of Red Tape The names of several Members of Parliament whom I thought would be eminently suitable ministers of the new department flashed through my mind A rebuttal occurred to me It wont work I shot back That theory has already been tried with Information Canada It was set up a single centralized agency to gainer reproduce and distribute information on all government programs and policies But as we know It a failure Each depart has chosen to maintain its own Information section to handle the publication and distribution of most of Its own material Information Canada Is Invariably late getting material or supply Is inadequate THAT SIT Why I exclaimed finger pointed upwards forgetting momentarily that I was not addressing an all candidates meeting Why a Department of Bed Tape like Information Canada would only result in duplication of service waste So you been how to get around on snowy days Sue Ruin and her three MUSHING ALL THE WAY dog learn don t have that I Urn Hut they re saving their energies these days for with a cat I suggested How am goinf to get the blood out of that towel she queried Well you might pretend you were a vampire and suck it out People will think you ve been beaten up she worried Yea I rejoined Smugly No answer going to lock the door so nobody can see you And I replied I m going to call a Dress conference and admit it was all your fault because youd waxed the floor and put the cat out and you wcren down to heip me with the groceries Ah heck 1 t put her through all that It was not her fault except that shed waxed the floor and hadn put the cat out and come down to help with the groceries and Insists I take my boots off when I come In onto her rotten polished floors Its not so bad really Apart from the cuts on my nose which look as though a gong of Glaswegians bad worked over there are only the eyes For some reason when you break your nose there a a great sympathy from your eyes They don weep except for the first six hours They swell up and up and up At first they are red Then they begin to look like a couple of tea bags that have been on the booze And when the worst Is over they turn a sort of bilious yellow When happens you know you are home free and that all you have to do is HERALD Anne Currie Valerie Caruso David Hastings Gil son John McCIcments Joan Davis Joyce VanDelinder CARRIER CIRCULATION Single copy Mailed subscription yearly BUSINESS DIRECTORY OPTOMETRIST L Brown R 0 OPTOMETRIST REPAIR SERVICE JOHN B0UGHT0N ONTARIO LAND SURVEYOR Robert Ltd Evans 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