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THE HERALD Wednesday September 5 ISM Page Roger Smith an 11yearold Chapel Street student was recognized as having come up with the most suitable name for Georgetowns new war memorial park Park the name thought out by Roger and selected by a judging committee was submitted to council Monday night by Dave Capperauld Legion president The name was favored by the council Finance Chairman Reeve Doug Sargent told council Mon day night that a small surplus might be found at years end Town auditor Walter Pope had just finished reviewing the first six months of the year which in cluded the ways in which the various departments had been handling their finances His filed report makes Sargent believe a surplus can be shown at years end if departments continue to operate as they have been Years Ago The Georgetown Library held a puppet show last week which entertained children whisk ing them off to a fantasy land of fairy tales Georgetown was only one of three stops for the tour of puppeteers who came from the South Centra Regional Library system All summer the group has been playing at the Cockpit Theatre at Dandurn Castle in Hamilton A major Canadian department store Zellers wants to open up a store in Georgetown has made arrangements with the owner of Georgetown Market Centre to lease square feet of land to build a store Focal Properties the firm that owns the land will build the store for them if the deal goes through The agreement can only become valid if the town decides to sus pend current regulations which would allow to stay open six days and five nights a week 10 Years Ago The Junior Halton Hills Beauty Pageant will still take place at the Fall Fair on the weekend of Oct as Georgetown resident Jim Barrett has the confirmed support of the Fall Fairs Board from our files Fourteen recent letters published by the Herald expressed negative response to the pageant but the board voted to go ahead with the competition The chairman of the- Separate School Board warned trustees Wednesday night that if St Josephs Separate School gets a portable facility it means it probably will never get a perma nent one Bob OBrien warned that pupils might be condemned to using portables for quite some time if they are installed Ironically the meeting for this had to be chang ed from St Josephs school to Robert Little public school due to overcrowding The problems with St Josephs school stem from the lack of space combined with too many enrolled students causing crowded conditions 5 Years Ago Halton Board of Education Trustees voted to give themselves a raise at last weeks board meeting This will be the boards first raise in six years their honararium raised gradual ly from a year to by December of 1988 The final vote showed in favour of the in crease four opposed Although extending funding has been promised students from public schools in Halton Hills have not been switching to the Catholic high schools Although no Catholic high schools are located in Georgetown cur rently the separate schools in Georgetown only go up to Grade through Holy Cross school Catholic high schools in Guelph and Brampton havent noticed a large increase The extended fun ding expected in January when the governments fiscal year begins will mean that Grade students will not have to pay tui tion costs of about LETTERS Norval resident objects to changes Staffing decisions should be open to the public Halton Hills Mayor Miller recently stated in an interview that town council will take two to three months to assess the needs of im mediately filling two vacated town staff positions or postpone making the decision for an extended period of time This means council in their deliberations will also consider the possibility of not filling the posi tions The two positions an engineer and building inspector carry with them a salary of between and each During the interview the mayor council would never leave positions vacant it deemed essen tial But for me herein lies a pro blem Council could make their deci sion behind closed doors If this happens the public will be unable to fully judge councils asessment of the positions importance In turn the public wont be able to judge fairly councils decision But since services to the residents could be affected if these positions or any town position isnt filled the public should be privy to the debate on the potential loss of ser vice in relation to the position not being filled Because an assessment of filling or not filling a position involves a personnel matter council can choose to carry out the debate camera An incamera sessions means its closed to the press and public Council can also call an in- session to discuss property and legal matters An incamera session Is held con cerning personnel matters to pro tect the reputation of an individual under discussion And rightly so everyone has a right to their privacy But in the case of discuss ing the importance of a staff posi- Bens Banter By Ben Dummett tion to the town the privacy of an individual is not at issue Under these circumstances council should not go incamera Councillors would probably argue any resolution concerned with filling or not filling a job pro posed during an incamera session must be passed in public I only started covering council in January but from what I can gather the crux of the debate takes place behind closed doors If there is a resolution to pass its done so with little or no public debate Another problem is that Council can decide not to fill a position without passing a resolution said AdministratorClerk Dan Council only has to give staff direc tion not to fill the position and the position wont be filled Since no formal resolution is pro posed and the meeting is in- councillors and staff are not obligated to reveal to the press or public the content of the staff direction Once again let me stress any debate concerning staff positions should be open to the public A reminder tomorrow Thurs day is the provincial election Dont forget to vote An open letter to the residents of Halton Hills Copies to The Herald The In dependent Mayor Russell Miller Hills Councillors Planning Dept- Mr Ian Keith Re The proposal to build a com mercial plaza on the corner of Highway No and Mary St in Norval and comments by the developer I have read the article Norval developer unaffected by public out cry on the front page of the Herald Aug 22 when Antoy Developments President Buligan was interviewed and I was amazed at the arrogance of this developer He has no consideration of what would be best for our village In the interview after reading letters from residents objecting to his proposal he states If I want to throw a million dollars on the street I can and what I do with my money should be no concern to the residents of Norval Also he finds it unbelievable that we are using No 7 Highway traffic to prevent the construction of this plaza So this developer beleives that his will buy him whatever he wants and NOBODY has the right to oppose him It doesnt matter to him that bylaws made to protect people and property have to be amended just for him in cluding one designating the area for residential use And of course it doesnt matter to him that the residents of our village oppose this drastic change of lifestyle in our hamlet If doesnt matter the fact that Mary St and No Highway is a very dangerous intersection with this stretch of highway being the scene of many many accidents Because this developer has a million dollars to throw away he thinks he can override common sense and justice for the taxpayers of Norval Can he If Mr Buligan lived in he would understand our concern regarding No Highway traffic Trying to enter the congested traf fic from a side street in the village is not only time consuming but is often life threatening More traffic from Mary St would add to the dangerous conditions all residents here share We dont need more traffic any more than we need another plaza I was pleased to read that Mr Buligan can relate to water flow concerns as my property will get the most of it espcially if the land is raised by building the plaza Water flow in runs from west to east so again I am a sitting duck that could be a drowned duck if this development passes council Across the highway from Norval United Church a lovely old red brick house and barn on a large corner treed lot are slated to be tom down to make room for this plaza on Mary St Mary St is the short narrow deadend street into Norval Com munity Centre and baseball field The parking lot and street are packed with cars when ball games are in progress Besides activities held in the community centre a day care for preschool children oc cupies two rooms involving traffic on the street when parents bring their children and when picking them up On the other side of Mary St is the proposed strip plaza All local surveyors are well aware that all side streets in were built for horse and bug gies not cars but we like our nar row quiet streets away from the nightmare highway traffic and we want to keep them that way The highway has been the death knell of our heritage community village All we have left in our valley are a few short streets where our unique character is still cherished Mary St is one of them The quality of our heritage lifestyle cannot be bought for a million dollars or can it Over the years our community have gone to Council several times trying to stop some of our lovely old homes from being changed from residential to commercial outlets but we failed every time As we have learned from previous experience we do not have enough votes in Norval to in fluence council so we need help from our neighbours Please let Halton Hills councillors know if you support residents in our effort to keep what is left of our unique lifestyle your support could make the difference We are coun ting on you Numbers count Dorothy C McLean Norval Federal government wasting money Editors Note The following let ter was forwarded to the Halton Hills Herald for publication Mr Garth Turner MP Sir With Canada in a recession caus ed by your government its nice to know you have time to put a Canada Book of constituents letters together Will it include my last letter to you the one you com pletely ignored copy enclosed Perhaps you could tear yourself away from your literary pursuits and tell me why with the deficit and national debt ballooning your government is still throwing tax payers hardearned money away 238 million to fly ministers and bureaucrats around the world last year almost double what it cost in 1986 55 million for a comedy complex in Montreal 5 million US for a terrorist organization for a balloon race In Quebec By the way why do you keep calling the government of which you are a member the Feds as if it were some communciable disease Lastly congratulations on your recent taxfree pay grab Its good to know youre looking after yourself so well at taxpayers ex pense But what do we get m return more of your books Burlington Write us a letter The Herald wants to hear from you If you have an opinion you want to express or a comment to make send us a letter or drop by the office Our address is St Georgetown L7G 3Z6 All letters must be signed Please include your address and telephone number for verificaton The Herald reserves the right to edit letters due to space limitations or libel Even writers have worries The week had actually been go ing fairly well until I read a truly distressing little item he newspaper According to the newspaper the World Health Organization estimates that neuroses occur in five to per cent of the general population and are rising sharply in industrialized countries It came as quite a shock to a nonneurotic person like me to think that nearly onefifth of my fellow citizens are suffering under the terrible burden of neuroses Thats the sort of statistic that wor ries the heck out of you In fact Ive scarcely slept for two nights just thinking about it Well that isnt entirely true Lately Ive been kept awake by other concerns as well Ive been worrying about the Middle East of course And the general condition of the ozone layer and the rain forests And snakes It goes without saying that Ive been worrying about snakes Ive been worrying about snakes quite a lot since I read a terrible news item a couple of years ago about a python that got loose in an apartment building and turned up in somebodys toilet I try to tell myself that this was the sort of hideous fluke that could never be repeated in my own apartment building Still I dont go to the bathroom much these days But as I say Im not a neurotic sort of person at all as is the case with most writers Writers are notoriously nonneurotic Indeed the neurotic and writer go together in much Ian Weir View the same way as do the words good and government military and intelligence and moral and majority And not at all like the words peanut but ler and jelly Claims that many writers are neurotic are strictly lies spread by our enemies Tor wicked reasons known only to themselves Just because youre paranoid as Woody Allen once observed does not mean that people arent out to get you But I digress We were discuss ing the terrible news that up to per cent of people are neurotic and that this rate is rising rapidly in in dustrialized countries Naturally this raises the burn ing question why is this happen ing Or to put it another way who or what is out to get us After a productive day of agoniz ing over this question Ive begun to reach some tentative conclu sions Part of the problem obviously is the sheer pace of life in an in dustrialized country These days weve all but lost sight of the sacred maxim which wise men have always embraced as the cor nerstone of human happiness- never put off until tomorrow what you can safely delay until next Tuesday This problem is compounded by the fact that weve been condition ed to believe little maxims like if a job is worth doing its worth do ing properly This leads to all sorts of stress which could be avoided if only we remembered that this maxim is a corrupt version of a much healthier original if a job needs to be done properly delegate it Then of course theres the of life in an in dustrialized society We spend an awful lot of time dealing with machines And a machine can never replace the warmth and the reassurance of human contact as is well known to anyone who has ever tried to find satisfaction in swearing at a bank machine I will concede that bank machines are occasionally more efficient than bank tellers But no teller would ever swallow your card and then flash you a little sign encouraging you to have a nice day When you think about it in fact its little wonder that nearly 20 per cent of our countrymen are neurotic Indeed the real mystery is why you and I arent neurotic too This raises a truly distressing question I mean whats wrong with If this is still keeping us both up at four oclock this morning perhaps we could phone each other and talk it over