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Business Improvement Area The business community in downtown Port " Perry has spoken out loud and clear in its opposition to any Business Improvement Area. The opposing petition, signed by 30 business people represents almost half the number of busi- nesses in the designated sector of the BIA, and their assessment value is well over the one-third required by legislation to stop the implementation of the BIA by-law. ' While the Port Perry Star has spoken out in the past as being in favour of establishing a BIA in Port Perry, we accept the decision taken by the business community. Even if the opposers had fallen short of the numbers necessary to stop the BIA by-law from being enacted, it would not have been a good idea: to go ahead with it. Something like a BIA which would have cost each merchant and business money, can only work effectively if it has the overwhelming support of all those within the designated area. It was clear almost from the outset, that. this kind of support was not going to be forthcoming. } The concept of a Business Improvement Area is certainly not without its faults, and a cost-benefit analysis of the money spent on improvements to public property would be almost impossible to calculate. - While there were several arguments put forward against the implementation of the Business Improve- ment Area, one disturbing fact remains. The downtown commercial core of Port Perry, which is so vital to the health and well-being of the entire Township, does need some kind of a shot in the arm, and it needs it fast. If the BIA was not the right vehicle to provide this, the merchants and business people should be looking at other ways to improve not only the appearance of the commercial core, but the whole atmosphere so that the people of this community will WANT to do the bulk of their weekly shopping here. The challenge is still there. The process to set up the BIA in Port Perry created some hard feelings between those 'who opposed and those who were in favour, and now that the BIA concept has been put to rest, the first task facing the merchants and business people is to bury those hard feelings and start looking for ways to-at least do something constructive. It's tough-to put 60 or 70 independent-minded business people in a room together and get a concensus of opinion, never mind an overwhelming agreement. |t requires more than just a little give and take by all those involved. However, an economic well being and an improvement in the business and commercial sector of the community is in everybody's best interest. Now that we know what the business people don't want for downtown Port Perry, maybe they can tell us what they would like to see. House, another group of equally well-groom- comic relief, to the National Hockey bill SOME BUDGET What with Chretien's budget and the hockey playoffs, it looks like a long, dull spring ahead. That budget came sailing out with all the buoyancy of a wet sock. I can't help agreeing with the braying opposition critics, who labeled it a cynical, pre-election budget. - . So the sales tax was cut. Big deal. It means that if I want to go out and buy a $6,000 car, I can save $180. Brother, if I could afford that kind of money for a car, I'm not going to let $180 worry me, one way or the other. And that $180 is sure going to - go a long way in providing jobs for the more than 1 million unemployed, isn't it! There wasn't a single item in the budget that will remotely affect our sickly dollar or our sorry unemployment situation. Something that truly amazes me is that the federal Liberals, despite their horren- dous record over the past decade, have a very-good chance of being re-elected. They smiley are leading by a fat 11-or-so per cent in the polls. How do you figure that, with the whole country mad at the government for inaction, lack of leadership, a monstrous deficit, and a dollar in the doldrums? It must only mean that we think an alternative would be worse, and this is a depressing thought. How can anything be worse than dreadful? I think perhaps the reason for the Liberal lead in the polls is that a sort of apathy and cynicism has affected the Canadian voter to the point where he just doesn't give a diddle any more. The lack of credibility among: politicians has deepened, rather than the reverse, since the CBC began telecasting House of Com- mons debates. Nowhere was it more evident than on budget night. On one side of the House, as the finance minister followed cliche with platitude, one group of trained seals flapped their flippers on their desks every time he stopped for a. drink of water. On the other side of the ed trained seals flapped their flippers on their desks when their man was cutting up the finance minister. Perhaps the name should be changed from the House of Commons to the Common Zoo. What is developing in this country is a_ deep, festering sore based on a mistrust of Ottawa and everything that emanates from And somebody had better start paying some attention to it, at some other time than election time, or there's going to be hell to pay in this country. > Surely the Ottawa mandarins, the "Expert" economists, and the $50,000-a- year civil servants have had their innings. They have made a complete hash of things in the three decades since World War II, when Canada emerged as a vital country with everything going for it, and has slid steadily from a strong secondary power to a whining voice in the wilderness. Surely it's time for a leader to emerge who has a gut feeling of what this nation is all about and what its people want. But where ishe? Orshe? John Diefenbaker had it, but his own ego blurred the mirror. Robert Stanfield had it. But in this TV age, he didn't have "charisma'. He wasn't sexy enough. Joe Clark sexy? Ed Broadbent charis- matic? Itistolaugh. I'll bet I'm sexier on a Sunday morning with a hangover and no shave. Oh well, we can't solve the nation's problems here every week. Let's turn, for League. It is to laugh again, uproariously. It is not national, it is not hockey, and it is not a league, but a conglomerate of big businesses. Despite the sports' page flacks who keep flogging us with 'big' stories about hockey, hockey stars, big salaries, folding fran- chises, and such garbage (if I read one more story about Derek Sanderson', I'll puke), the hockey playoffs are becoming a big yawn. A couple of decades ago, hockey fans in North America were that - fanatics. I knew guys who wouldn't go to the funeral parlor where their wife was laid out, if they were going to miss a playoff game. Nowadays, when everybody makes the playoffs except Aunt Mabel and the PeeWee team she coaches Saturday morning, ennui sets in early in April and continues until almost June. Baseball is in full swing, football is gearing for summer training, and the golf tour is half over before the greedy owners will let their sweaty slaves hang up their skates. . : When those sweaty slaves most of them Grade 12 drop-outs, are driving Cadillacs and the like, and play is held up for TV commercials, and fourth-rate teams make the playoffs, the game has about as much integrity as a poker game with twos, eights and all red cards wild. I'd just as soon watch reruns of 1 Love Lucy as waste my time watching the NHL playoffs. At least Lucy is funny.