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SLANE SONI ARR INFEST A Ta OR ed fl HO AY, i a NIE Ad : StH EN A nt ELEN SR Se MK NRE Le © HR REP; (ont ol 4 -- PORT PERRY STAR -- Wed. January 20, 1982 Sterol c comments Hiring Freeze Durham Region chairman Gary Herrema suggested last week that in order to cut costs Durham should put a complete freeze on hiring in 1982. This would mean not just a freeze on hiring new staff, but that the Region would not replace employees who retire or quit their jobs for one reason or another. It's a radical suggestion, and one that has been constantly espoused by Oshawa councillor Ed Kolodzie. However, Kolodzie, who relishes his role as a maverick politician, gets very little support from fellow councillors when he suggests that the Region trim its staff or put a freeze on hiring. For a variety of reasons, Kolodzie could not get support from a majority of Regional councillors for a resolution in praise of Motherhood or the Canadian flag. However, the same is not true for the Regional chairman. Gary Herrema has clout with the council and when he starts talking about a hiring freeze this year, there is something to it and Durham councillors are not going to shrug him off like they do to Kolodzie. Critics of the Regional system have long maintained that Durham is indeed over-staffed, and that criticism has been fuelled by the fact that when the Region was formed eight years ago, there was a stipulation that no employee of an area municipality would lose his or her job through the Regionalization process. The level of staff at the Region comes under fire and debate from time to time during council and commit- tee meetings. The essential question, of course, is whether a total freeze on hiring and replacement would have a serious or detrimental affect on the levels of service to the tax-payers. It's all very well to talk about taxes, but if a broken sewer line doesn't get repaired quickly or if roads don't get plowed and sanded because staff have not been replaced, those same critics might be singing a different tune. Nevertheless, in these tough economic times, muni- cipal governments have an obligation to be especially prudent in all areas of operation, including staff levels. A complete and total freeze on hiring might be a good idea at this time with the results monitored carefully to see if indeed there would be an unaccept- able decline in the levels of service. As it stands now, a committee of Regional council- lors has recommended tougher new hiring policies until after the 1982 budget has been set. But the committee did not agree to the total ban on hiring suggested by the Regional chairman. The issue will come in front of the full council shortly, and it is one that councillors should be taking seriously. TT de = ~-- - ------TEET /m SEASHNLy ADNSTED _ J FEEL UKE A lion, Zz Blood Money The Attorney General of British Columbia no doubt will have a lot of explaining to do over the fact that he authorized the RCMP to pay $100,000 to a suspected murderer if he led police to the bodies of the victims of these crimes. The payment of this money to the family of Clifford Olson, who last week changed his plea to guilty in the murder of 11 youngsters in British Columbia, has raised some very serious questions about both the legality and the morality of 'blood money" for crime suspects. It is thought that this is the first time ever in Canada that a police force has made such a payment, and when the startling announcement came after Olson's guilty pleas, there were immediate fears expressed by legislatures that a dangerous precedent had been set and the practise might even lead to a kind of "murder for profit." The very thought of all the possible ramifications is chilling. Certainly the controversy that has been raised over this $100,000 payment is going to remain prominent for a while to come. As repugnant and chilling as this revelation Is, it should be remembered that police and law enforce- ment agencies in B.C. were faced with an extraor- dinary situation. Several young people had dis- appeared and it was suspected that they had met an untimely fate. No doubt the police under incredible public and political pressure to solve these cases, lay charges and bring a suspect to trial with sufficient evidence toget a conviction. } Whether these circumstances justify working out a cash '"deal" with a suspect is the question that must be answered. But make no mistake: the police were not dealing in this case with a 'routine' crime. Possibly, our legal policy makers and law enforcement agencies - in this country may have to agree that in certain extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary measures may be needed. While we ponder all the ramifications of this unique situation, some questions should be kept in mind: did the ** deal'" contribute directly to the successful conclusion of the police investigation? Could the investigations have been concluded without the deal? Did the laying of charges and the taking of a suspect into custody prevent him from striking again? And to what extent is society prepared to allow police forces to take extraordinary measures in their job of preventing and solving crime? =~ AS YEARS PASS US BY I was going to say, "There's nothing more boring than old people. talking about the 'good old days" when they were young." Then I realized that I was out in left field, with nobody at bat, the pitcher chewing tobacco and spitting juice, the catcher fumbling around trying to adjust his athletic protector, as they now call a metal jock- strap. Thei e are many things more boring. Little bill smiley arguing religion and politics at top form. I've told you about old Campbell, the 85-er who dowses wells and is set to go to Paraguay. Talked to my great-uncle, riddled with arthritis and his voice and welcome were as warm and crackling as a fireplace freshly it. This whole column was inspired by a clipping my sister sent me about 88 year old Lawrence Consitt of Perth, Ontario. children who want one more horsey ride when your spine feels fractured in eight places from the 10 previous jaunts. Teenagers babbling endlessly. about rock stars, boyfriends, girlfriends, and the money they need to keep up with their friends. 'How come we only have a 21 inch TV? I'm 16; why can't I stay out till 3 a.m. if * I want to? I'm the only girl in the class who doesn't have construction workers boots?" University students, perhaps the most boring creatures in our society. After the initial chirps of recognition: Oh, Mr. Smiley, are you still teaching? How's it going?" as though you should have quit the minute you levered them through high school. An then 40 minutes of straight, self-centred descrip- tion of their university courses or their jobs, their professors, their disenchantment with their courses, their unspoken admission that they can't hack it, as you knew they couldn't in the first place. _I manage to brush them off after about eight minutes with a cheery, 'So Long, Sam, great to hear you're doing so well, and best of luck. 1 have to go to an orgy for senior citizens that starts in four minutes, with the pornographic movie," It's great to leave them there with their mouths hanging open. Next worse, in the boring department, are young couples who have produced one' or two infants and talk as though they'd swum the Atlantic, or climbed Mount Everest. "Let me tell you what Timmy (or Kimmy) said the gther day. He was sawing wood in the nursery school and his saw slipped, and he pointed at his saw, and he said. "Don't you dare do that," and the teacher told me and she said it was the most hilarious thing she'd ever seen, and blah, blah, blah, and Boring. B-o-r-i-n-g. We call all top that type of story. My daughter, age 7, Grade 2, just getting over the Santa Claus bit, came home one day and told my wife she knew what a certain familiar four-letter word that she'd seen scrawled on the sidewalk meant. My wife is naive, even now, 20 years later. - At the time rather absent-mindedly, with Dr. Spock lurking in the background, she enquired. "And what does it mean, dear?" . The response was, 'When men and ladies lie down on top each other and go to the bathroom." That was the end of any birds and bees instruction. Next in a descending line of boring conversationalists are middle-aged grand- parents. The women, young enough to still elicit a whistle on a dark night, the men old enough to suck in their paunches, when a bikini walks by, they act as though they had invented grandchildren. They whine exchanged whimpers about the baby-sitting they have to do. They brag that their grandchildren are the worst little devils in the world. Boring. And finally, we get to the elderly. Cer- tainly some of them are boring, but they are the ones who have been bores all their lives. But the others, the salty ones, even though slowed by the body's increasing frailty, retain their saltiness, and even improve on it, because they don' t give a god damn anymore. They can say what they like and do what they like, And they do. I've met or talked to three men in their late 80's recently. My father-in-law. 89, seemed rather frail when we arrived for a visit at 3 p.m. At 11 that night we were still Lawrence was present when the last man was hanged in Perth, His comment: "It was strange." The man had turned to the crowd and smiled just before his death. He had murdered his wife. Today he'd be given a man-slaughter and six years. Lawrence started playing piano 79 years ago, at dances, at the silent pictures theatre. He got five dollars a night for a dance. The talkies knocked him out of a job in 1930, But he kept on playing ragtime and jazz wher- ever there was an opening, I listened to him improvise for the silent movies, I danced to his piano at country dances, with his nieces and great-nieces. He always had a crock. Took the pledge in 1925. Tt lasted 13 months. Got sick on a ship ance in 1918, and was too late to be He never married; "But I drank a lot of whiskey." He's in one of those Sunset Havens now, but when they ask him when he'll be back from a day in Perth, he says, . "It depends on who I meet." That's boring? Hang on, Lawrence. You - gave great pleasure to many people. I hope I can stay as salty as you.