PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1986 WHIT13Y FREE PRESS Published every Wednesday y M.H.M. Publishing ,'and Photography Inc. PI 4Ihone 608-fiIl VALERIECOWEN f e>111 !J md JI p ',J < II>The Free Press Building. Advertlslng Manager 11 Brock Street North, Second Clas Mail Voice of the County Town Michael Ian Burgess, Pubisher - Managlng Editor P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. Registraion No. 5351 The only WhCtby newspaper independently ootned and operated by Whitby oesidents for Whitby residents. It's time for the BIA to assert its credibility Next Wednesday night at the Whitby Public Library, the Downtown Business Improvement Area Board will be putting the BIA membership to the test. The board will be asking members to ap- prove a budget for 1986 that Is in excess of $60,000 - up from $20,000 last year - and for some that jump may seem alittile frightening. Certainly a merchant who is struggling to make ends meet will want to think twice about trlppling his dues to an organization that promises no im- mediate financial return. If the wolves are at your door, long range planning tends to go out the win- dow. It ls not without good reason that the board is asking merchants to up the ante, however, and anyone who Is inclined to balk at their proposal Wednesday night would do well to think agaln. We would even suggest that the future of downtown Whitby might be hanging in the balance. There is something just a little forlorn about downtown Whitby these days. The vacant shops and the generally rundown condition of some of the store fronts are certainly part of the story but what is really sad about the downtown is that it has so much potential. Behind the peeling paint, the tattered awnings and the 'For Rent' signs it is plain to see that downtown Whitby has ail the charm of any classic, rural Ontario mainstreet. Plans are underway to spruce up the downtown core and it is exciting to consider the possibilities in the existing streetscape. The BIA has some great ideas in store for the downtown but it's going to take a lot more than inter-locking paving stones and trees and lamp post banners to bring the downtown back to life. And this is what the BIA board's new budget is ail about. The 1986 BIA budget is not just a means of generating more cash, it is a decisive move to crank up a new attitude among the membership and thrust the Whitby BIA into the forefront of On- tario's business community. And the rewards, for those that are aggressive enough to go after them, are considerable. A budget of $20,000, which, miraculously, is all î BIA had to operate with last year, is little better than laughable compared with the budgets of other BIA's around the province - BIA's with the same membership as Whitby. To expect that the board and BIA manager Georgina Phillips will be able to get out there and compete for new business and big-time development with such meager funds is laughable. To quote Mrs. Phillips on the subject, "We're at the stage now where we have got to look at our- selves critically. If we want to get ahead we've got to get down to brass tacks. If you want to move forward you've got to be realistic. "Whitby has so much potential and we just want to get on with it." On Wednesday night, the Whitby BIA will have their chance to "get on with It". They have only two options. Either they decide to move ahead and take up the challenge their board has laid before them or they can stay right where they are today. It would seem to us the choice is clear. OTTAWA - It was inevitable, I suppose, in a worid racked by terrorism, that the bobbies at London's Heathrow Airport would one day wind up festooned with sub-machine guns. But I can't think that good will come of It. I say that as someone who knows something about guns, enjoys target shooting, and understands the limitations of firearms as weapons. I say it as someone who has no sympathy for the kind of murdering lunatics who blew innocent women and children away in the Christmas massacres at Rome and Vienna. Shooting is too good for them. But will arming the bobbies put an end to that sort of thing? Or will it merely suggest to terrorist suicide squads that they change their tac- tics, and find ways to kill more people instantly? I can't think the sight of policemen carrying nine millimetre Heckîer and Koch sub-machine guns will glaciden the hearts of the British public, or reassure them. Carrying a gun Is not a simple solution to anything. They understood very well in the old West that carrying a gun was not In itself security. In fact the only guarantee you got from being armed was that conflict, almost any conflict, would automatically be escalated. If there was a code of the West, it was not the one suggested by Gary Cooper in "High Noon". It was: Shoot first, in the baâk, if necessary, and ask questions later. Once, many years ago in New York, I met one-time law man Virgil Earp, Wyatt's brother. Virgil was a wizened-up little old man by the time I met him, but he was still a killer. He'd carved the first notch in his pistol butt when he was still a teenager, and he talked about it the way that some men speak of their first drink. The Associated Press, in a story from Heathrow, carried an interview with a passenger from York, Pennsylvania. Her name was Anne Lodof, 32 years old, and a lawyer by trade. Asked about the armed police at the airport, she had this to say: "I hate to see it happen, but I realize that security precautions are necessary because people didn't used to open SEE PG.8