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PAGE 4, WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 23, 1983, WHITBY kREL PRESS whitby Voice of the County Town Michael lan Burgess, I The only Whitby newspaper independently owned and operated by Whitby Publisher . Managing Editor residents for Whitby residents. blished every Wednesday by M.B.M. Publishing and Photography'Inc. Phone 668-611Il The Free Press Building, 131 Brock Street North, P.O. Box 206, Whitby, Ont. LESLIE BUTLER Community Editor ELIZABETH NOZDRYN Advertising Manager Second Class Mail Registration No. 5351 Reglstratéon No. 5351 Dealing with developers is dangerous business The surprising news that something is very rot- ten in the state of the Brooklin development brings to light serious questions about agree- ments made between municipal governments and private developers. In the case of the Brooklin development project, the Town of Whitby and the Region of Durham en- tered into a very unusual agreement with First City Development Corporation. The town agreed to let First City build as many as 10,000 homes in the quiet rural hamlet. In ex- change for municipal approval of the project, First City would provide a much-needed sewer line to Brooklin, all expenses paid. Most Whitby town councillors agree this was the point on which the entire development agree- ment hinged. No sewers, no approval. in entering Into this mutually benefîclal agree- ment, the town and the region would be-saved the cost of building the sewer line, the developer would get a green light for the project and the resi- dents of Brooklin would finally get modern Do you know what woman was TIME Magazine's Man of the Year in 1952? If you do, chances are you're a pack rat for a lot of odds and ends of information, and you'd be a natural for the game that's sweeping the country. We were given the game TRIVIAL PURSUIT as a Christmas gift. I won't say much more about the game itself. Suffice it to say that the rules are simple, and almost everyone can play. Because the questions are trivial, great scholarship is not likely to be of much ad- vantage, and the pack rat is likely to beat the academi- cian. What fascinates me about TRIVIAL PURSUIT is not so much the game itself, but its instant success and what that has meant to its young inventors in the current recession. In a way, like MONOPOLY, TRIVIAL PURSUIT is a product of economic disaster. At least I'm sure that's one of the reasons that at thirty dollars a copy, the game is selling. And it's- not just selling well. It's gone crazy. Mr. Gameways Ark, a Toronto store which specializes in this kind of thing, says it's the hottest selling game in history. Recently, some 3,000 pre-paid purchasers were on their lists, waiting for delivery. And the two young Montreal newspapermen who invented the game in 45 idle minutes a little over two years ago, Scott Ab- bott and Chris Haney, are going to be very, very rich. They've just sold the rights to Selcho and Writer, the distributors for SCRABBLE, for the largest game royalty in the history of the Universe. They developed the game on peanuts. One of their early backers was a girl who works in Toronto for CTV. She knew one of the inven- tors, and they asked her to put a little money in it. Like most salaried people, she had no money, but she had nerve enough to say "What the heck" and she borrow- ed $2000 from the bank. For that she got ten shares of a company in which 1000 shares are outstanding. One newspaper analyst estimates that the shares are worth $4000 apiece and are climbing rapidly. They may be worth twice that much or ten times as much, depen- ding on how you look at it. She too is going to be very, very rich. And I think that that is absolutely terrific. It gives us ail hope, or ought to. It tells me that if I do see the brass ring, I ought to grab it, despite the people who groan on the sidelines and say you can't do it. And, by the way, TIME's Man of the Year in 1952 was a young Queen, Queen Elizabeth Il. That's rlot news but that, too is reality. sewage facilities. The town made doubly sure First City would stick to its agreement by adding a clause that If the sewers were not started within four years of the original agreement, the town could collect on a $2 million letter of credit. It is hardly necessary to point out that the ad- ministration of public works has always been the responsibility of the public body. in entering into this agreement, the town relinquished its direct responsibility for the provision of sewers to Brooklin. If ail had gone as planned, no one migit have noticed that the town had transferred the respon- sibility of providing sewers from Its shoulders on to the shoulders of the private developer. But ail has not gone as planned, and the danger of relying on a private company to do public work .is beginning to dawn on at least some public offi- ciaIs. The town recently learned it can't start counting the four years down (to the final date for sewer construction) until the entire agreement between the town and First City has been approved by higher levels of government. It has not. The news that two sticky parcels of industrial land have not been approved by the Ontario government means First City doesn't have to start the development project, and sewer lines to Brooklin are as far away as they ever were. Brooklin residents who, with no small amount of soul searching, agreed to the development project on the condition they would finally get sewers, have now been told the developer could stall the project for several years. In fact, as some councillors point out, the original agreement may- never come to pass. So, instead of all parties being satisfied, the residents are without sewers, the town Is put in a touchy position of possibly having to renegotiate the deal with First City, and the developer gets some breathing time until the housing market Im- proves. One out of three ain't bad. Municipalities can benefit from compromising with the people who do the building, but when the compromise jeopardizes the provision of essen- tial services to part of the taxpaying community, it's a bad deal. The provision of sewers should have been dealt with as a separate issue in the original agreement with First City. The municipal government should have retained control over when the Une was to be built, standards to be met in building the sewers, and supervision of the building. The best laid plans do, obviously, go astray. But we should question how well laid these plans were, and whether they were not simply an expe- dient solution to a problem which is ultimately the responsibility of the public officiais, taxpayers and elected representatives. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Dear Sir: On behalf of the Anderson Collegi- ate Vocational Insti- tute Concert Band and our conductor, Mr. Andrew Uranowski, i would like to thank all those who1 to make our and 5 25-hr. thon a huge suc- cess. Many thanks to Square Boys, Dodd & Souter, Mr. Sub- marine, Harvey's helped Feb. 4 play-a- and Brothers Pizza for their donations. Thanks also to all the parents and friends who spon- sored us and gave us encouragement. With your gener-' ous support, Cal- gary is seemingly closer. Thanks again. Sincerely, Julie Emm Band President. 1