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WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY, MAY 20,1987, PAGE 7 PAGE SEVEN As spring progresses and the trees come into leaf, my wife and I miss the elegant arching limbs of the century old maple that used to stand in front of our house. The story of our trees battle with bureaucracy begins about thir- teen years ago when we bought our house. The majestic silver maple on the boulevard was a contributing factor in the purchase but we realized that it was badly in need of pruning - the branches were striking the house in a good wind. Furthermore, silver maples fork " short distance above the ground and when the weight of the 'branches becomes excessive, the crotch has a tendencyto split. We aske~d tie Town- to prune it - they said they would do it in the fall. Fall came and went. We asked again the next year (Oh yes, they had us on their list but they hadn't done any pruning that year). Fall came and went again. And so it went for a few years. Then one summer, most of the trees in the old part of Town were marked - "T" for trim, "C" for eut. Our tree had a "T". Finally something was going to be done. Fall came and went again. The -marks on all the trees faded but none were touched. Some . time later, I noticed someone from a tree service examining the tree. He was tendering for the contract and our tree was on the list...TO BE CUT DOWN. It was an obvious mistake and he said he would let the Town know. He didn't get the contract. That fall my wife (who luckily was home) had a knock at the door. Would she please move the car so they could eut the tree down. She refused to move the car. When I talked to the Works Dept. supervisor, his comment was "Well, it's dead isn't it?" I suggested, (politely of course), that he should get out from behind his desk and take a look for himself. He later agreed that pruning was all it needed. Fall passed into winter again and our tree was still not pruned in spite of almost weekly requests. We were finally told that they were finished for the year Thext year We-särTafdomplaining early, loud and often to everyone. The weight on the limbs was by now so great that an ob- vious split had appeared at the crotch and in a high wind the tree made some very ominous sounds. Our local councillor said it would be pruned, Public Works said it would be pruned - it wasn't. Late that fall, I phoned Public Works yet again and found that the person whom I had dealt with for so long had left -his replacement could find no record of our tree. The pruning program for the year was now over, but nevertheless, he managed to get a work crew over to apply some cables to the tree to arrest any further splitting. At last, some progress ! And the following year, the tree was finally pruned. Another year later, our street was rebuilt. The engineers and contractors would have sorely liked to have had all the trees on the block removed but through dogged persistence ours and one other was allowed to remain. They bumped it, they banged it and they chewed away at its roots. There was barely room on the boulevard for its base which flared from a three and a half foot trunk. Yet it survived. The a couple of years ago in a freak stormat the end of March, it all came crashing down. Well, half of it did. In what must have been a minor tornado, two of its trunks (it had four) were snapped like matchsticks (foot and a half thick matchsticks) and crashed into the street. The cables which had been put on several years earlier proved to be its undoing - one of the trunks broke where a bolt had been inserted and the other probably broke from the uneven strain against the cables - otherwise the wood was sound. The tree could have been saved even then - it was still the largest tree on the block and had more foliage than the rest of the trees put together. But to save it would have taken some imaginative tree surgery - something the bureaucracy couldn't cope with. It was eut down that summer while we were away on vacation. Was that the end of the story? - not by a long shot. The tree was left on our front lawn and boulevard to be scavenged by firewood hunters - the parts that were moveable were taken quickly but the lower portions of the trunk (eut into neat one ton segments) were left. Would the Town please remove them? Yes, a member of the Public Works staff (who apparently runs a firewood business on the side) would come to get them - eventually. When they were finally taken away after about two months, the grass was completely dead. We complained and a truck (and three people) came around, put down a bit of soil and grass seed - it grew beautifully. Until the next spring - nothing came up. We complained! Within hours, in a blinding rainstorm a truck drew up, threw down some more seed and left - most of it washed away. When our tree was eut down, we received a card saying that the Town would plant another tree there IF we wished. (I thought of requesting a sixty foot silver maple but I didn't think they would appreciate the sarcasm.) We decided that since we already had an ancient Hawthorne and a clump of birches on our front lawn, we really didn't want a Poplar stick on our boulevard. Nevertheless, a crew arrived last fall with instructions to plant a tree. If I hadn't been there and stood my ground, we would have had a tree we didn't want at your (the taxpayers') expense. As it is, you probably ended up paying for it anyway. Think of the money that could have been saved if they had pruned our tree thirteen years ago, or better still, had been looking after all the trees in Town on a regular basis. When we bought our house, there were seven or eight large trees on our block - now there is only one and it is dying too. The samne thing is happening on ail the old streets - neglect leads to disease and storm damage and ultimately removal. Preventative maintenance works for trees just as well as machines - solving problems before they occur sayes money. In the end, a tree with all its weight, grace, age, and sheer presence is no match for a determihed bureaucracy. Liquor recommendations opposed To the editor: We, the members of the Involved Parents Group of Gananoque, Lan- sdowne and District wish to oppose some of the recommendations of the Ontario Advisory Committee on Liquor Regulation released March 3 at Queen's Park. We, too, would aim for "in- dividual responsibility and moderation in the consumption of beverage alcohol." However, we believe that liberalization of liquor laws, specifically, extension of hours for licenced premises, patrons being allowed to bring their own beverage alcohol to restauran- ts, 24-hour room service and de- regulation of some special occasion permits is not responsible. Our area in Eastern Ontario spends its share of the estimated half billion dollars cost of alcohol abuse in the health care, social welfare, law en- forcement and reduced produc- tivity problems. The legislation to reduce the drinking age from 21 to 18 to 19 a few years ago effectively put legal consumption of alcohol into the high school age group. In that age group, peer pressure dictates that if friends do it, it's okay for me (age 19 is not the measure). This same student peer pressure is resulting in alcohol consumption at the publie school age level. Our éommunity is only one of many which is suffering¯from the epidemic of underage drinking. In October, 1985, we lost three studen- ts in an alcohol related car crash. At the inquest of these deaths, the coroner's jury recommended that the drinking age be raised to 21 and that there be stricter controls on the sale of alcohol. The Leeds & Grenville Board of Education (25 November, 1985) passed three resolutions, 1) legal drinking age be raised to age 21, 2) the sale of beer and wine should not be permitted in grocery stores, 3) government review lifestyle advertising.of beer and wine. In this province now, millions of dollars are spent in prevention programs for studénts and aduits alike (VIP, SADD, Alcohol and Drug education, ett.). Many groups such as ours, have formed to find the ways to protect our children and ourselves from fur- ther pain and cost brought about by alcohol. We believe that liberalized liquor laws do not "reflect the attitudes and expectations of the public" as Mr. Offer believes they do. We feel so committed to opposing liberalization of liquor laws that we are also sending this letter to 240 weekly newspapers across Ontario. We will also address the Gananoque Town Council with the hopes of seeing a resolution sent to the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Terry Tucker President By SCOTT FENNELL MP Ontario Riding Recently an historie event took place at Meech Lake, Que.; an event which all Canadians will remember as the unification of the country. After much consultation and debate, Prime Minister Mulroney announced that an agreement in principle had been reached on key constitutional issues with the 10 provincial Premiers. It will be a day that I will remember vividly in years to come. So many people I talked to that day ail reiterated the same feeling I had myself..."Now I truly feel Canadian; I am proud of my coun- try and my heritage." I believe that the prime minister summarized this achievement best when he quoted the words of Sir Wilfred Laurier who said: "the governing motive of my life has been to harmonize the diverse elements which compose our coun- try.,, The prime minister and the premiers have agreed that their of- ficials wui oeginL torain a con- stitutional text whieh reflects the Meech Lake agreement, and a con- ference will be convened within weeks to seek a formal agreement. Once this agreement has been reached, the constitutional amen- ding formula will proceed, with an amending resolution tabled in Parliament and in the legislatures of each province. A final proclamation will follow as soon as the resolutions have been ap- proved. rnis agreement is good for Canada and good for Canadians as a whole. It enhances the Con- federation.bargain and strengthens the federal nature of Canada. We have solved our differences; dif- ferences which had been left out- standing since the signing of the constitution in 1981. We can now turn our attention to other matters, we no longer have nagging thoughts wondering about the future. Together we are stronger, and together we will achieve even greater strides for all Canadians. i Meech Lake agreement good for Canada