The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Bye, bye alderman' Council supports resolution to change' name to councillor Chtonjole Staff There are still some traditionalists on Waterloo council, but the majority feel it's time to drop their alderman title and be known as councillors. And that's exactly what will happen in the future as council decided Monday night, by a T? vote, to support a resolution from Windsor city council to petition the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to amend the Municipal Act to allow the substitution. " According to City Clerk Ron Keeling the change will not come into effect until the provincial act is amend- reii/iiitijirra.re.rt it wars put to ttie floor. "W""'"'" WW..-.. .- ___.- r_. -- "I believe it's long overdue. It's no gigantic step but I think its time has come," he said. Ald. Mary Jane Mewhinney promptly disagreed. 131at Year No. 1 Mark Bryson Chronicle Staff Steven Weber is not unlike a lot of other Waterloo residents-he has to go out after every snowfall and clear his driveway and sidewalk. But when the rest of Waterloo is sipping their post-shoving hot chocolate, -Weber is down the street still digging, not for himself, but for 80 or so other homeowners who wouldn't get their mail if he didn't. You, see, Weber lives in Westvale Meadows, a section of the city that doesn't receive home delivery. Residents there have to go to the corner of Ridgegate and Westvale Drives to collect their mail. That in itself troubles Weber, but when he sees the city snow plow travel his street and avalanche the boxes with collected snow, it only makes things worse. “I realize the city has to plow the roads, but when you compound it with the fact that we don't get mail service, it's adding insult to injury," said Weber. Ld. Andrew Telegdi was guigk to agree with the For the past two winters, Weber has been carrying on with his extra duty reluctantly, but decided this year that it's time to do something about the situation. In the past he has complained to the city and they would send someone out to clean mi boxes off the next day. In fact, up until last wee he had thought it was a c.ity responsibili- ty, but after a little digging of another kind has discovered the onus lies upon Canada Post to keep the area clear. According to Canada Post Customer Service Manager Paul Rostic, the likely reason for the problem is Weber's initiative to clear the boxes. If he had not, the letter carrier. would have noted a problem and the maintenance department would be informed of the problem location, Good Samaritan saveir: Westvale folks from letter box snow job “In this case we have an individual who is doing Steven Weber does his last shovelling job before putting Canada Post on a probationary period. The Ridgegate Drive resident has been digging out the mailboxes after city plows cover them up for the past two winters. Wednesday, January B, 1986 us a favor by clearing the box. But if he were to leave it, the letter carrier would likely report it and we could handle it," said Rostic. - Weber discussed the situation with his carrier Monday and found out that was the case, but was informed by the carrier that all he would clear is enough space to put the mail in the boxes, and would only do it once. That is not good enough, says Weber. "We can't have pregnant mothers and elderly persons climbing over snowbanks to get to their boxes. A system has to be set up to keep the area in front of the boxes clear. Why should I have to do it?" said Weber. Should the mail boxes be totally covered, it is likely that a letter carrier would simply dump all the mail into the green relay box and leave itthere until it is cleared, says Weber. According to Rostic, there are two methods in which a letter carrier conducts such a route. He can take his whole bundle out with him in the morning after sorting, or he can have it delivered to the relay box by a truck which will leave him with the task of emptying the box arid depositing it into the adjacent boxes. In either case, the carrier is not responsible for snow removal. "Generally they (letter carriers) will make their best attempt to get into the boxes, but obviously they can't carry a shovel and salt around with them," said Rostic. For now, Weber will put Canada Post on a "probationary period". He plans to stop shovelling the area altogether and see what happens. If the whole area does not meet to his standards, he plans to resume his assault with hopefully a city alderman at his side. "Our carrier says he'll clear it enough to get the mail in the boxes. As far as I'm concerned, if they're going to do it, it's going to be 100 per cent or we'll be back where we started," said Weber. Windsor has sent the resolution to all cities in the prov- ince. “ll’m supportive of it. It's time," said Ald. Jim Erb. In another move of support Monday night, council adopted a motion circulated by the City of Toronto to Tl Waterloo, Ontario Mark Bryson photo 25 cents 'at the Newstand lengthen the voting hours of municipal elections in hope of raising voter participation. The motion, which will be forwarded to the province, calls for polls to open at 9 am. instead of ll a.m. They close at 8 p.m. Toronto's initiative was prompted by 37.4 per cent voter turnout last election. That figure prompted Telegdi to quickly support the motion. "If they (Toronto) say theirs is dismally low, i'd hate to make a comment on ours," said Telegdi, referring to Waterloo's 21 per cent turnout. A ' .. ‘ " - . " - LA”..- ._.,\..I.I "CLCIIUU a at you Lulu uu.-.v.... Ald, Dorothy Schnarr didn't feel the two hours would make much of a difference and Ald. John Shortreed was concerned that it was too much to ask of a person working at a poll to put up with a 14-hour day. Both voted against the motion. T legdi pursued the matter and suggested gelding opeSI meetings to find out why citizens do or don ote.