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PAGE 6 - WATERLOO CHRONtCLE. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26 Two months ago a 22-year-old hairdresser died in a rooming house fire in Waterloo. _ _ _ Last Week a $20,000 blaze gutted the basement of a Columbia Street house which was the home of six boarders. You couldn't find two better reasons why the city of Waterloo must move swiftly to ensure local rental properties are meeting all fire code standards, and where violations exist, landlords are forced to comply. City officials have long suspected that many renters were taking accommodation in rooms not up to safety requirements--two universities and a college bring thousands of students to this city and, given the current low apartment vacancy rate, renters cannot afford to be too picky. Staller is quite right to point out that the majority of Waterloo's landlords are responsible and attempt to provide safe, affordable housing. For these individuals, it is more often ignorance of the rules, not outright negligence, which leads to violations and the licensing and inspection process would provide the guidance they require. Mona Class Mall Registration Number 5540 However, there also exists that minority of "irre- sponsible" landlords--those that knowingly break they regulations: pack too many people into too small a house, don't provide smoke detectors, will not properly maintain their properties. It is this group that will be the main target of these new safety initiatives. Waterloo City Council has taken the first step--licens- ing. It is to be hoped that the often snail-like bureaucratic process required to have such a measure enacted will be speeded up so licensing can soon begin. It is a shame, however, that aldermen were unwilling Monday to take their determination to that logical second step, the actual hiring of another, third, fire prevention officer. It is not enough to simply have the rules, the manpower must be available to go into the community, inspect the rooming houses, and see that the fire code is enforced. While supporting the idea, council decided to wait; to get a report on the matter from the city's chief administrative officer before approving the hiring and including the $40,000 salary of the officer in the budget. Why? Admittedly,. hiring additional staff is not something done lightly, but the facts in this instance are clear. The Waterloo Fire Department's fire prevention office is just too shortstaffed to do the job. Council likes comparisons with other communities-- let's look at what our municipal neighbors in the region are doing. Kitchener, with a population of 147,00 has eight fire prevention officers, a ratio of one officer to every 18,375 residents; Cambridge, population 76,000, has three, a 1:25,333 ratio. Waterloo, with a population of 63,000 has two, a 1:31,500 ratio. Mayor Marjorie Carroll would like to see the new officer on the job by September. If that is the case, the decision to hire must be made swiftly, not in a month or two or three. As Staller said, you don't just hire a firefighter and tell him, or her, to go and enforce the rules. "rt's gonna take time to hire and train the right man," he said. Ratification of the city's budget is to occur next Tuesday--council can and should put the additional salary in the budget and get the hiring process underway immediately. The urgency of this situation requires speed, not hesitation and not staff reports. Licensing and hiring another fire prevention officer won't prevent all rooming house fires, but it should go along way towards improving the odds. " - 'iGojirds' initGre months is two too many. One life lost is one too many. Time to act published every Wednesday by Fairway Press, a dmsmn ot Kitchener-Waterloo Record Ltd, owner n 225 Fairway Rd s . Kitchener. Ont address correspondence lu Waterloo ottice " Km SI F. Waterloo, Um NZJ IL‘I. telephone ms 2mm Waterloo Chvomcle othce IS mated In the Haney While Law Ofhce Budding (rear entrance uppec Hoot) Palkmg at the tear ot the bum-n9 Open Monday to Fnda'y 9 oo am to 5 00 o m Publisher: Paul Winkler Manager: Bill Karges _ _-__----- Editor: Rick Campbell established 1854 There is an allegory about a clock that, as it was put in place for the first time, contemplated its future. It reasoned that it would have to tick twice each second, or 120 times each minute, which meant 7,200 times each hour; in 24 hours, it would have to complete 172,800 ticks; this would mean 63,072,000 times a year; in 10 years, it would have to tick 630,720,000 times. At this point, it collapsed from nervous exhaustion. When it revived, it saw, in a moment of insight, that all it had to do was one tick at a time. So it began, and now ether 100 years, it is still a respected grandfather clock. Too often, we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the size of the tasks that face us, without realizing that they can be broken down to small steps, which, dealt with one at a time, will lead to total accomplishment. Students, at the start of a school year, with an armfull of new textbooks, are often devastated by the total amount of work they are expected to get through. They overlook the fact that they have 10 months to take it, step by step, through to completion. People in business can be prostrated before a desk piled high with all the things that they have to get done, until they realize that the first thing to do is to plan their workload, set their order of priority, and then work methodically on each one in turn. If a bricklayer were to contemplate only the size of the job facing him, he might be so daunted by it that he would never get started. But he knows that all he has to do is lay one brick at a time until the job is completed. What's so fearful about that? Most of us have days when "the roof falls in" and we may feel there is just no way we can cope with it all. Some will throw up their hands and prepare for the consequences of doing nothing. . Bin the wise ones win look at eachUse in turn, decide where to get help if necessary. put first Careful planning makes even the worst day easier "I can't imagine why people would be upset by an 85-year-old person moving into their neigh- borhood." Kitchener MPP David Cooke, discussing Granny Flats. " is wr'itteir-. Geoffrey Fellows - SEE PAGE t things first, then forget about time and concentrate on each task in turn. If there are no time constraints, start with the job you want to do least. Put in that order, your day will become more enjoyable and it is a good way to eliminate procrastination. A _ . _ - .. Those who panic at the thought of their workload have a neurosis about time based on the false assumptions that they can "manage time", "save time", or "make time", all of which are impossible. But as long as they feed these negative attitudes into their subconscious minds, they will become anxious about the passing of time; instead of concentrating upon the tasks at han . They waste time just worrying about time passing instead of realizing that it is going to pass anyway and they should be concerned about using it to the best advantage. This cockeyed notion of time causes us to say such foolish things as "I don't have time to do that". Of course, you have the time, but you choose not to use it in that way. That's OK, but why blame time? Or, "Give it to her, she has more time than I have." How can she have more time than anyone else? What you mean is that she has less to do with her time. Those who know that all we can do with time is either to use it, or waste it, concentrate on managing their activities to use it in the best way possible. We got some excellent advice on taking things one at a time, nearly 2,000 years ago. The correct translation is: "Do not worry about to-morrow. Let tomorrow worry about itself. One day's trouble at a time is enough." (Mr. Fellows is the founder of the Human Resource Development Institute, PO. Box 642, Cambridge, NIR 5W1).