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SESE Fh borer, on ct GE ES, Sh SS i Bi Editorial Comments 'Building A_ Hall In a year-end interview with the Star last week, the Mayor of Scugog Township said he thinks it is time the municipality got serious about plans to build a community hall-banquet facility in this Township. In fact, Mayor Jerry Taylor said he hopes the council will get the plans off the ground in 1988. Whether that will come to pass this year remains to be seen. After all, municipal elections are coming up in November and hopefuls who are running for a seat on the new council may be reluctant to get in- volved in a 'big ticket' items like a banquet hall smack in the middle of an election year. Still, election year or not, a banquet facility with seating comfor- tably for up to 400 people is something badly lacking in Scugog Township. There are plenty of fine smaller halls in the Township, seating up to 200 people, all of which serve an excellent purpose. And most are booked well in advance for weddings, banquets, com- munity functions and so on. The idea for a large banquet hall is not exactly new in Scugog Township. In fact, it was this very issue several years ago that laun- ched the indepth study by professional consultants about recreation and leisure facilities in the municipalities. When the consultants handed down their lengthy report last February, one of the recommendations was for a banquet hall seating up to 400 people. ' The consultants said construction should take place in the next four years (i.e.- between 1987 and 1991). The cost would be high for a properly equipped facility, somewhere between $600 and $700,000. If Scugog hopes in any way to meet this timetable, the Mayor is quite right when he suggests that serious planning should start in 1988. , And building such a hall as part of the Scugog Arena, as sug- . gested by the consultants, makes sense. Eventually, the Arena will be part of a recreational area, and a banquet hall there would be ideal for functions that integrate with the arena uses and the recreation area in general. : On New Year's Day, the Port Perry Minor Hockey organization hosted a team from Sweden, and Minor Hockey was required to put on a meal after the game for the visiting players and officials. The meal itself was excellent, but the setting left a Rit to be desired. How much nicer it would have been for Minor Hockey to entertain overseas guests in a first rate banquet facility at the Arena instead of the dingy, cramped Latcham Centre, where the size restricted the seating to about 100 péople. We suggest there are any number of community organizations which could make darn good use on a regular basis of a large ban- quet facility, not to mention private individuals who are forced to go to Uxbridge or Little Britain if they want more than 200 guests to sit down to dinner at a wedding reception. Ideally, of course, such a banquet facility should have been at the arena during construction in 1976. But it wasn't and ten years have passed. The community has progressed and grown since then, and it's high time that facilities like a banquet hall kept pace with that growth. Port Perry Go ohA STAR § (= 235 QUEEN STREET - PORT PERRY, ONTARIO Phone 985-7383 P.0.Box90 LOB 1NO J. PETER HVIDSTEN Publisher Advertising Manager Member of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and Ontario Community Newspaper Association. Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Co. Ltd., Port Perry, Ontario. J.B. McCLELLAND Editor Authorized as second class mail by the Post Office Department, Ottawa, and for cash payment of postage in cash. CATHY OLLIFFE News & Features : Second Class Mail Registration Number 0265 " A " Subscription Rate: In Canada $20.00 per year. B12 0s iae 030 AL Elsewhere $60.00 per year. Single Copy 50° © COPYRIGHT -- All layout and composition of advertiseménts produced by the adver- tising department of the Port Perry Star Company Limited are protected under copyright and may not be reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. Chatterbox by Cathy Olliffe SOME DID, SOME DIDN'T Last year at this time I wrote a not so glorious column titled 'Predictable Predictions," filled ~ with semi-ridiculous forecasts for the 1987 year. Just for fun (and because I couldn't think of anything else to write about), I dug up that paper and looked back on the predictions I had made. Some of them came absolutely true. But on some, I was so far off base as to be completely out of the running. Here's a look back at what I wrote last year ~ (in bold type) and how they turned out: (1.) As winter grows into February, the dip in front of the baseball diamond on Water Street will grow deeper. Well, I was half right on this one. For awhile, the dreaded car-eater did sink deeper and deeper ---- until some time later in the year when the Township Roads Department fixed the thing per- manently. But I noticed, as I drove into work this morning, that the dip has*hecome a hill, instead. Danged thing raises about a foot off the ground. Sort of like a deranged speed bump. (2.) The weeds won't be so bad on Lake Scugog this summer. YAY! Was I right, or was I right? Those pesky weeds sure "nuff did bite the bullet last summer. Boats were practically free to move, nobody strangled and drowned, and we at the Star had vir- tually nothing to complain about. ~ (3.) The School Board will expropriate the Fair Boagd. Boy was I wrong on this one. Although for a while it looked like the Durham Board of Educa- tion might expropriate the Agricultural Society in order to put in a new school, the cost of such a move eventually stopped the School Board cold. Now the Board is looking somewhere else for a school site, and the Fair Board is carrying on as usual, getting ready for the next Labour Day weekend fair. Yes, sometimes even the most con- troversial affairs have happy endings. Thank goodness. (4.) The 1987 Port Perry Fair attendance wont' be so great, but by 1990, the Fair will be booming more than ever. ' I was 50-50 on this prediction. Yes, according to an earlier story, gate receipts were down ap- « proximately 25 per cent over the year before. But three beautiful days of sunshine helped make the fair the place to be over Labour Day Weekend. And as for 1990 -- I still think it will be booming. As country continues to rage as people's favourite fad, country events like the Port Perry Fair will continue to grow in popularity. (5.) Courier trucks will continue to litter and clog Queen Street for the next several months. You can bet your bottom dollar I don't want to touch this one with a ten-foot pole. I nearly died over this one. And I don't plan on commenting on it -- probably ever again. ( (6.) Mayor Jerry Taylor will not run in the next election. Well, that election is slated for this Fall, and I'm holding firm on this prediction. It's too bad, - however. Jerr is a heckuva nice guy and he'll be sorely missed in the political arena. A better. per- son, there's never been. (7.) If I can talk him into it, my editor, the great John B. McClelland, will run for Mayor in the next election. Guess I have to revoke this one. John wants | no part of my election plans and my scheme of taking over his job here at the Star are moot. C'est la vie. (8.) This prediction is so ridiculous, I'm not even going to re-write it. (9.) I will not get pregnant in 1987. SEE? Told you. Just because you get mar- ried, doesn't mean you have to start a family right away. Ha, ha. I was a ringer on this one. (10.) Next year's Christmas Lights contest will be simply incredible. And it was. The lights were just as dazzling this year as last, and yes, we're hoping to do it again next year as well. (11.) The price of Hydro will go up. I don't think it did in '87, but I understand it's gonna in the early part of '88. Chances are, it won't go down. ' (12.) John B., Randy Harvey, Roxanne Reveler and Kathy Dudley will not quit smoking in 1987. I should have laid money on this one. Despite a quaint pact all these Star employees made to quit smoking, I believe most of them are still at it. Randy Harvey doesn't work here anymore, but I betcha anything he's still puffing away in Flam- borough. Roxanne Reveler isn't here either, but I suspect if anyone of that group quit, it would be Roxanne. As for John B., and Kathy, they're still puffing like there's no tomorrow. So am I, for that matter, and I have no intention of making any pact I can't keep. (13.) Hockey, although a great Canadian sport and all that schtick, will continue to be a wife's greatest source of hatred in the coming year. I dunno. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. In my case, I've actually come around a bit and unders- tand the game a little more. I've even learned the basics of skating. So I guess I was wrong about unlucky 13. (14.) I will continue to have problems filling this space. : There's never been truer words spoken. Fill- ing this column is the bane of my life. Sometimes I have nightmares about a blank column to match the blank look on the above picture. There's weeks when I consider writing the same line over and (Turn to page 8) \ a AR eX TE ---- ad - A HN A i -- eg "opi .