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----------------_ i tio li i 55. 6 - PORT PERRY STAR - Wednesday August 8, 2001 "Scugog's Community Newspaper of Choice" PUBLISHER, GEN MGR _ . .Don MacLeod : SENIOR REPORTER ... Chris Hall oCha OFFICE MANAGER .... .. Gayle Stapley ADVERTISING MGR ... .. Deb McEachern . CREATIVE MGR . .... Pam Hickey Membey Ormaria Commurity REPORTER ...... ... Rik Davie PHONE 905-985-7383 FAX 905-985-3708 E-MAIL: editorial@portperrystar.com advertising@portperrystar.com PORT PERRY. Publications Mail Registration No. 07881 STAR -- 7 -- Six Months - $19.79 (includes GST) Member Canadian comely (Wo CNA Association We acknowledge the finandal support of the Government of Canada, through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) towards our mailing costs. Published every Tuesday by the Port Perry Star Company Limited, 188 Mary Street - Port Perry, Ontario - L9L 187 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 1 Year - $37.45 (includes GST) Foreign 1 Year - $96.30 (includes GST) EDITORIAL POLICY: Opinions expressed by columnists, contributors and letter waiters are not necessarily those of The Port Perry Star. Letters must be signed and the telephone number (which will not be published) induded. Requests that a name be withheld will be honoured only if there is a compelling reason 10 do so. Errors will be corrected if brought to the editor's attention. We reserve the 4sult o safiese publication of any swaleial submis ADVERVISING POLICY: The pblcher i nolable for sight charges on typoquaphical ens hat outfit vahoe of on cher samen. Tho publishes rk Kable or fhe rcs Or Gibsons i ccrnecton wilh ny advertisement i: any subsequent issue or the refund of any monies paid for the advertisement. All daims of error in publication must be made by Wednesday, noon, prior to the next week's publication, and, if not made, will not be considered. No daim will be allowed for more than one insertion. BUSINESS OFFICE: Judy Ashby, Kathy Dudley, ADVERTISING: Ginni Todd, Cindy Jobin, Trudy Empringham, Daryle Wright, Arlene Cheel Freelance Writers- Heather McCrae, John B. McClelland Janet Rankin, Lesley West Gail Morse, Linda Clarke, Lisa Monk, Janet Archer, Lori Bradbury 1 PRODUCTION: Editorial Comment Safe building works We have all felt the shiver down our spines one gets when walking at night in a poorly lit or shrub-infested park setting. Who has not felt at least a little apprehension at cutting behind a strip mall at night to take a shortcut with shadows hiding any number of dangers. Ward 2 Councillor Marilyn Pearce may be on to something with the use of police officers trained in the architecture of safety. These officers hélp out in the City of Oshawa and with new schools being built all across Durham Region to make sure that safety does not come second to eye-pleasing buildings. Good lighting and a lack of places for the boogie men to hide are a darn good idea for an area like Scugog Township that will see major growth in commercial building in the near future. Some buildings in fact create a place for crime to occur with recessed entries, shrubs and alcoves that allow the predators that walk among us to quietly hide and await the next victim. Unlit alley ways and dense shrubs behind plazas are the playground of the drug dealer. Take away these areas, or light them, and you have solved a big portion of the problem before it can occur. Councillor Pearce wants local council to at least look at the idea of including these architectural cops into the planning process to make new plazas, parks and other areas were the public gather, to be as safe as possible. Hopefully a time will come in Scugog where a developer will have to prove that not only is the environment being pro- tected by whatever he chooses to build, but that the safety of the public who will use it is built into the project from the ground up. gl $ Wn T DON'T CARE WHO You ARE FELLAH. THERE. IS A BURN-BAN IN EFFECT AND You ARE VIOLATING \T! LETTERS Hydro changes will cost us all To the Editor: The first shot in the war on hydro deregulation and its outcome has been fired and it has hit the con- sumer right in the pocketbook. Did you notice in the "mes- sages" portion of this month's Scugog Hydro bill that they are implementing a surcharge of .735 cents per kilowatt hour to pay down the debt of the former Ontario Hydro, now known as Hydro One? To the average home- owner in this province who uses 700 kwh per month, this means an increase of about five dollars. That's a lot of money if you multiply that times the number of house- holds in this province. Meanwhile, Hydro One, seem- ingly not learning anything from its past history, continues to spend like a drunken sailor, buying up utilities across the province, the most recent acquisition being Brampton Hydro. These are the very same people that are telling you that deregulation will be good for the consumer. Fact |: The people of Ontario already enjoy one of the lowest rates on the North American grid. This has been one of the reasons that Ontario has attracted big busi- ness in the past and with it the jobs it provides. When deregula- tion comes in do you really think the rates will go down? Fact 2: The people of Ontario have already paid to build our electrical energy and distribution system. Ontario has also made choices to protect the environment by developing nuclear power. In 'the USA the Bush Administration has already made plans to go ahead and build a large number of power plants, mostly coal-fired, to meet the demands. Ontario will eventually have to compete with American electricity suppliers who will have a large component of coal in their generation base. This will mean that the only way we will be competitive is to remove the nuclear component out of our cost base. This in turn could leave the people of Ontario stuck with a number of nuclear power plants that are no longer economically viable and the cost that has been ensued in the debt from first build- ing them and in the future, moth- balling them. Maybe .735 cents per kwh will seem like a bargain then. Fred DuBray, Port Perry