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n mm the tribune thursday mar 20 1975 r ft wtibum dos bernard ijtop established 1888 charles h nolan v publisher pumislmd cvtry jburvuy u 34 main st slouffvill oat tl mo2i0i barrebeacock i i i i i fait toroato phone miio0 single copies c subscription um per year ia advertisine manaeer fcdllor canada sumchrfrr member el audit boreau of clrcvtatiea canadian nuig flianager community nrwipaperi association and ontario weekly newspapers association second cla mail registration number mm tne tribune is one of the inland publishing co limited group of suburban newspapers which includes the alaxwhitbypickerioj news advertiser brampton guardian burlington post etoblcoke gazette markham economist and sun newmarkevurora era oakviile beaver oshawa this week and mississauea news is it a world gone mad i for the average man it seems that a look at events in the news shows a world gone mad one thing that feeds this feeling of absurdity connected with our world involves excessive pay demands made by those people employed by governments members of the public service alliance of canada have been conducting a series of illegal rotating strikes and various place in the civil service last week they decided to school bus damage can be prevented damage to school buses operated by travelways ltd runs at the rate of 7500 pa- year according to a spokesman for that company most of the damage done by children riding on the buses involves seat upholstery being ripped and slashed v the problem is a serious one probably more serious than most parents realize the solutions however may be obvious first of all the school buses could be equipped with hard fiberglass seats instead of the present upholstered one in that way they are vir tually indestructible another way to deal with the problem is to give the bus drivers authority to ban students rfrom the buses the offending youngster would not be able to get away with it so quickly because he would lose his bus privileges these mayseem like extreme measures but destruction should not be encouraged nor tolerated picket torontos main postal terminal again and the airport they are presently negotiating off and on with the government the negotiations have gotten nowhere and therotating strikes are conducted to speed up a settlement well most people accept the fact that unions have gone too far these days in their demands union workers who have the power to strike are sitting pretty while nonunion workers are hardhit by inflation fueled by union settlements but even the teachers have abandoned all pretense that they care about the quality of education or runaway inflation or the fact that we have doubledigit inflation at the same time the economy is declining it is obvious that teachers are interested firstly as are the members of the public service alliance in one thing more money everybody seems to think that if its the government they can demand any kind of settlement and getit after all government does not have to make a profit as private business does no just raise taxes we hope the government and the school board and the provincial education people stand firm in the face of these excessive demands canada needs moderation now in the face of difficult economic times ahead high settlements could trigger a new round of price increases and throw the canadian economy into a further tailspin moderation now could mean that the rate of inflation will moderate and the economy will revive we hope the government understands that the workers and teachers certainly dont thirty years ago this week excerpts from the tribune from march 22 ims nopeanuts- you probably havent noticed but peanuts are practically off the market much of the time and the supply at its best is limited this was the reason given us last week why there was no peanut vendor at the public auction sales this spring percy dike peanut king of the district hasnt been seen with his bag over the back for a long time but he hopes that when the nuts are available he will be able to supply those who like something to munch when watching the auctioneer chew his cud nickel matinee childrens 5 cent matinee at the stanley theatre every saturday afternoon door open at 2 pm j cooperative the first annual meeting of the stouffville cooperative association was held in the municipal hall on march 16 sugar and spice postal strikes draw bilvs ire by bill smiley budget cut unnecessary council feels that it should cut budgets that come before it from various groups that- i depend on the town for financial- support when a budget is cut councillors feel that they aredoingtheir part insavirigthetaxpayersr money well that might be but the 3000 cut from the library budget was totally unnecessary the library has need for stoplight i not demonstrated it must be some matter of distinction but stouffville has its own stoplight but we wonder if that will really do anything to eliminate some of the problems of heavy traffic on main st first of all the light is not at a corner one would expect a traffic control light to be at a corner that way it would allow some traffic to turn onto main st the other problem involves the real difficulty on main st pedestrian traffic while a contributing factor to tieups is not in our opinion the only culprit people parking en main st cars making leftturnson and off main st and the general heavy traffic on the street are also at fault the only answer is another through street which in all likelihood will be built when the dulverton subdivision is built north of town in the meantime we hope the light does some good but we are not optimistic come along way in the past year to stifle growth now would be a slap in the face to the hard work of librarian lynne robbins even the budget presented before the cut was bare bones according to mrs- robbins it is not the time tobe cutting the library budget the service has been improved and should be improved further but penny- pinching on the part of council could not only create disenchantment with the library on the part of those who have started using it but could lose the towaa topnotch librarian who almost singlehandedly pulled stouffvilles library service into the 20th century parking land is a real bargain the town has completed a deal for the bp property on main st next to the bakery to be used for offstreet parking it appears that the town got a bargain the land cost 15000 to buy and will cost another 10000 to be- suitable for parking v f it is a first step in providing adequate parking for people who park their cars downtown all day few people will use it when they do their shopping but at least more spaces will be made available a sensible plan for further land acquisition for parking will mean that the downtown core will not be choked with cars as stouffville grows i have personally had it with the canadian postal service so called i am sick to death of postal strikes and threats of strikes and i almost throw up every time honorable bryce mackasey minister in charge of the postoffice comes on television to state bluntly that postal employees last year stole only a million dollars or whatever v which is just a drop in the bucket and that we have the third best postal service in the world his first statement practically condones theft by public employees his second must be something he halucinated while recovering from an overdose of stamp glue admitted that for years postal employees were sorely underpaid and most of them were in the job only for the security it offered but the security is still there and they are now farfrom sorely underpaid some of them in view of what they do and the relatively simple qualifications required may be overpaid in comparison with some other jobs admitted many postal jobs are unex citing even boring and monotonous this is no excuse for the flouting of the publics needs or for the thumbtothenoseattitude towards thev government employer of the postal workers nobody forced those people to work in the post office plenty of other jobs are just as monotonous if they wanted excitement why didnt they go into high steel work or massage parlors isnt it about time for a showdown either canada gets a first rate postal service as we used to have or- we scrap the whole thing and turn ifoverto private enterprise in my far from humble opinion n latter course should have been taken years agofpr the past- several decades the performance of the post office in this country has been a dismal one each year efficiency decreases each year the costs increase each new broom appointed as minister has carefully swept the dirt under the rug instead of but the door i think its too late for a purge in the post office which has become so constipated that nothing short of dynamite would move those turgid bowels no new minister has the guts to go in and ream out the dottle of the public pipeline it would be his head on a platter if he tried nope its too late for half measures its time to put the whole shambling sick half- paralyzed leviathan on the auction block and sell it to the highest bidder buildings bricks equipment and jobs and lets not get any phony nationalism mixed up in it if one of the new rich oil countries wants to buy the mess and put it in running order why not canadians canfdo it apparently you think this is too drastic it seems the only alternativewe have to limping along with a postal system that the word rotten inadequately describes you think something as big and important as the postal nonsystem should be controlled by the government hogwash anyone wiji ears to hear or eyes to read knows that government is notably inefficient as an em ployer lets look at oneexample we have two transcontinental railways cpr privately owned has shown a thumping profit year after year the cnr government owned highly subsidized is always in the red you think im a little hot today youre right postal strikes have cost me con siderable in terms of anxiety and cash and im only a little frog imagine what the lousy service is doing to slow down and thwart large companies which hire hundreds of thousands as i write postal employees in toronto are not working while mail piles up in thousands of tons why are they not working because they wont cross the picket lines of another comparatively small union that is on strike and get this the post office gave its non- working employees leave of absence without pay they were not fired and those em- ployeeshave the unbelievable gall to talk of suing the post- office because they are not drawing their pay when they are not working even though they are not on strike can you j figure that out it makes my head reel this week i sent a letter special delivery it cost me 48 cents in postage to make me expend such a sum the letter had to be mightyhmportant its sitting in a post office unsorted in which the employees are not on strike ive had enough wholl join me and in closing may i add that i dont put the blame on the postal union not all of it these people are human and will reach for all they can get the real root of my rage and fifthrate canadian postal nonservice is the gutless politicians in ottawa back from eastern front by mark niblett jkplsx m89m2 it was a frosty day when the students of rlhgwood school lined up for a up against the cold they appear never- theless tojbellnlhlglf spirits in the hacktrow left to right- alma brownsbergerrobina mcpherson- irene brownsberger jean stouffer isophie pohockluimitchelreva schell elsie hoover miss gilbert teacher wesley schelandwaltermmeiv centre row u jean harper cora mcpherson edith harper murray ramer and bruce stouffer kneeling in the front row are alvin hoover arthur pollock everett pipfaer garnet brownsberger alvin harper mervin browns- berger bernard harmon harbey schell stewart stouffer hubert mcpherson and gordon ramer f i last week i attended my last meeting of the york county board of education the last because i told the editor that im getting shellshocked i cant hack it any more its four years since i first started covering that board and theyve worn me down nonetheless i urge the public to attend a meeting its a great source of amusement of the black humour variety last week for example the board spent about three- quarters of an hour debating whether or not to open their meetings with a prayer the inanity of the debate represented an alltime high or low depending on how you look at it confronted by a financial squeeze that could cripple the whole school system the trustees feel they should debate matters like this for years now board meetings have been widely recognized as the moral equivalent of being sent to the eastern front for those journalists obliged to attend i can only marvel at the hardiness of my colleagues especially jim who has covered the meetings longer than i have now that takes guts still it wasnt all bad i managed to read quite a number of good books while trustees were droning on about various idiot issues i used to be able to laugh at them but i find now the laughter is turning a little sour these are the people who control better than 50 million god help us all the fact is that the composition of the board pretty well guarantees its mediocrity and incompetence first there are too many members no group can operate efficiently with 20 members the main problem though is the quality of the trustees understand me there are some trustees who are genuinely intelligent- and concerned and i respect them i had great hopes when don sim became chairman because hes one of the best on the board most trustees though are the very scraps and sweepings of the electoral- system concerned and intelligent people generally steer clear of running for the board they realize the board is largelypowerless some y of the members that i have seeneelectedor acclaimed are damn near enough to make me wish we could have a dictatorship they vary of course some sit in glassy- eyed apathy apparently sunk or morose thought and say little or nothing others the ones all reporters really dread never stop talking it doesnt matter what the issue is nor whether- the trustee ever heard of it before he or she feels obliged to ramble on endlessly about it sim has managed to j curb this but he hasnt stamped it out in consequence the banality of the debate at board meetings is pretty well absolute it approaches the level of a crowd of kids squabbling in a playground although it seldom reaches such heights boredom is the byword of the board my heart goes out to that handful of trustees who have shown themselves able and intelligent they even have to sit through closed sessions and committee meetings of the board a punishment i would not wish on my worst enemy well im out of it thank god ill never again have to be a witness to the petty in competent nauseating babble of some trustees who have driven me to the brink of j madness ill never again have to suffer their petty attempts to force their own ignorant prejudices and beliefs on others im free free sure im bitter you would be too if youd sat through as many board meetings as i have now i feel as though a great weight has been lifted from my back im copping out and some poor wretched reporter is going- to have to be sacrificed on the alter of boredom in my place whoever 1 you may be friend i bleed for you but not enough to ever go back to the york county board of education u