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

i i x f- f a f 3 i i- p 4 weekender saturday july 5 1997 st the tribune saturday july 5 1997 vol 13 no 27 comment editorial expect more tragedy when law is tested the lawyer for the george family in sarnia stated this week that had the tables been turned and a native canadian had shot a police officer a sentence of two years being served in the community would see riot ing in the streets what he didnt say was that the police officer was in ipperwash park to uphold the law there is a serious assault on police being waged in the name of human rights and in many cases it is the police who are coming out on the wrong end the death of dudley george was unfortunate however if you come up against tensioncharged heavily armed law enforcement officers at night with obvious malicious intent you are asking for trou ble certainly if kenneth deane had planned the death of george he would be liable to the full extent of the law however being placed in a situation where unarmed or not you are confronted it is natural to react insurrections are rarely handled well simply because of their inherent volatility what often results is a tragedy police have the toughest job in the country they must make split sec ond decisions in the line of duty to maintain the peace we charge them with those decisions but then rail against them when they are forced to use the power we have bestowed to ensure our safety deane was given two years for the death of george because he was doing what we trained him to do the judge acknowledged this fact but cited deane for a lack of proper judgement the shooting may have been a bad judgement call especially in light of georges being unarmed but its a call made in the heat of an extremely tense situation and one he must live with always its also one every other cop in the country will think about now each time they draw a gun in the line of duty that hesitation could be fatal what doesnt seem to be getting through to some people is that if you fly in the face the law there is a good chance you will be hurt until peo ple realize this there will be more tragedies like this one biologist continues search for elusive sasquatch if you go down to the woods today you re in for a big sur prise childrens song lyric theres nothing john bin- dernagel would love more than a big surprise the next time hes out in the woods a really big surprise like about nine feet tall and cov ered with shaggy fur grizzly kodiak nah bindernagels seen more than his share of bears hes a wildlife biologist who works out of courtenay british columbia prime bear country nope what bindernagel wants to see is a sasquatch also known as bigfoot alias the great north american ape so far he hasnt had the privilege but its not for lack of trying john bindernagel has combed the backwoods of canadas west coast for the past 34 years following up on reported sasquatch sight ings making plaster casts of what might or might not be sasquatch footprints even going so far as to set up cam eras in the trees triggered by electronic pressure pads buried on forest trails hes snapped plenty of deer occasional bears and once he forgot where hed buried the pad himself the closest he came to lay ing eyes on a sasquatch was in 1988 when he and his wife were leading a school hike on vancouver island there crossing a park trail were three prints made by bare feet they were clearly not made by bear paws no evi dence of claws besides they were much more human- looking except for the fact that each print was better than two feet in length either john bindernagel had the tracks of a sasquatch or dennis rodman was run ning around the canadian wilderness with a terrible case of gout basic black arthur black dual education systems are costly to taxpayers dear editor tax time vs school busing the arrival of our 1997 final tax notice this week coincided with the arrival of the latest tribune with the article st marks parents fight for busing while i dont pretend to understand all the issues im disappointed to see that 500 residents have signed a peti tion in opposition to an attempt to save 245000 in transportation costs this at a time when were being told that 708 per cent of our property tax goes to education i believe our mayor and council have done a good job on trying to impose a zero increase in taxes letters nevertheless i see my taxes went up 11042 over 1996 and have in fact gone up 302 since 1994 i have to assume education costs result in this increase ive no doubt our costly dual educa tion system public and catholic sig nificantly impacts education costs where does it stop i hope a majority of residents will support whatever it takes to stop even one penny in further property tax increases blake tufford stouffville maddeningly elusive crea ture the sasquatch there is one blurry video sequence of something large hairy and apelike loping through the woods there are hundreds of snapshots of what might be sasquatch footprints dozens of people swear theyve seen something in the bush that looked like a huge ape scientists have studied fecal and hair samples that they cannot identify as belonging to any known species but no actual sasquatch no bodies no dens or nests or bones that would prove once and for all that the sasquatch exists why is that john bindernagel doesnt think thats so unusual he points out that the forest where the sasquatch is be lieved to live is a very effi cient composter highly alkaline soil and lots of sca vengers and insects to make short work of any mortal remains you very seldom find the bones of bears out there either for another thing people who have never been in bc wilderness underestimate the ruggedness of the terrain entire airplanes have disap peared in the canadian out back never to be seen again it shouldnt be surprising that we havent found a sasquatch corpse of course a lot of people dismiss the whole thing as a crock john bindernagel knows the attitude well in his 34 years of sasquatch pur suit hes weathered much skepticism caused embar rassment to his family and worried about the impact of his hobby on the trajectory of his career but hes no wildeyed fana tic he doesnt even claim flatout that there are sas quatch out there he only says there could be id like people to get up to speed on what we know about the sasquatch we are still operating on this 1960s image of the sasquatch as a joke and a hoax bindernagel is about to share everything hes learned in 34 years his book north americas great ape the sasquatch will be in book stores this fall and what would john bin dernagel do if tomorrow out tramping in the woods he were to round a corner and come face to face with big- foot i hope id have the pres ence of- mind not to panic he said i hope id drop on allfours in a nonthreatening posture so as not to frighten him or her well thats fine for you john but i know what id do id be off in a streak a brown one send your letters to the editor to the address below stoupfville tribune weekender a metroland community newspaper patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief julie caspersen editor debra weller director of advertising phyllis ritchie retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 9056402100 retail sales 905 6402100 classifieds 905 6402874 distribution 9056402100 fax 9056405477 email thetribistarca 6244 main st stouffville ont l4a1e2 the stouffville tribune pub lished every tuesday thursday and saturday is one of the metroland printing publishing and distribu tion group of community newspa pers which includes ajaxpickering news advertiser allistoa herald- courier barrie advance brampton guardian burlington post cltypar- ent colllngwoodwasaga beach con- 1 nectton east york mirror etoblcoke guardian georgetown indepen dentacton free press kingston this week lindsay this week markham economist bun mid- iandpenetangulshene mirror hil ton canadian champion missis- sauga news newmarketaurora erabanner northumberland news north york mirror oakville bearer ottilia today oshawa-whitby-ciar- ingtonport perry this week peter borough this week j richmond hulrhornhuivaughan liberal scarborough mirror and uxbridge tribune todays seniors contents cannot be reprinted without written permission from the publisher per mit 1847 the publisher reserves the right to refuse or classify an advertisement credit for advertise- moot limited to space the error occupied na 3st letters policy the tribune welcomes your letters to the editor please keep letters to no more than 300 words note that letters may be edited for space libel spelling grammar while we endeavor to print as many letters as possible we regret that not all letters may be printed