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economist suntribune thursday oct 17 2002 stouffville tribune serving the community since 1856 a metroland community newspaper 9 heritage rd markham ont l3p 1m3 publisher ian proudfoot editorial we streetproof students now its time for computer proofing the internet is a gift but it can also be a burden that fact hit every parent this week when yet another story surfaced of pedophiles using the net to hunt children toronto police say a man who befriended an 11yearold in a internet chatroom arranged to meet her and took her to a hotel its the kind of horror story that makes par ents want to confiscate their childrens com puters or at least disconnect them from the information highway but of course thats unrealistic internet access is everywhere if children dont go online at home they can connect at the library at school or at a friends home parents are the first line of defence they need to keep computers in an open area such as the family room or kitchen a place where they can watch their youngsters when they are online parents may even consider banning their children from chatrooms until they are old enough to understand the dangers unfortunately not every child has respon sible parents society schools and the police must also play a role to make sure our children know danger lurks online const steve morrell spokesperson for york regional police says children are given internet safety tips when community officers visit schools but he agrees there needs to be a more vig ilant approach to ensuring our children arent snared by a websawy pedophile we need to computerproof our kids in the same way we streetproof them const morrell says we need to stay one step ahead of the pedophiles because they are very proficient in the use of computers every parent and every child knows the phrase stranger danger streetproofing programs are continually reinforced police and schools teach the children which in turn filters back to parents now there is stranger danger in cyber space streetproofing programs need to be adapted to internetsurfing children so they know when theyre being pursued in a chat- room a united front parents schools and police will go a long way in protecting our children without denying them the gift of the internet opinion 2- why is renovation bill so high re giant fixup bill for citizens tribune sept 19 it is interesting when the arrowsmith group was proposing to buy stouffvilles old town hall for 50000 it put the total cost of the renova tion at 770000 now that the building has remained in the hands of the town mayor wayne emmerson is stating he would like to see arrowsmith help to restore the building at a cost of 12 million could someone explain how the cost of renovation could skyrocket so quickly the other point i would like to make clear is the cost of renovation need not all come from the town there are grants available both fed eral and provincial that should be explored before any final figure is put forward i find it disturbing and sad our mayor would throw out this figure without first making an effort to see how we might restore this building in a fiscally responsible manner i would also like to ask the town how it intends to determine what to do with the building of the numerous conversations i had with the people in this town the one idea that kept coming back again and again was this a theatre with the potential to show movies would be a great asset in tiying to bring the downtown back to life the idea of giving the building to the silver jubilee club will only result in our having one more empty building downtown finally i challenge the mayor and council the economist sunstoufiville tribune welcomes your letters all submissions must be less than 400 words and must include a daytime telephone number name and address the economist suntribune reserves the right to publish or not publish and to edit for clarity and space write letters to the editor 9 heritage rd markham l3p 1m3 email letterseconsuncom to find out what the people of this community would like to see in the old town hall after all it will be our tax dollars paying for it pam mandich stouffville harassment of smokers is wrong let me start by saying i am not a smoker never was never will be having said that i am becoming tired of the harassment by the regions smoke police of people doing some thing perfectly legal it reminds me of a certain european coun try during the period of 1933 to 1945 where if you didnt conform they would kick down your door and carry you away i know the comparison is a a bit extreme and b will offend some but where does one draw the line can prohibition be far behind keep this in mind prohibition didnt work larry rowe editorial editor jim mason newsrooineconsimcom advertising retail sales manager steve kane stevekyorkregioncom sales manager new business development distribution dawna andrews dandretvserabannercom classified manager ann campbell anncerabannercom real estate manager mike rogerson production electronic communications manager john futhey jfiitheyyrngcom distribution distribution manager barry black bblackeconsimcom administration office manager vivian oneil voneileconstincom york region events managing director debra weller dtvclleryrngcom shows manager stacey allen sallenyrngcom york region printing general manager bob dean bdeanyrngcom editorial 9052942200 fax 2941538 advertising 2942200 classified 1-800- 7433353 1 853176s distribution 9052948244 canadian ontario press circulations audit council board member stouffville tribune a york region newspaper group community newspaper trie stouffville tribune published every thursday and saturday is a member of the metroland printing publishing and distributing ltd a wholly owned subsidiary of torstar corporation metroland is comprised of 70 community publications across ontario the york region newspaper group includes the liberal serving richmond hill andthomhinvaughan citizen markham economist sun stouffville tribune stouffvipe sun georgjna advocate york region business times at home good life yorkregioncom and york region printing editor in chief debora kelly business manager robert lazurko director marketing new product development brenda larson advertising director retail flyer sales nicole mathieu advertising director classified real estate events management gord paolucci dave teetzel lets do better for yorks hungry i was taken aback the other week when the supermarket cashier asked me if i wanted to add 2 to my bill for the food drive apparently thats more than a lot of grocery stores did to support the thanksgiving food drive leaving the york region food network scrambling to catch up the local group says after an abysmal start media coverage has brought dona tions up to half the drives goal still well behind where they should be the poor response is being blamed on a focus groups advice to scrap the paper bag stuffed inside newspapers used to promote previous drives instead the food banks partnered with grocery stores expecting heavyduty instore promotions but in some cases stores did little more than leave a collection bin at the front door even in my case apparently at the high end of food store participa tion the hungry lost out i would normally spend a lot more than 2 on canned goods for a food drive this time out having forgotten to pick up any donations i figured oh well i gave em a couple of bucks if everyone did that thered be plenty to go around yes i am ashamed of myself stores and governments have writ ten food banks into their business plans food banks have responded by becoming more businesslike i remember attending york region food network meetings with about a dozen people in the basement of richmond hill united church in the mid- 80s back then we saw it as a stop gap a way for the ordinary person to help a neighbour through hard times now this agency maintains office space and has paid staff to handle the growing demand administer pro grams and lobby governments nobodys even pretending food banks will be going out of business but without donations the whole system comes crashing down as we saw last weekend a lot of factors combined to hurt this drive one of the biggest being the sur prise attack on donors budgets perpe trated by the hydro utilities but you know what thats just plain wrong the kid who is going hungry didnt raise your hydro bill he didnt decide to turn food banks into institutions nor did he design their marketing strategy hes just hungry he doesnt need our excuses or our judgments he needs food and there are about 3000 like him in york region alone the food drive continues to oct 27 you can drop your donations at grocery stores or fire halls as for me i can do better than two lousy bucks r t i i n