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4 the tribune thursday may 2s wis ht wrihunt john montgomery ed her established ims charles h nolan publisher barre seacock advertising manager editorial oept aaaegret linurc keha bojeoder display advertising oept lois widemaa art ootea business office ju manamaa dor eta deacea eileea gtover pumiiaed eery tnuridar at 5 mjiasu jtouhvdle oal ttl mohoi toronto phone miuk siaaje jcepm mc ubxriptwu lie 00 per year la canada sum elsewhere member el audit bureau el circulatiea canadian community newspapers allocution aad onlarie weekly newipapers assorjatioa second clau mail registration number mm the tribune is ene el m inland pemisniao co limited group el suburban newspapers which includes the aiaiwtmbypickerine mean advertiser brampton cuardian burliagtea pojt etobicoke gatette markham economist and sua newmarket aurora era oekville beaver oshewa this week aadmississauga newt 6402100 3611680 editorial councillor is unfair xmrmop councillor jim doble almost graciously apologized in a selfserving letter printed elsewhere on this page for the possibly slanderous remarks he made last week at the budget committee meeting mr doble hedged around apologizing to the library staff before trying to edge out of responsibility by casting aspersions on the accuracy of the original reporting inferring that the person who wrote the editorial was not familiar with the incident and lastly by accusing the tribune of overreacting to the whole thing his apology would have been quite ac ceptable if he hadnt added the qualifier if i was quoted correctly the tribune states unequivocally that our reporting in this in cident was accurate and in fact we have verified the accuracy of the quote with other members of council during a telephone conversation mr doble insisted his remarks had been taken out of context but this is extremely unlikely as he was quoted verbatim and the conversation leading up to his now famous remarks was included in the story sort of he apologizes dear sir in regards to your editorial about my comments concerning terry verity chief librarian i feel an apology is in order if i was quoted correctly comments which should have been directed to the library budget were inexcusable when directed to an individuals ability and dedication i my have erred in that particular point but as far as the overall budget for the library i have no apologies to make vandorf lemonville and the museum boards came in below last years budget figures with recreation up 6 per cent ballantrae with only a 365 increase and stouffville up slightly the library boards asked for budget came in at 30 per cent increase which was considered by most council members to be excessive when the taxpayers are already paying 25000 a year in interest alone on monies borrowed for the library building and grounds the library budget of 90000 as approved by council still constitutes 11 per cent of the towns total expenditures some of which are the above mentioned boards wages road maintenance etc it was most unfortunate that the person responsible for the editorial was not the same person who covered this important yearly budget meeting the overreaction of the tribune regarding the library boards budget is unfair to council in the light of the fact that one would have to search a long way to find another municipality that will have no mill increase in their 1978 budget and this is not accomplished by granting excessive increases jim doble councillor wardl rr 3 newmarket also mr doble offered no explanation as to how his comments would have been mitigated by our giving more background the ward 1 councillor then goes on to say it was unfortunate the person who wrote the editorial did not also cover the meeting in fact the author of the editorial was the reporter who covered the meeting and as was explained to mr doble the editorial was then read by the editor who made some minor revisions we are further accused of overreacting and treating council unfairly since they have kept the local mill rate down our editorial deals not with the fact that the budget was cut so much as the continuing animosity shown toward the library by certain members of council especially as exemplified by mr dobles slurring remarks the tribune reacted because we feel this treatment is grossly unfair to the library board and staff who have done a tremendous job in the past three or four years of upgrading an almost nonexistent service into a municipal show spot in our telephone conversation last week mr doble sort of sloughed the whole issue off by saying well you have to sell newspapers this type of reporting in our opinion does not necessarily enhance sales of the tribune however we feel it is our paramount responsibility to inform the public of these issues which so vitally affect our pocketbooks and the quality of our lives also there has been a strong public reaction to mr dobles comments and generally to the attitude of council toward the library obviously the issue is one of some concern there is no doubt the increase in the library budget is considerable but we just spent close to 400000 to erect a new library last year and now we have to spend some money to fill it with books it is not just a problem of filling more shelf space the library circulation has increased tremen dously so the books already owned by the library are more often in circulation and thus are unavailable a good deal of the time another point mr doble made when he called the tribune is that he wants to see this 26000 per year debenture out of the way before allowing the library a considerable increase in operating fundsthe point is it is a 20 year debenture does mr doble expect us to wait 20 years before upgrading the librarys collection it is councils prerogative to set the library budget and of course we will have to live with their decision but we have to add that the reason we face such a tremendous in crease in the budget is not because the library board has gone on a wild spending spree but because so dismally little money was spent on the library service in previous years in our opinion the library board is only trying to upgrade the service to a reasonable degree we are paying now for years of neglect c wheeled a booze barbecue and beach by john montgomery summer has now been officially ushered in with prodigious amount of steak ham burgers hotdogs and especially beer the may 24th trek to cottage country is so firmly entrenched it has become almost a ritual and this year as i have almost every year for the past 12 or 13 years i spent the weekend at sauble beach as a high school student i used to thumb up and crash wherever i could but now alice and i stay at my friend genes cottage it is almost a tradition that gene invite us up every year so i have been wrangling for a lifetime invitation something that could be made a condition of purchase if the cottage is ever sold but to no avail actually the whole area around sauble port elgin southampton wiarton is like one huge timewarp on may 24th with muscle cars full of young beer drinkers roaring up and down the streets and everybody trying to act like they are in an annette funnyjello beach blanket movie driving over to port elgin sunday the highway is lined with roadside partyers who raise their beer bottles on high as we scoot by in my brothers overpowered and rumbling orange plymouth bunch of burnouts my brother laconically describes them as we tool by at port elgin we visit my brotherinlaw who has a cottage on one of the main streets leading to the beach there is an endless procession of sports cars vans muscle cars motorcycles and a few family vehicles that look hopelessly out of place the road is on a slight grade and as we sit a half ton truck goes rolling down the hill with several young guys in hot pursuit they get along side the truck open the drivers door and one man dives in and brings the runaway to a halt noone pays too much attention and the conversation quickly reverts to discussions of the weather cold and beer supplies short there is something about may 24th that causes huge quantities of beer to simply evaporate and by late sunday and early monday the bootleggers are doing a roaring trade my brotherinlaw tells us of a beer tent at port elgin that was drunk dry in some two hours he also relates a hairraising tale of a boozy 15 mile canoe race held early in the weekend apparently everybody filled their canoes with potables and then nearly every vessel tipped in fast water causing great consternation to the bombed contestants the only injury was one guy who fell on some rocks during a portage and ended up with cuts caused by the beer bottle he refused to let go of on his hand requiring some 18 stitches and the commandeering of a cam pers car to get the guy to a hospital before he bled to death sunday night after the hockey game we hear on the news that the police have closed off the road between sauble and the provincial park everybody registers acute disap pointment aah we missed it again genes sister mel mournfully mutters it seems may 24th at sauble is not com plete without some major confrontation between beery young holidayers and police and we have developed a tradition of never even seeing the slightest trace of it it is embarrassing to come home every year and have all my friends ask did you get hurt in the riot how can i tell them that because of a combination of fresh air sand beer and ex travagant barbecued steak dinners i was at the time of the riot peacefully snoozing back at the cottage oh well maybe next year o window on wildlife lamprey major problem by artbriggsjudt kids stuff johnny fire nose slays dragons by david elliott grade 6 dickson hill public school thousands of years ago there came a time mi ij5ptl smmm when the earth became overpopulated with dragons dragons were everywhere causing great fear sometimes they would attack and injure and even kill many people one day a meeting was called to deal with the problem of dragons a great discussion took place many ideas were put forth and many schemes were promoted the meeting went on for days one day some bright person came up with the idea and convinced his friends that fire could most successfully de fought with fire but the big problem was how to do it and as common in most meetings more discussion took place a solution seemed impossible however during much of this meeting mr and mrs bignose had been doing an awful lot of thinking so outrageous were their thoughts that they were ashamed but finally they hesitantly brought forward a suggestion johnny their son had been blessed with a bigger nose than them could it be possible that the gods would allow him to breathe fire even hotter than the dragons breath the people thought it was a great idea and decided to build the worlds greatest bonfire some gathered stones and ethers paper and most of them went great distances to gather wood the fire was lit the musicians came and the great are dance began people sang danced and prayed to the fire god all this time attention was on johnny bignose this was probably the biggest fire dance that had ever taken place would the fire god give them an answer all of a sudden something strange began to happen a faint blue flame began to come from johnnys nose the message was quickly carried to the king who sent his best men to visit the bignose family the kings men told mr and mrs bignose that if they would allow johnny tu fight dragons he would give them his best horse chariot and let them live in the kings palace for the rest of their lives so they sent johnny out to fight and about a year later he had dispatched all the dragons with his marvellous fire nose this snake flies if you have some toddlers around the house you can make them a whirly snake to fly start with a circle of cardboard and cut it round and round till you have a spiral attach a string and the little ones have their own kite and hopefully will leave yours alone by art briggsjude part of the east branch of the humber river has its beginnings just south of king city from there it angles south twisting and turning through rolling and wooded country till it joins up with its sister stream the west branch near woodbridge now a sizable watercourse the river cuts across metro tunnels under the 401 highway and continues in a parallel direction with jane st eventually slipping under the lakeshore and emptying into lake ontario west of sunnyside in its upper reaches the humber sup ports some trout along with various other fresh water species below the boyd con servation area near woodbridge however the water starts to pick up pollutants to such an extent that by the time it reaches humber bay few if any trout can survive this fact was pointed out very clearly when ontario began planting coho salmon in the streams of western lake ontario for while the young smolts survived and returned to such waters as the credit river and bronte creek no such success was realized from the humber but the humber river has in spite of its water condition contributed somewhat to the success story of the pacific salmon in troductions early in 1968 for example the federal government began collecting sea lampreys in the humber as part of the programme to test the effectiveness of the chemical tfm this toxic solution discovered in 1956 and field tested for two years after was being used to treat lamprey spawning streams in the upper great lakes as the treatment programme followed a scheduled pattern down through the great lakes watershed lake ontario only started the application of tfm in the spring of 1971 after initial surveys with electroshocking equipment to determine the presence of larval lamprey in the stream the chemical is metered into the watercourse by careful monitoring the liquid formulation is made lethal to the developing lampreys while having no adverse effect on the fish in the same water and as young lampreys spend anywhere from two to seven years in the streams it is here they are most vunerable for when the ammocoetes as they are called reach a length of about six inches they change ap pearance taking on the adult form now they move down stream and out into the lake to begin a year or more of devastation with a mouth well adapted for sucking the lampreys attach themselves to the sides of fish the strong suction makes it difficult for the fish to dislodge this predator and so it remains rasping a hole in the flesh with its harp tooth- covered tongue sometimes the lamprey weakens the fish to the ravages of disease or other predators or it may hang on to kill its host outright often however trout and salmon especially are found with healed over scars from lamprey attacks in 1970 for example almost every coho caught on the credit river bore these scars while in 1977 only 4 per cent of the salmon boated showed these deadly markings and while the fish were being checked for telltale scars and the streams were being surveyed and subsequently treated the humber river was yielding valuable information on the adult lampreys also for each spring as these now mature pests wiggle their way into this river looking for suitable spawning beds upstream they are collected the results have been most encouraging in 1968 with an already depleted large fish population in the western basin of lake ontario 1200 adult sea lampreys were caught after introducing the salmon programme in 1969 the lamprey taken reached a peak of 6800 in 1975 then showed a remarkable decrease to 1600 last year this despite the fact that over 11 million trout and salmon have been stocked by both new york state and the province of ontario during those years the deadly on slaught of this highly destructive predator has it seems been greatly reduced so it caused more than a mild concern this past week when young lampreys were discovered some 40 miles upstream where the east branch of the humber parallels major mackenzie drive west of maple could this section of stream be another unknown spawning bed of these lethal serpentines samples taken to the ministry of natural resources at richmond hill were carefully scrutinized thankfully they proved to be specimens of the harmless brook lamprey a small native species that does not attack fish as a salmon fisherman i sighed in relief for it was only two weeks ago at pt dalhousie that a 16 lb chinook slamon was brought in with a young lamprey still at tached to my untrained eye it looked for all the world like the seven inch creatures we caught in the creek w v f