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Instead of asking the councillors personally what their opinions were on the issue, he assumed they would support him on his stand in backing Kitchener. A poll, taken by another local newsâ€" paper proved he was wrong. Not everyone agreed with him on the issue. ’ e Published every Wednesday by Fairway Press. a division of Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo Record Ltd. 225 Fairway Rd.. Kitâ€" chener. Ontario. Address correspondence to Waterloo Square. Waterloo. Ont. Telephone 744â€"6364 Don‘t let Oktoberfest be responsible for a trafâ€" fic fatality. If you can‘t drive, don‘t take chances. Gemutlichkeit â€" eat, drink and enjoy with comâ€" mon sense. Again this year, Waterloo residents will be joining in the festivities of Oktoberfest, along with the estimated 350,000 outâ€"ofâ€"towners who are expected to visit the Twin Cities between Friday and Oct. 19. Last Wednesday, Mayor Herb Epp announced that Waterloo council would support Kitchener in the transit strike issue. Due to other obligaâ€" tions, the mayor was not present at the Sept. 29 council meeting when councillors verbally showâ€" ed their reluctance to get involved. Instead of asking the councillors personally what their opinions were on the issue, he assumed they would support him on his stand in backing Kitchener. A poll, taken by another local newsâ€" Thanksgiving is a time of celebration for everyâ€" one. Don‘t spoil it for others. Car and pedestrian traffic is going to be more than doubled, so be cautious and conscientious. Think of how you‘re going to get home before you chugâ€"aâ€"lug that last mug of beer. At Monday night‘s council meeting, the mayor withdrew his proposal to back the City of Kitchenâ€" er because three aldermen were absent and also because negotiations have reached an ‘"important and sensitive‘"‘ stage. Although the last negotiaâ€" tions meeting held between the 214 transit workâ€" ers was July 22, both sides are willing to bring in a mediator to solve the problem. As Waterloo‘s expenses for the transit system have doubled since 1972, would it really "jeopardize‘"‘ negotiaâ€" tions at this point if Waterloo made a stand in supporting Kitchener? Page 4 â€" Waterioo Chronicle, Wednesday, October 8, 1975 Without knowing his crew‘s views on the subâ€" ject. Mayor Epp never should have suggested Waterloo would fully support Kitchener. It can be rather embarrassing when a newspaper proves you are wrong. Perhaps his reasons for backing out of a sticky situation were valid, but they were also a sly way for him to save face. We all learn by our mistakes. Learning by istakes m Don‘t spoil Oktoberfest In Canada: one year $8: in United States and Foreign countries: one year $10 Viewpoint _ waterioo chronicle SUBSCRIPTION RATES ESTABLISHED 1854 Downtown perspective The planners will be unfolding their lovely coloured maps for us again. On October 21ist and 22nd they are holding an Open House at the Adult Recreation Centre and will be on hand all day and during the evening to discuss the secâ€" ondary plan. A special hearing will take place on Novemâ€" ber 12th at which Council will receive comments from both groups and individuals. Viewing the News Hopefully, Government reports that Canada‘s economy is on the upturn will not disappoint us. Not all the figures economists use to assess the health of the economy regisâ€" ter improvements, but a most significant one, that for real Gross National Product, has turned positive. It is called real, because it shows real values, the illusory values added by inflation being eliminated. Previous columns have outlined some aspects of the proâ€" posed plan. One was that of a Maintenance and Occupancy Byâ€"law. This is a fairly controversial recommendation. More than one council member will argue that legislation which cannot be enforced should not be on the books, and that this type of Maintenancy legislation would be just that. Kitchener has two staff members dealing with their byâ€" law. and work in coâ€"operation with the fire department as well. Mr. Kidd, the Kitchener staff member with whom I chatted, assured me that people‘s fear of an army of beauâ€" rocrats imposing repairs on homeâ€"owners were quite unâ€" warranted. One of the underlying causes of the recession we have had here. and that other nations have had too, was failure to pay enough attention to real GNP figures. We had become accustomed to a little bit of inflation, which is as foolish as ignoring a cancerous growth because it is small. It can suddenly race through the body and do most terrible things. Even â€" though the GNP in real terms has improved, all is not plain sailing yet. The Bank of Canada, which is responsible to the Minister of Finance. indicated as much when it recently raised the bank rate. That increases inâ€" terest rates and is intended, for one thing, to discourage borrowing. Naturally. that got a lot of attention. We have some choice as to what to do about that. We can buy less from other countries on credit, making do with the goods and services we produce. We can try to persuade foreigners to continue giving credit by paying them more interest. There are some tricky variations which experts profess to understand, but essentially. that is it and the increase in bank rate is the Bank Govâ€" ernor‘s way of saying that we are living beyond our means and of trying to make us do what we will not voluntarily. Kitchener has had such a law for about five years and the building staff feel quite happy with it. They admit it is seldom used to force an owner to paint or make other repairs to unsightly property. Their cases usually deal with occupancies â€" changes to rooming houses, etc. Waterloo‘s building inspector, Mr. Scheifele, has reserâ€" vations about a Maintenance byâ€"law. With seventeen million dollars of new building going on in Waterloo so far The increase in bank rate has other important aspects. Progressively. the Canadian dollar has been losing value in world money markets. In simple terms. that tells us we are living beyond our means and that our credit ratâ€" ing is poor * Now let me turn back to Gross National Product. It measures in dollar terms all our production and service activities. It is rather like putting all goods produced into a big warehouse and taking stock before distribution. . \_ 7"’6 â€" ,.??/ Â¥C } 2A vaAVl ,7"'"‘/ Ey 4/2)) â€" f W! i/A \ xn \)\\‘.' %”/ 7 _il 1 'quw /naes | A 1O 7A FRANKLY .. MY WIFE HANDLES THE HQUSE MONEY.. ______ _ â€"â€" 1M NOT VERY GP ATIT! Section 35A is very relevant to downtown property ownâ€" ers. It would give Council control over such items as hedges, trees, groundâ€"cover, walls, etc. in any developâ€" ment over 20 units. This control is only available now through a development agreement, which takes place when a developer has been granted a zone change. These conâ€" trols can protect adjoining property owners. There are two points we should bear in mind about this Secondary Plan proposal. One, it is only a guideline for a time period of ten years or so. Secondly, it is only one item under consideration by our busy Waterloo Council members. It is up to us, the downtown residents, to emphasize its imâ€" portance. The adoption of Section 35A of the Planning Act is another recommendation of the Smithâ€"MacNaughton report. The city planner, Mr. Danziger, brought such a recommendaâ€" tion to Council in July. It was referred to the Administraâ€" tive Committee and has still not come back for Council‘s consideration. this year, his department has its hands full. Waterloo has three men in the field now, one of whom does nothing but plumbing. If home owners took advantage of the funds available through RRAP (a federal program through which homeâ€"owners, landlords and coâ€"operatives can obtain funds for home improvement), the building department would be even busier. So what does this mean? It means that, collectively. we Canadians cannot consume more than we produce. It means, too, that wen wage increases start to exceed the growth of GNP . injustice follows. Now, it is quite evident that with more money, the first group is able to take more out of the warehouse than can the second group, not because one had put moré in than the other. but merely one had made a power play and the other had tried to be reasonable about money . In practice there are others who are not doing as well as they should. Here are two groups waiting their turn at the delivery door. One has been able to obtain quite a large increase in pay, as well as periodic increases during the life of the contract to offset increases in the cost of living if inflation continues. As wages are part of the cost of producing both goods and services the price of what this group put into the warehouse has gone up. The second group also receives periodic pay adjustments to offset rises in the cost of living, but is was content with a more modest increase in pay than obtained by the first group. As a result, it was possible to avoid raising the price of what this group put into the warehouse. Now comes our turn. Ideally. each of us would be enâ€" titled to take out the equivalent of what we had put in, whether by working or by saving and investing (that is, postponing buying). As you no doubt realize, the people who saved and invested are having a rotten time of it, because inflation has pushed up prices or cut the value of money. whichever you like. To get the total available for distribution, it would be necessary to add to the stock what we got from other countries. In pricing goods, costs of all services would be included. So now we go to the door where goods are distributed. First in line are government bodies. claiming about 40 per cent of what is there. Some of what they take will go to needy persons. After that foreigners will carry off quite a bit â€" maybe more, maybe less than they put in. Right now, it would be more. a business column by Fraser Robertson by Rosemary Rowe