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WATERLOO CHRONICLE thinly“ Anstey Amy Hachbom Chan-lion Manager Chad-lion Publisher: Cal Bowen! 886-sz Fax: 8858383 E-mail: wchronicleesenternet 75 King St. South, Suite 20t Waterloo, Ontario N21 IP2 The Waterioo CMronicle Is published every Wednesday by The Fairway Group. a division of Southern Ontario Czrmmurtity Newspapers Inc.. a division of Soulham Publications, a CanWesl Company, The views of our columists are their own and do not necessarily mpxesem those of the newspaper. [mammal] Sandi!!! Scull Number The Waterloo t :hmmdc welcomes letters (a the Mum Chev should be signed with name. address and phone num her and will he vertrted for an In nary No unsigned Irm'rs will be potrhshed Suhmmwms may he trrirted for length, vb ploaw He bud (Arm/nah! In letters and other mammals submttted In the Puhlnhm and accepted fol publltalmn "mains mm the author, but the publisher and m In omen may freely reproduce them In pnm, eletlrnmr or other forms our mailing address m J", ngSI 8' . Rum- 20LWmmlnn NN IF? our? run-Imam“ u wrhroturteo.srntex net and mu fax number n 886 “In Letters Policy Andrea Salty Bub Vrhanar Reporter Spoe" Editor mud-an Public-non: Mn] Sues Product WI Number ' 7tl Inn Alexander Gerry Mama Dinner of Rel-II Sula Manila; Ma- Cust Buswld Deborah Candi]! Publisher Editor Norma Cyan with: Audited circulation. 26.056 ISSN 08.3234") t's obscenely early yesterday morning and it's Itime to put stubby fingers to keyboard. The sun is just beginning to rise and I'm sitting in my ottice at Waterloo Town Square, staring out my second-floor window into the courtyard. What to write about. . .what to write about. VN We could discuss municipal budgets (cuz that's really all that's going on at this time of year, municipal politically speaking). Yeah, we could talk about how Waterloo councillors are faced with the unenviable task of whittling away at a possible tM-per-cent tax hike. They'll probably shave off a bit here and there, but they'll still be levying a tax increase in the end, who we kidding? And residents will no doubt yelp about that despite the fact they want better services and facilities. We could talk about areas in which council could slash spending to keep the tax hike down â€" like their own salaries. which a couple of people suggested in this week's You Said It column (over there to my left, your right on Page 9). And I could suggest that some residents should quit complaining about councillors' salaries -- that our municipal ser- vants deserve every penny of the pittance they're paid - that even those councillors way over there across the border in Kitchener deserved their much-maligned self- appointed 6frper-cent pay raise, because 60 per cent of pretty much squat is still pretty much squat. Make it stop Sure, we could talk about budgets. But I don't wanna, Nope, there's no fight in me today, l'm wooped -- emotionally defeated. Because as I sit here gazing out the win- dow between thoughts, there they are, Snow flakes! They're teensy- weensy ones, barely visi- ble. But there they are, all the same. And l'm sick to flamin' death at the sight of them, In the name of all w I ”U “u" "V that's good and decent, Panama hat. make it stop! If this win- ter doesn't break pretty darned soon. I will. Hasnt it been brutal? It's positively relentless. Someone here in the omce told me the temper- ature outside will rise all the way to eight degrées or so by the end of the week. Well, whoopdeedoo! Hand me my SPF 30 and my Panama hat. Sorry about the lack of enthusiasm folks, but eight degrees or so just doesn't cut it -- not after five solid months in deep freeze. Nope, I want double digits, and nothing in the teens. Alas, the teensy-weensy hurries are flying, the suis now all the way up but it isn't exactly shining and (it gets worse) my pal Angie (1'm also listening to KOOL FM while l'm gazing out the window) just told me the Farmers' Almanac sez we won't be getting any real spring-like weather until May. I won't make it, I tell ya. I just won't make ic The only reason l ionk my Christmas lights down last year is because I ran over them with the lawn mover So in the meantime. I'm one ofthnse people my man Sandy is on about this week in his column (also over there to my left, your right). My exterior Christmas trappings are still up. And they're going to stay up until spring has fully and truly sprung- Yup, I've still got garland and little red bows all around the front door and fairy lights in all the evergreens in the front yard. I haven't turned the lights on since the end of January, but with the weather we've had lately. I've been tempted. To he behest. thougti, it's no shock Id those what know me well that my Christmas lights are still up, I'm not an altogether organized sort. me. The temperature outside will rise all the way to eight degrees or so by the end of the week. Well, whoopdeedoo! Hand me my SPF 30 and my Panama hat. VIEWPOINT Yule Wonder: Never before in the field of Yuletide endeavor has so little been done by so many to get the Christmas trappings down. And that, brethren, is just a windy way of say- ing a lot of decorations are still lost amid the snow. But, given the first warmjsh weekend. the decorations should come in. As a matter of fact, some folks may want to postpone the removal to combine it with rigging Easter dec- (nations n installation alongside the lake Huron Ashore is going to give Ontario its first vind-driven source. I suppose that's OK, but shouldn't it be build closer to the Iegisla- ture? The region's boost will mean about $35 a household, and few can complain about that. The region has become the whipping boy for too many people. but you have to remember the big ticket items that have been unloaded on it, Say, one K-W wife particularly likes Easter Sunday That's the day her husband usually gets_home_fr_om the, oflice Christmas party. v Thumb Tax: It looks as ifWaterlob taipar ers will fare reasonably well in how the region- al and municipal tax increases will hit them. This year, among other things, it's the ambulance service. Besides the initial cost, under regional costs the service has been getting an upgrade under regional auspices. And police ser- vices is one of many ever-rising items, The municipal tax increases of three to four percent will mean something under $40 on the aver- age home, The. a decrease would be easier to handle, but it could have been worse. Yea verily, it could have been worse. And you can say this for P---------. Waterloo council: " didn't legislate pay raises in the style of big- league ball players. As you may have heard. that's exactly what Kitchener councillors did. Ah, yes. in revolutionary times in the United States, one rebel leader boomed, "Taxation without representation is tyranny" With reiuesentation, it's sometimes not that ma] either. - _ One More Nail: Doug (landslide) Craig, the Cambridge mayor, has revealed yet anoth, er item which "has driven the nail in the coffin of (municipal reform) debate." The alleged nail this time was a Howe Institute report which concluded that smaller governments can respond more quickly to votera. etc, etc., etc It's beginning to look at lot like Kitchener Mayor Carl {chi tho hadn't seen the report] had a neat answer. He said the reason he wanted to turn the region into a sin- gle city is "for long-term cost avoidance rather for short-term savings" And isn't that reasonable? All the nails that Mr. Craig claims to have uncovered seem to have the tensile strength of macaroni. And macaroni that's been over-boiled at that. Up, Up and Up: With a list of projects in hand. Waterloo council is apparently set to bar loon its debt; Kitchener has been doing like- Could it be that both cities consider us in a prelude to one city, and the time to go in debt is now? That your partners can help pay it is one of the beauties of a single city Gosh, if our cities were private companies they'd soon have more attachments than a vacuum cleaner. Hail and Farewell: As more or less expect- ed. Preston Manning has bowed out of politics and will return {0 his Calgary home. - - - He failed in his belief that you could take a regional protest and make it a national party under a leader who had twice failed to crack Ontario. the nation's political jack- 'itIIMI pot 7 7 U r "rust the Ticket: I hear tell that m after a recent series of401 crashes involving trucks, OPP officers were out in force They distributed a wad of tickets, including some (Surprise! Surprise!) for truck drivers. Honest, in the decades I've been driving I've never seen the pilot of one of the big rigs get a ticket for anything, Maybe they get them often. but I don't see how a little police car can halt one of those speeding behomets. Although, come to think of it, the police officers are probably up to catching them. I'm respectful of police persons. You should he polite to anyone who has handcuffs. a gun, a billy club and the power of the government behind him or her, Motorcycle cops always look imposing " the boots, the uniform, and the dark glasses Of course. the fact that many of them are six-three and weigh 240 pounds helps a bit loo. During his political career, Manning epitomized a lot of units not usually associated with politi- cians. There's no question that Stockwell Day, his successor. has suffered by the contrast. People have fmally quit talking about the way he got the election campaign off to a tlying stop, Some people are waiting for him to get his act together. I'd settle for him getting one set of his words together.