A - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, August 14, 2002 Councillor wrong on pride detail Dear Sir: sin I'm writing to correct some incorrect stute- ments made by Coun- cillor David Hull, as re- J ported in The Terrace Standard (August 7, 2002), regarding the issue of gay pride. I'm not going to re- spond to Councillor Hull's opinions on the issue, The opinions of other councillors, and in particular my own, have been adequately repor- ted by the local and other media. I'm simply guing to comment on.some misinformation. Councillor Huil is quoted as saying that “the city's latest legal opinion indicated it had no chance of winning any appeal of the ruling” of the Val George Human Rights Tribunal:'The city has never had’ any such legal opinion. In fact. council never-asked for a formal Jegal opinion after the rujing came down. Informal comment has suggested’ that we have a good chincé of winning an appeal to the courts of the tribunal’s order. Council chose not to appeal because we could not justify the very considerable expenditure of taxpayer money (for legal and other costs) that an appeal would incur. In any case, the majority of us felt we has adequately made our point despite the ruling of the tribunal. Regarding the cost to the city, Councitlor Hull is also incorrect in stating thal we “spent a bunch of time and money on this case.” On the contrary, we have spent very little time and only a very minor amount of money (just over a thousand dol- lars) on the issue. Other legal casts were donated free by the mayor’s law office. Considering the very important matter of princi- pal involved here regarding. the ripht of councils to use their proper discretion when making decisions such as these, the cost in time and cash has been very minimal. , In conclusion, it might be of interest to the community that since the Human Rights Tribunal ruling came down, city council has been over- Wheimingly supported in its position on this matter by the press and many e-mails and other corre- spondence we have received locally and from other parts of the country, Val George, City Councillor, Terrace, B.C. Letters to the editor Phones wonky at hospital — Dear Sir: It really didn’t seem all that big of a deal (he first time when I called the emergency number at Mills Memorial Hospital and had difficully getting through. Computer. opera- ted phone systems have glitches, too. The second’ time I called, -it began: to irrilate: me that the. occurrence happened again. It wouldn't transfer me through. My wife being pregnant and- having. ‘contractions quite regularly would un- nerve any man and have him’on his toes for a split second decision to-go to the hospital: The fact is, wilh two children asleep in the house, you need to prepare for the event to occur al any given time, night or day. Part of those prepara- tions is to call the hospital and be sure they are ready for your arrival. Or, at least, you should be able to phone for ad-: vice on going in for a fetal strip to see if the contrac- lions are the real thing or Braxton Hicks contrac- tions, which aren’t serious. Either way, a phone call is necessary to ease everyone and make their jobs easier - preparing a delivery room or preparing to go to the delivery room, What finally got me was the third and final phone call. The same darn thing. Does the person in charge of the automated phone system realize how important his or her job is when it belongs in a buitd- ing thal may or may not save lives? You would hope so, The repercussions of a failing operator in the human sense would be a lost job, dent in the re- sume, and possible charges of neglect depend- ing on their job posting (ie. S11, search and rescue, fire depariment). You get the idea, How about a hetero day? Dear Sir: Aboul a year or so ago, after hearing about the brou- haha over a gay pride petition, | wrote city council and demanded that we proclaim the day before as hetero- pride day. I received a letler back saying that council doesn’t do proclamations anymore since this bogus discrimination lawsuit was first issued, How about a Strange Weather Day for Terrace. Any day of the year will do on that one. But, no. Not even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir could get a proclamation no- wadays. Brian Gregg, Terrace, B.C. GRIVIE (ail STOPPERS 635-TIPS 1 finally decided to write this letter out of dis- sust, It’s a crying shame that our health care has reached a low so far down that we can’t even get pro- per phone service, The cutbacks have for- ced away many great spe- cialists and nurses that the people of Terrace and the surrounding. areas miss dearly. And to add to the on- slaught, defaulted mainte- nance is beginning to rear its ugly face with the fail- ure of equipment. Whal can we expect in the days to come if these. issues aren't attacked dir- ectly from the start. How many more people need to call emergency, possibly requiring life saving infor- mation, only to gel to and from automated messages that take you through the labyrinth of extensions you don’t need? How many more child- ren are going to possibly die? What's it going to take? Fortunately my wife didn’t go into labour that * BROWNING * MARLIN + BERKLEY « FENWICK MISTY RIVER TACKLE & HUNTING night, though I’m sure the care at the hospital would and will be excellent when it does happen. It’s simply a matier of the comfort of knowing that you can talk to some- one and not something when you call an emer- gency number. Getting an urgent re- sponse to what very well - may be an urgent situation is needed. After all, isn’t that what ‘emergency’ means? Benjamin Holmquist, Terrace, B.C. 33 Lbs... rs t i Niall.Doherty. > -G, LOOMIS. 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