Page A4- The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, January 6, 1993

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DITORIAL

o.: sooner officially started
‘was hit by asnow storm.

Well,’ “that’s not particularly surprising.
After all, snow is part of winter.
Fortunately, we all received ample warn-

ing of Mother Nature’s attack. Although .

the local weather office scaled down its
original forecast of the depth the snow
would reach, even the revised version was

enough: to make prepare most people for —

the worst.

Sure enough, right on schedule the snow -

started to fall..:and fall...and fall. .

That was’ the same night a relative was
due to fly in here for Christmas.

Not surprisingly, he got diverted to
Prince Rupert. Delays in getting buses
moving from there and lousy road condi-
tions en route contributed to his arrival in
our fair city. being delayed until past 2
a.m., seven hours late.

During those seven hours, it continued to
snow.

Now, when you know someone has to

drive out to the airport to pick up 2 visitor;

you tend to pay. special attention to some-
thing like snow..
- VAS the'time-dragged #00} theysn
; deeper @ and tHe’siteet Bo gor quietek:
That it stayed. quiet is the problem,

Wee

At no time during those hours was the.
stillness disturbed by the sound of the

city’ s snow clearing equipment.

"Predictably, t the snow had achieved an
impressive depth by morning. ‘Now dig-.

ging yourself out of your own n driveway
goes with the territory,

But having. to. then: dig your way out of

your street? «

Not that any of this is new. There was a

8 n oe
Su rp rise.

_ basic snow ' ‘clearing of streets until city

: begins to look, _

similar storm the previous December - -- al-
most a year ago to the day = >with similar
results,

The year before that a storm on the first
weekend of the same month paralyzed the
city.

None of these snowfalls were record
breakers.

The 1992 city budget set ‘aside almost a
quarter of a million dollars for “‘winter

- maintenance’’,

Given the paltry amount of snow the city
experienced between Jan. 1, 1992 and the
arrival of Spring, that budget had been far
from exhausted. So a lack of money can’t
be. blamed for the failure to effectively
tackle the snow.

Incidentally, at the risk of stating the ob-
vious, that budget comes from tax dollars
provided by people who live on the streets
that disappeared under the snow,

Now, if there is something so radically
wrong with the cily’s system that it is
simply incapable of dealing with predict-
able acts of nature, let’s admit it and find a

‘different way of doing things that might

work,
Which_ brings lo mind past alderman

crews could arrive.

. “His logic was the streets would at least be
‘passable i in the interval.

“The idea was shot down and for a number
of good reasons including legal liability
problems. .

* But, the longer i it takes our city fathers to
sort out what.is a perennial problem, the
better Hull’s idea, or some variation of it,

"When 1 wrote two inonths ago

A tight Royal Tespo nse

“about my quest for a Royal KMG
standard manual: typewriter, 1 did”
soto fill: my 450 word space.-I

never expected | to fill a room. “-
At-the same time, I ran a want — Bifocals
“ad in the local swap ‘sheet, aswell : .
‘asa four. week id in ‘The: Western _ by Claudette Sandeck! |

‘Producer. - ae
I didn’t: get a: single response -
“from: the: Western Producer .ad,

“Through

“except for a Terrace man who had
‘read both the Producer ad and my
column: From the swap sheet ad,

nota call. ro
But: “the. column generated
: eleven fle ot of. _ypewriters,

‘kind with d re-usable ribbon.
All.were ‘in. good working con-
dition. Several, though easily fifly
“years: old; were in tip-top shape
-teflecting years of careful use, and
‘maintenance.
; None * “ were’: “model -
: Royals, unfortunately.
~ Since “my: ad” appeared | +i: the
“swap © sheet, “more and © moré

“manuals have been advertised: for. .8 a
‘One advertiser, -admitted -
secing my: “want ad-had: pronipted

“sale.

her. 10 Put her: machine MP for

ly getierous.:To have ‘ight peopl
to hand: over,"

‘obsolete in their family. .

‘two: Royals, a. -Reli-”
“able, a ‘Webster, ‘an_Etonia, and ©.
electric IBM of the old fashioned «.’.

“KMG

‘Sure, maybe. thesé- owners no
longer needed. these > manuals,
Maybe they’ve replaced . them
with an electronic typewriter or a
computer, making. the manuals

‘Could. be; too,. they're keen ‘to.

sie: free: up .a square. foot of shelf:
| space,’ Still, the: intrinsic value of.:.

these. te ‘remains, d'to-:
typewriters remains, And to - potential. This could be ‘fuelled.

someone who can put them to
good use, they’ Te a magnanimous
gift.

- The willingness of these folk to
“part with their typewriters tells
ime ‘they’ Te. not ‘as attached . to
- theirs ‘as: I-was to mine, 1 had a
Steadfast rule, ‘Keep-Your Cotton .
Picking Hands off my Royal.
- ... When .our- daughters. were: in

their teens and had acquired more .

: than | a passing acquaintance with -
occasionally 1
‘permitted. them 'to type an_assign-

Kéyboatd,

ment on my precious , baby. But 1

overed all the while, alert to any

int of. abuse, oye

And” ‘afterwards, YT. scrutinized :

ample. typescript. under a jewel.
r’s ‘magnifyitig’ glass, watching

_ for any lettet. printed ‘a. teensy bit

igh, low,: or with uneven. pres-

“sure, Woe betlde the ingrate who

took ‘out. hee: Frustrations on: the

~ dike

- coffee: maker. ‘

your household?’’ we'd learn al-
most every home harbours. at
least one manual. It may be -
stashed away. On a back shelf in
a closet, Since 1965, But the
results of my search suggest that,
VCR's, skidods, . and
procrastinator, every home bas
ones
~ Manuals have excellent. resale.

by their giveaway prices. No mat-
ter. Once ‘advertised, they. sell
faster than chainsaws after Hurrl-
cane Andrew.

‘Since this experience has shown

many ald fashioned things’ still
exist,-if one only. knew where,

 there-‘are” more obsolete” things _

I'ia looking to replace. A manual -
coffee grinder, An all-metal drip

= stew,

—=—

—

ro

a es i

VICTORIA — I feel gener-
ous today and will give
Premier Harcourt some gratu-
itous advice, before the last
traces of the Christmas spirit
leave me,

My advice i zi this: take the
_ government phone | books g-t0
page 0 and lake a look what it,
says under Office of the.
Premier and Executive. Coun-
cil Operations.

See the first line? Right.
Premier — Harcourt, °
Honourable Mike. Read it
again and repeat after me: ‘‘T
am the premier.’” Say it again.
Hey, that wasn’t so bad. Now
go and act like one,

Some of the goings on ‘in the.

’ premier’s inner circle lead me
' to believe that either Harcourt

himself or a few people

around him need to be |

reminded who is the boss.
The trouble with power, |

__ which a premier undoubtedly

has, is that too many people
want to share it: And when the
boss isn’t looking or doesn’t
want to look, civil wars break’
out over who controls what :
turf. - a

There have been a number of
territorial skirmishes in the
premier’s office and the first

bodies have been sent home i in

hags.
Out of the blue, a few weeks

_ back, Bard Zubyk, director of

communications for the NDP
caucus, quit. So did Marcus
Davis, the premier’s speech
writer. .

My.sources have been very:

; coy about the affair. For one :

thing, they don’t want to end_

up in the firing line them-

selves, for another, they are
-reluctant to talk before Zubyk
-and Davis get their severance.
package.

-Butone thing is clear: they.
“didn’t j jump out: the window, .
“they were pushed. And in
return for getting any sort of
financial setilement, they had
- to agree not to. Aalk to Ours:

tty a SY AUBStt 8

Mi
CS

Time fore premier |
to quell infighting

From the
Capital

BV EP jor iu

truly or anyone else, for that

- matter. And lest the henchmen

get any funny ideas, I didn’t
talk to them.

As faras I can piece the
story together, the two were
the first victims, and probably
not the last, of a power strug- .
gle between three warlords in
the premier’s office.

The three are Linda Baker,
principal secretary to the
premier; George Ford, deputy
minister to the premier and
‘cabinet secretary; and Doug
McArther, chief of the cabinet
planning secretariat,

When different factions

_ Struggle for power and in-

fluence, one of the weapons ...

they wield is blame, Whenever -

something goes wrong, fingers
are pointed and heads roli.

I can only guess whal cost

Zubyk his job, but I suspect
that his excellent relations -
with caucus, particularly the
NDP ‘backbenchers had some-
thing to do with it.
As for Davis, Tama loss. As

far as I could see, he wrote ex-
cellent speeches. If they didn’t
have the desired results, it had

~ more to with the: delivery,

notoriously lackluster i in the .
case of Harcourt, than the
writing.

: But then, doing a good job
has nothing | to do with becom-
ing a fall guy. Andy Orr, the
premier’s press secretary, is
excellent‘at-his job, as: any of
colleagues will admit, but he
almost perished in one of the
inter-office skirmishes,

I'm told (noi by Orr) that he
survived aly because the

them, but that could change a

“game of politics, having... |.
" served ina similar capacity i
- the Ottawa jungle. He had

~ good standing with: hi
- stituents, somethin Uh

-. way mark of its term, and Har

crazy sycophants. ..

aa

premier, in an uncharacteristic.
attack of decisiveness, put his.
foot down and said enough is is”
enough,

I would advise the premier 10
take a few moré self-assurance
pills and put an end to the in-.
fighting in his office.. Failure*
to do so. will almost. certainly.
have undesirable.con- :
sequences, like a rebellious
caucus. :

Harcourt has.a huge back- ” a
bench with a lot of talent on”
his hands and, so far, they’ve -
acted like good foot soldiers, ae
doing what’s expected of

fas.

JT have heard s some very
ominous rumblings among. tne
backbenchers, particularly
those representing interior and
northern tidings when Zubyk,
was pushed out, They didnt.
like it one bit. '
- Zubyk is anold hand a at: the.

keen understanding what i a
takes to keep a.rural MLA: in

his cor
g. tha

Baker, Ford, ‘McArther. !
couldn’ teven: ‘begin | to grasp
By the end of this year; the
NDP is approaching the half-

court had better give some’:
thought to his government!

The last thing heo or any, othe
politician, for that matter, :
needs is a bunch of power

WE'LL HAVE A

WELL' LOOKS Like”
WHITE KEMAS ;

A r "AND A WHITE
(e gee le “HALLOWEEN !
THMMeSCING..

IGET THE eine ;
SHE'S NOT LOOKING . ;
“FORWARD To 4%e. pe
MONTHS ON THE (~ —
TRAPUNE whe