Opinion Sidney’s Centennial: Time to hunt through the aftic If you have some extra time on your hands while moping about the house on the rainy days that are sure to arrive soon, take a couple of hours and help make Sidney’s 100th Birthday a little more special. Writer and historian Joan Neudecker is one person hard at work making it special and she could use some help. After all, 1991 is the year Sidney can recognize that it was 100 years ago that the first Sidney townsite was formed on Brethour land. 7 Documents, ranging from a butcher’s receipt to an old auctioneer’s poster, can all be valuable to Neudecker, who is preparing a book on the history of Sidney that should be hot off the presses by next spring. Local publishers Porthole Press, who published Nell Horth’s history of North Saanich, are set up for the unique publication. There’s never been a proper book done on Sidney. Despite being turned down by Sidney council last spring when Neudecker made a request for funding assistance, the book is going ahead. Already, material from the Sidney’s pioneer families has been offered to the author, who has been researching historical information about Sidney for years. Using the slogan, “I always need more material,” Neudecker welcomes old photographs, especially ones in good condition from the early 1900s that hayen’t been published and that will reproduce well. Neudecker isn’t the only one getting ready for the big event next year. Members of the Peninsula Celebrations Society are also expected to get into the action, as they do every year with the annual Sidney Days celebration. The Sidney School was established for the 1894-95 school year. Perhaps students there could gather information about the original school, for consideration as part of the publication. This is a chance to put Sidney on the map. We think documenting Sidney’s history is important and encourage current and former residents to get involved. Transport Canada policy: Consider all users Transport Canada’s method of determining the size of its firefighting force at the airport seems to defy logic. It seems that the size of the aircraft that use the airport on a regular basis is an overriding factor in determining the airports category rating — hence the size of its fire department In the case of the Victoria Airport, the only thing to have changed in recent years is the frequency large jets use the airport, thankfully reducing the amount of noise pollution. But more aircraft now use the airport, which translates to more passengers. Just this week, another air carrier started operating. The airport's RCMP detachment recently moved into new, expanded premises. It’s a good thing the airport’s category rating is reviewed each year. Maybe the size of user aircraft will be less of a prionty in the review, next year. Letters to the editor must be signed and contain the writer's address and telephone number. Letters should not exceed 500 words in length and may be edii- ed for clarity, legality or taste. TheReview Serving The Saanich Peninsula Since 1912 9781 2nd Street Sidney, B.C V8L 4P8 or PO. Box 2070 Sidney, B.C V8L 3S5 Second Class Mail Registration #0128 Published every Wednesday 656-1151 Publisher: Vic Swan Editor: Glenn Werkman AN ISLAND PUBLISHERS NEWSPAPER PRIZE WING'S CCNA r=, co S) ona = ‘poAe COMMON, an >< oad SS @chA. posed xy *, yr, Ons; 5 ey eae ? 7g oC sy ——= eR Eas aSSOuasG CORTROLLED SEwspapens COm | VERIFIED _ ‘CIRCULATION Volume 76 Issue No.41 _TheReview Wednesday, October 10,1990 — INSTEAD OF ONE GIG CRASH FIRE, OUR STATISTICAL ANALYSIS SUGGESTS You'lt ONLY HAVE TO DEAL WITH A NUMBER OF SMALLISH ONES \ a Hope for best Editor: So now we have a ratepayers association! I sure hope that they will work for the good of Sidney, not just run a personality campaign against the present mayor and council. Having served on the first elected Sidney council, I speak from experience of how a few can make life difficult for a mayor and council. We had to fight for sewers, street lighting, sidewalks, parking, dump sites and a breakwater. We who had businesses suffered loss of customers and did not receive any salary for our labors. Let’s give credit to our mayor and council for a job well done. Stan Watling Sidney Interested in public safety Editor: In my letter of Sept. 12 (Many problems on the highway, The Review), I addressed a comment made by Mr. Cy Relph in a news article in which he stated “people are dying on the highway, but they’re dying at Elk Lake, not here.” I brought to Mr. Relph’s attention that a female was killed in the preceding year at the inter- section of Highway 17 and McTav- ish Road and that the characteris- tics of two other intersections, one being Beacon at Highway 17, were similar. I indicated that luck had only prevented a fatality at Beacon/ Hwy. 17. My facts regarding fatalities and characteristics are accurate. In my letter it waS not my intent to launch readers into an extended history lesson, but to address Mr. Relph’s inappropriate comment. In his response to my letter, Mr. Relph conducts a history lesson (Overpass overview, The Review, Sept. 26), he doesn’t address my criticism to his comment, which in simplest terms was my stating that people are dying in the Sidney area of Hwy. 17, in addition to the Elk Lake area, not just in the Elk Lake area. I like his comment regarding the hazard of McDonald Park Rd.; he confirms my accuracy and appreciation of the “facts”, in terms of safety not history. The intersection of McDonald Park Rd/Hwy. 17 problems have been addressed without the neces- sity of an overpass. An overpass is required at Beacon/Hwy. 17. Regarding the 100 driveways, has Mr. Relph forgotten that public pressure from groups like his friends with the Save Saanich Peninsula Communities were suc- cessful in having a freeway pro- posal downgraded to an expres- sway proposal. The freeway pro- posal would have eliminated a percentage of the driveways!! If Mr Relph wishes to, as an ex-alderman and shop keeper, challenge me, a current alderman and 15-year police veteran, to a debate over traffic safety concerns, I would welcome it. I am not interested in a history lesson. I am interested in and committed to public safety. After all I’m in the business of picking up the results of unsafe conditions. Bob Jones Current alderman and police officer Sidney Statements should be made available Editor: I have been a resident of Sidney for two and a half years and have yet to see a financial statement of any kind from the Town Hall. I would like to know why we as taxpayers cannot receive audited financial statements of how our taxes are spent; where the money goes and for what purpose. Any other place I have lived I have received this information in a booklet form, enclosed with my yearly tax notice. One page listed all the expendi- tures of the city council, each employee’s name, position and salary. Another page detailed costs of various departmental budgets, i.e. parks, recreation, waterworks, fire department etc. My in-person enquiry to Sid- ney’s Town Hall brought the response that I was welcome to sit in their offices and read the com- puter printout. I told them I had neither the time nor intention of sitting in the Town’s offices for four hours trying to decipher a complex computer printout, not to mention the obvious disruption my presence would cause the staff trying to accomplish their work. J.E. Long Sidney Freeways result from all good intentions Editor: As a member of what R. Thwaites calls the AFT (anti- freeway group), I have to wonder who of us has really borrowed from Monty Python (Python skit?, The Review, Sept. 26). - Freeway systems, as the author must know, have created urban sprawl! throughout North America. That it would be different here is naive thinking. Los Angeles is finally taking steps to address the environmental, transportation, and social costs of its “innocent” freeway approach to dealing with transportation. Other North American cities such as Toronto and Vancouver are also recognizing the costs of such | systems and are taking tentative steps to solve the problems they have created. Why did they ever produce the @ | messes they are now trying to solve? Surely, there was no mali- cious mastermind plotting to create these car-congested, pol- luted environments. No, these messes resulted from the best intentions to produce a good social and economic envi- ronment for citizens. As the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” People woke up, and saw what they had created, and, behold, it was not very good. No AFG ever denies that human beings need to alter the landscape to find a place to live, as a Thwaites assets. Surely the writer gm acknowledges that any human interaction with nature must be such that human beings, genera- tions from now, will still be able to survive. Current practices may ensure that nature will survive; we humans may not. Within that perspective, respon- sible land-use planning is a neces- sity. Agricultural land (the product of human alteration of nature) and green spaces must be preserved. And somehow, we must find a way to deal with population expansion and still guarantee such Preservgg. tion. é One method to guarantee that such preservation will not occur is Continued on Page A8