City councillors who voted to limit their responses to important bylaw changes because the old method was too ponderous and time consuming are doing the public a great disservice.

Last year, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) gave council the green light to scrap a legislated requirement that all points raised during public hearings into bylaw changes must be individually addressed by means of written rulings.

Previously, if a member of the public raised an issue during a hearing, that person could expect to see a city response to that point in writing.

For example, in June 2005, council entertained public hearings into a zoning change and a development scheme amendment for Phase VI of the Niven Lake subdivision.

A couple weeks later, 13 rulings to each point raised during the hearings were presented at a council committee meeting, to which councillors either accepted or rejected them.

Fast forward to November 2005, following a public hearing into a Worker's Compensation Board proposal to re-zone a property outside the downtown core, and suddenly everything changed.

There were no point-by-point rulings, only a short ruling condensed into one single paragraph. Members of the public who made presentations had no way of knowing whether council actually considered the points they raised, or simply threw it all out the window and fired off their own views.

Some councillors, Coun. Kevin O'Reilly in particular, raised alarm bells immediately. Council reluctantly agreed to debate the issue which culminated two weeks ago with a narrow vote in favour of the ruling change.

Couns. Blake Lyons, Doug Witty, Alan Woytuik and Bob Brooks say it's only a slight procedural difference, and the public needn't worry -- it will help smooth out the process.

This doesn't make sense. Only four public hearings were held last year, so the process can't be that onerous. We didn't elect councillors to find ways of doing less work.

There appears to be a growing attitude among MACA bureaucrats and community politicians alike that the public has too much sway over things, and that there needs to be a way to control that.

MACA is now thinking about limiting who among the public can appeal a development permit after hearing complaints from community politicians and developers that the current process is too permissive.

O'Reilly called the ruling change "dishonest." It's certainly undemocratic.

Clearly, some councillors have forgotten who put them there. Hopefully, they'll get the wake-up call they need with municipal elections in October.

Editorial Comment
Darrell Greer
Kivalliq News

Well, valued readers, by the time you're sitting down to read this my family and I will be reunited in Charlottetown, P.E.I.

Yes, indeed, it's annual vacation time and, in all likelihood, I'm chasing my grandson around the backyard this very minute.

I still can't figure out, though, if he's getting faster or I'm starting to slow down.

Until my return in July, you will in the more-than-capable hands of Andrew Raven.

Andrew is over from Yellowknife to fill in during my absence, and he's certainly excited about being in the Kivalliq.

Rough policy

Kivalliq pet owners who plan on travelling south this summer should ensure they are fully aware of how Air Canada's new pet policies work.

There's been a lot of hoopla lately surrounding the date of Sept. 18, when small pets will no longer be allowed in the cabin of the plane.

However, the new weight restrictions and additional costs are already in place and they're simply outrageous.

Your dog cannot weigh more than 70 pounds while in its kennel.

I learned my lesson on how the new system works the hard way.

Do not take for granted you can simply pay the difference in weight as you can with baggage, because you can't.

My poor old pooch, in kennel, weighs 78 pounds; a full eight pounds over Air Canada's limit.

The airline informed us the dog would have to be flown through cargo at a cost of about $850.

Needless to say, our 15-year-old Princess will not be going on vacation with us this year.

This has put a real damper on our vacation as, due to her age, she may no longer be with us the next time we go on annual leave.

As well, our furry family member has a crowd of admirers back home who are upset they will probably not get to see her one last time.

Talk about starting vacation with your own little rain cloud. Thanks Air Canada.

The funny part about our situation is that the whole mess started with an ill-informed company rep back in March who passed along some bad information to us.

Thanks for that, too.

And, of course, once I finally understood the ramifications of the airline's new policy and tried to rebook with another airline, I'm told no refunds.

I would be issued with a credit I could use sometime during the next year.

Well, thank you very much for actually allowing me to spend my own money sometime in the future.

The moral to the story is to ensure you fully understand any new "policies" put in place by companies that will affect you.

For me, my measure of revenge will be that I will never purchase another ticket with this airline as long as I live.

My message to them is simple. If you don't want one Greer family member on your airplane, you don't want any of us.

To borrow a line: that's not news, but that, too, is reality!

See you next month and enjoy your summer.

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum

Underage drinking is an issue here in town.

Now, don't all of you jump on my back at once: I'm not a hypocrite.

Without placing myself in too deep of a hole, I want to say that yes, my hands did touch alcohol at a younger age.

I'm not here to beat myself up. I'm here to make sure the future of our community is in good hands, and you can't become a leader if you're in jail.

Underage drinking is something that we have all encountered in our lives.

Alcohol has been a staple in this town and there is no denying it.

Again, I'm not claiming to be the innocent saint, and I'm sure a lot of you were just about to roll your eyes at the page.

The one thing I hope we can all agree on, is that when a group of underagers start drinking, nothing is there to stop it, until the bottle is gone.

By that point, maybe a fight has started, maybe you start crying in front of all your friends and now you're embarrassed. Maybe you even locked yourself in a closet because someone convinced you that your dad is at the door to pick you up.

There is a worst-case scenario here: young adult men who ply teenaged girls with booze in order to have sex.

Remember, there is always the option to say no, even if you end up going home by yourself and playing video games until you fall asleep with your hand in a bag of chips.ips.

Editorial Comment
Dez Loreen
Inuvik Drum

Do you have a website?

If you answered yes, I'm just going to assume that it's hosted by a mother service, like bebo or Hi5, or Fotki.

There are plenty of other places to post your page, too, and they all make page building quite easy and really effective.

Type here, type here and place picture here. It's all really simple and has allowed average people make personal statements on the web.

To make it easy for all of us, I'm only going to focus on Bebo.

Some people choose to put pictures of their family on their pages, while others litter the Internet page with quizzes and other useless information meant to kill time at the office.

Don't get me wrong friends, I do care how many times you've been to Edmonton and I do care about the names of your first two dogs, kinda.

I don't mean to pick on anyone, but there seems to be people out there who want to post movies and pictures of inappropriate materials.

I can understand loading your hard drive at home with movies and pictures of your friends doing dumb things, but once you post them online, you cross a line.

What if the person you recorded didn't want to be captured on your little camera? Or have their actions available for the whole world to see?

Without proper consent, that person may have a case against you for publishing their image on the net.

It probably won't go that far, but think about it like this: If I walked through a party on the Boot Lake trails on a Friday night and started snapping photos of people that they didn't like, maybe I wouldn't be invited to another party again.

While I'm sure that there are people who want their picture taken, I'm sure nobody would want a clip of them beating someone else up passed around the net.

Editorial Comment
Roxanna Thompson
Deh Cho Drum

Of all the buildings in the region, Deh Cho Hall probably gets the most attention in the media.

Many instances are simple references to the hall as the place where events such as graduations or meetings take place, but even more are about the future of this structure.

Sitting back from the main street in Fort Simpson, this long, low lying building means many things to many people.

For some, it is a reminder of residential school hardships. For others it is a happy place where children go to play in the Open Doors Society or to pick out books in the John Tsetso Memorial Library. For some it is even a place of work. But for everyone it is also a big question mark.

The uncertainly over the future of the hall was brought into harsh light last week in the Legislative Assembly when MLAs had a lengthy discussion about current plans.

With $3.5 million requested to extend the life of the building for only up to four years the MLAs had a right to talk.

Comments questioning the chain of events that put the hall in position where the options were a possible closure by the end of the summer or the expenditure of a large amount of money for something that could be soon torn down had a point.

But Minister of Public Works and Services Floyd Roland was, of course, correct when he said Deh Cho Hall is not a new situation. Talks about the future of the hall have a long history and that is precisely the problem.

It seems that no concrete decisions have been made even though it has been known since 2002 that the building won't last forever and to last even a little while longer it needs a fair amount of work.

Roland said Public Works has been in discussions with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, which has the responsibility for making a decision.

It is understandable that a decision has been hard to reach.

There are no easy choices.

On one hand you could continue to put money into the existing building to keep it open. This path will allow the non-profit organizations who rely on the building to keep their space, but it is also not particularly cost effective.

The other option is to build or lease new space which will provide room for the government employees, but leave everyone else searching for homes. How many millions will that cost the territorial government?

Those who have to make the decision are not in an enviable position, but the problem could cost millions more taxpayer dollars if a decision isn't made. Instead, it will only leave us in the current position where money will be poured into a structure that might be demolished anyways.

What's important is that ECE quit dithering and make a decision.

Groups will be able to move forward instead of living with the insecurity of not knowing what will happen next.

In the news briefs in the June 8 edition of the Deh Cho Drum, it was reported there were 49 spills last year in the Northwest Territories. The correct number is 429. The Drum apologizes for any confusion this may have caused.