After two years of skirmishes, another battle has been won in the war over city council's secret meetings.

Last Monday, Judge A.H. Wachowich ruled that city administrator Doug Lagore and former alderman Dick Peplow will testify in open court over what has gone on at the secret meetings in the past.

Written accounts of the meetings from each man are contradictory, not surprising considering that Peplow has continued to battle against the secret meetings even after quitting his aldermanic seat and moving south for work.

By his ruling, Judge Wachowich has shown that the court is not prepared to deal with the matter in any other than a very public way.

Closed council meetings are an issue not frequently subject to court action, so there isn't much precedent for the court to depend on in determining whether or not such meetings are allowed under territorial legislation.

Wachowich has ruled that written submissions are not enough for the court to go on.

"Spending a few days answering the concerns of citizens at large is not an imposition," he said in his ruling.

Hopefully this issue will be decided prior to the court date.

Yellowknife's newly elected City Council will get its first crack at putting an end to this undemocratic process at its inaugural meeting Monday evening.

Prior to being elected, aldermen Bob Brooks, Robert Slaven, Cheryl Best, Kevin O'Reilly, Dave Ramsay and Peggy Nearing told Yellowknifer they were against secret meetings.

Let's see them, as a majority on council, do their democratic duty by keeping their promises to those who elected them.

The president of the local medical association, Dr. David Butcher, says the city must recruit 10 new physicians to make up for the present "crisis in physician manpower."

Both the Baffin and Keewatin regions are doing the same recruiting, not to mention most of the provinces. In the Baffin, advertisements offer salary packages in the $200,000 range.

Yellowknife has much to offer too. Erasing some of the bureaucratic hurdles that give general physicians less benefits than specialists helps, and more should be done if possible.

Ultimately it will be the quality of life Yellowknife offers that will win the day.

Students at Aurora College have an appropriate appreciation of traditional knowledge.

Last week Dogrib elders gave the pre-employment cooking class a demonstration in the preparation of country foods. This is how education is supposed to work. The staff and students who put this program together deserve full credit for using the rich resources that our community has to offer.

Traditional knowledge has an important place in the education of young Northerners. Aurora College is showing us how it's done.