December 29, 2004
The Night Ewen Saved The High School: The Great FireFlames roared from the windows, the roof and the doors. The crowd stood on the street in awe of the spectacle of the high school , that most of them had attend, being devoured by fire.
Ewen watched along with the rest of the community, with an awareness that what was taking place was his doing, and that the community service he had performed could not be recognized for what it was at this moment. Ewen new that this was the only hope to keep the high school, a central and vital community asset, from being closed down by a few short-sighted and vicious members of the school board and the school administration. The battle lines had been drawn about three years before when the "city-centered" board of education decided to conduct a study of small rural high schools with the intent of closing them down. They were much more expensive to run than big city school and therefore must go. Ewen’s school was to be the first to go and he was not pleased ,as was not most of the community. Ewen immediately found himself the leader of the drive to "save our school".
He soon found that no number of protesting voters, and no amount of logic, pleading or political pressure seemed to do any good. The school board administration had made a decision, and as with all bureaucracies , there was no way to change its course. Bus loads of rate payers, all school supporters, were met with steely glares and hastily formulated meeting rules to ban placards. Limited the number of chairs, and their agenda item being placed at the end of a very lengthy agenda were only a few of the tactics used to try to discourage them . They also had to contend with the board administration first talking about such controversial items as sex education and the protection of gay rights in the schools. As a result the press reported at length on these issues and completely ignore the issue of the closing of small schools. Every move that Ewen and his group made was countered by a more effective move by those who held the strings of power. Slowly but surely the local school was being undermined by the administration. Repair and maintenance were not being done, the number of teachers was arbitrarily being cut, the superintendents were publicly uttering such comments as "I certainly wouldn’t send a child of mine to that school!"
The issue was of much broader concern to the community than just the loss of the only high school within 40 kilometres, it was an issue of economics and status for the community. If the school closing was successful then stores would close, property values would plummet and the tax base would shrink. The students from the community and the surrounding territory would be spending their parents money in the city, they would be riding a bus for two hours per day. Many of these students live on farms and are counted on to do work before and after school. Part- time jobs that earn spending money and money for post secondary education would be out the window. The community use of the schools facilities would be gone. The closure of the school would literally "bring the World to an end".
What to do? Ewen started searching through documents and agreements that were formulated when the school was built. He was hoping to find something, anything, with which to fight the battle with some hope of success.
The school insurance policy was among the papers and a frustrated Ewen was about to discard this document when his eye was caught by the bolded heading "Replacement Policy".
The policy indicated that in the event that the school was destroyed by fire it must be rebuilt in order for the insurance company to pay. If it was not rebuilt within a reasonable amount of time(not to exceed two years) the policy was null and void.
A glimmer of an idea was forming in Ewen’s mind as he read the policy through, including all the fine print. Was this policy still in force? Had the School Board changed insurance companies and policies? Ewen had to find out, and he had to find out in such a manner so as not to raise suspicions, if in fact his ideas proved doable. He decided that the only way to get the information he wanted was to disguise it as something other than a request to view the current insurance policy of the board for the local school. He therefore requested all the financial information that the board possessed about the school. He receive mountains of paper and copies of documents. He started searching and after two tedious days found what he was looking for, ‘the policy’. It turned out that the existing policy was the cheapest available. Apparently to change the replacement policy would have cost considerably more money, and at the time the board had not anticipated their current drive to close the school. Ewen was mildly ecstatic. It meant that his drastic idea was in fact a possibility. After much soul-searching , and after reviewing all that had transpired ,several times, his course of action was set. It was trial by fire. The school had to be burned down to save it. If the school burned down the board would have to replace it or walk away from a large sum of money. If they had a new school they would be the laughing stock of Ontario if they closed it down. It was the only way!
Once he had decided that he was going to incinerate the school, Ewen had to focus his attention on how to achieve his goal without it having the appearance of arson. An inventive soul , with a farm back ground, Ewen figured that spontaneous combustion was the best way to accomplish his end. He needed a fool-proof method to create some spontaneous fire.
The custodial staff ended their work day at 10:00 pm. The school was not lock, nor were the alarms set until then. Ewen had decided that the place to create his spontaneous fire was in one of the shops that had welding equipment. The level of maintenance of equipment was very low, and had also been an on-going issue in discussion about the closing of the school. It would not be difficult to blame a fire on poorly maintained welding equipment so Ewen had his target. He had to time his entry so that the custodian that cleaned the shops had finished his work in them, but had not locked them. He sat on a pile of tires in the parking lot and watched for the lights to be dimmed in the shop. He then waited about five minutes for the custodian to move to another part of the school and walked boldly in the back door and into the shop. He then went to the welding booths and gently turned on the gas on two of the torches so that there was a slow escape of gas into the shop. He then quickly exited the shop and , unseen by anyone, left the school and walked home. He knew that the shop would eventually fill up with gas and that one of more of the ventilation motors would automatically start. Causing a spark that would start a blaze that would quickly spread to the whole school. With any luck the blaze would be so advanced by the time that the volunteer fire department got organized and on the scene they could do nothing but keep the fire from spreading to neighbouring property.
The blaze that Ewen was witnessing, as he stood with fellow community members, was testament to the success of his mission. No one could every prove that the fire was anything but an accident. Would it be enough to keep the high school open?
Unable to allow his true feelings to show, Ewen had to approach the aftermath of the fire as a major blow to the efforts to save the school from being closed. The fire had ,in fact, accomplished the goal of the school board without any effort on their part. In fact a rumour quickly spread through the community to the effect that the board had some how engineered this fire to circumvent all the efforts of Ewen and others to keep the school open. There were more questions than answers as to what impact this fire would have on the whole issue. The superintendent of the Board whose mission it was to close the school, issued a statement to the press which stated that the Board would not rebuild the school , and the property would be offered for sale once the remains of the fire were cleaned up. End of discussion.
Ewen new the situation was not quite so cut and dried. How was this situation to be brought to light? He could wait until the insurance company revealed the clause about rebuilding, or he could find some way to have someone other than himself bring this gem to public attention. He decided to wait for two weeks to give that insurance company time to investigate the fire and to review the policy. If the rebuilding clause did not get revealed in that time he would have to speed things up. He had two weeks to come up with a plan.
Ewen was a business man, a real estate broker , in town, and while his business afforded him time to be involved in community affairs, his wife was starting to complain about his fixation on this issue, and about the time that he was spending dealing with it. To say that Ewen was a man with a mission did not begin to describe the degree to which he had become obsessed with fighting to keep the high school open. He had already committed arson. How far was he prepared to go in his quest?
The two weeks that Ewen had allotted for the revelation of the insurance situation seemed like an eternity. Ewen mulled over ideas about how he might get the information revealed if it was not forthcoming. Perhaps an anonymous letter to the local press suggesting that a close look at the insurance policy would be rewarding. He considered having a member of his committee review the information that included the insurance policy. He even considered having one of his colleagues ask about what would be done with the funds from the insurance claim.
As it turned out Ewen did not have to do anything but wait. On Wednesday of his allotted second week the situation became public knowledge at the weekly meeting of the Board of Education. "There would be no pay day unless the School was rebuilt in a timely manner." It was obvious that this constituted a major disaster for the powers that be. While they had been developing plans to permanently house the students from the school in other schools, they had never considered the possibility of rebuilding. Now they were faced with temporarily accommodating three hundred and eighty five students on a temporary basis for an indeterminate period. The sky was falling on their well laid plans to close the school. Now they needed a short range plan and a long-term strategy to try to save face and accomplish their long established goal.
What to do. Suggestions from the board members were few and in many cases unrealistic. To house these students in one or more schools that were supposedly under capacity would require music rooms and computer labs and other such facilities be changed back into regular class rooms. This was not likely to happen. To run a second shift a one of the nearest high schools would require that the transportation budget for bussing be over-spent by a huge amount. The suggestion that a local factory that was currently empty be leased and set up as the f
first -ever open concept high school was met by protest from teachers, students and parents. The only acceptable compromise was to construct temporary quarters by bringing in all the available portables within the board’s jurisdiction. It was decided that a minimum of forty portable would be require for students plus an additional ten for a variety of special used such as office space, library and exercise facilities. Once spring arrived the physical education classes could be held outside.
Closed door emergency discussions had taken place during the previous week. The bad news had been received and sat on for a week. Consideration was given to just fore-going the insurance money and getting a head start on rehousing the students elsewhere. The school would then be closed and never reopened. The possibility of any of the current board members surviving the next election if they chose to walk away from approximately two and one half million dollars of insurance money did not seem very high, thus they had to entertain the idea that the school would be rebuilt. They received a negative reply from the insurance company when it was suggested that they would like to build the new school elsewhere. They were trapped. The school had to be rebuilt.
Comments:
Post a Comment
- clubs -
- blogs -
- travel tools - - travel blogs - - travel links - - france - - air - -newspapers- -Travel Magazines- - cameras & things - - sports - - financials - - archives -
Glencoe District Lions
blamblog
meredith
Ice Queen
Government of Canada Consular Affairs-Warnings and other useful info
USA Bureau of Consular Affairs- Travel Information
Southwest Middlesex
Weather Underground
World Time
Travel Maps
Restroom Ratings
Translation
Currency Calculator
Slow Travel
Top Travel Blogs
TravelBlog
Vagabonding
Aircanada Vacations
Bel Air Travel
Book It For Less
Commodore Travel Oshawa
Elderhostel
Exit Travel
Flight Centre
Itravel 2000
LastMinuteClub
Renaissance Travel
RedTag Vacations
Sears Travel
Travel Discounters
Vacations to Go -Cruises
Bonjour Paris
TVG
The BUS
The Bus
Apt.Rental La Clusaz
Ski Pass Reservation
Ecole de Ski Francais
Tourist Office of La Clusaz
National Tourist Office-France
Hotel Reservations-France
Air Transat
Skyservice
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Detroit Free Press
The Globe and Mail
The Guardian
The London Free Press
MAIL & GUARDIAN S.AFR.
Montreal Gazette
Cape Times,Cape Town
Los Angeles Times
LE MONDE
FIGARO
LE PARISIEN
La Repubblica
Toronto Sun
Washington Post
London Times Online
Have Children Will Travel
Connected Traveler
Journey Woman
Ticked-Off Tourist
TimeSharer Magazine
Transitions Abroad
Travel and Leisure Mag.
Travel With A Challenge
digital camera reviews
Sharper Image
PGA
NBA
tsx
November 2004
December 2004
January 2005
February 2005
March 2005
April 2005
May 2005
June 2005
July 2005
August 2005
September 2005
October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
March 2009
