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PAGE, 4, WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1986, WHITBY FREE PRESS Pubilshed every Wednesday whitbyBILL MCOUAT £ w it yby M.B.M.Pbihn [ïI~ F~ [---Ij~ F~Y~ ~and Photograpiy VARE CWE ltPhono 6(0 iii AERECO I~I~ID ~ r ~dThe Free Press Building. Advrtlslng Manager Volc oftheCouty Twn ichel an urges, ublshe- Maagig Eito131 Brock Street North, Second Class Mail Vole o te Cuny TwnMicae la BrgesPubiser M nagngEdiorP.O. Box 206, Whitby, ont. Rogisirallion No. 5351 The only Whitby ncwspaper independentiy owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residonts. Rlecreation stil a questi[on It was a cozy littie group of town councillors who met last Thursday night to review and unanimously approve a scaled down expansion and renovation of.- the Iroquois Park complex. For anyone who witnessed the scene in the coun- cil chambers on March 10 when four of the coun- ilors chose to vote against the $6.2 million ex- pansion of Iroquois Park - much to the obvious dismay of the other three - it was a real lesson in politics. Whether that lesson extendedbeyond OTTAWA - A friend sent me a book recently called "Voces of the OId Sea", by Norman Lewis, a writer i do flot know. i know the friend, however, and I knew I'd enjoy the book. A quick glance at the forward confirmed It.1 "After three war years ln the Army overseas", Mr. Lewis writes, "I iooked for the famllar ln England, but found change. Perhaps It was the search for vanished times that drew me back to Spain. Here the past, 1 suspected, would have been embaimed, and outaide Influence held at bay In a country absorbed In Its domestlo tragedy." It hadn't occurred to me ln exactly those terme before, but 1 too see the past as a refuge, and search It out, and f lee to It. it le no accident, perhaps, that our weekend retreat le ln part of Quebec which i recently described wlthout reaiiy thinklng about it as 50 years away f rom where i work and the way i earn a living. No accident that the dwelling tseif is a two room log cabin with no eiectricity and no running water. We have made concessions to this century, i suppose. We drive there, for one thIng. We have propane lights ln addition to kerosene, a radio that runs off a car battery, an airtight etove, and beet of ail, a styrofoam seat ln the privy. i don't have to tel you that we don't have television there. We wouldn't have time to look at IL. We drove Into the cabin on a recent Saturday for the first time this year. As I drove, I noticed tracks In the softer patches of ianeway ahead of us. A very big deer, i thought, until I stopped and got out and looked. Far too big for a deer. Cloven hoof prints perhaps f ive Inches long and four inches wide. They were moose tracks, and the owner was not long ahead of us. The tracks disappeared off the road a littie further on, and we neyer did catch up with the creature. But It wasn't the only one around. The storekeeper at a nearby village had seen a moose a couple of days earlier, and when we were drlving In the area with friende later that afternoon, we stopped the car to watch three deer grazing on a grassy hlîlside a couple of hundred yards from the road. When we got back to the cabin, we couid see the V-shaped wake of something small swimming across the lake. Perhaps a beaver, perhaps a muekrat, but we neyer did get close enough to be sure. We put a friend's new canoe ln the water, put life jackets on and went for a paddie. We had an eariy supper and an old-faehioned evening around the stove ln the lamp iight, Just talking. In the past, i suppose, we have the Illusion of security. the realm of making the fewest possible enemies by effecting the least amount of change only the future can tell but it's a safe bet that things are not as cozy on Whitby Council as the councillors would have us believe. Here we have three council members, Tom Edwards, Marcel Brunelle and Bob Attersley, who expressed a strong committment to provide a broader spectrum of recreational opportunities to the people of Whitby voting for a motion that addresses only the needs of swimmers and ice skaters. Under the circumstances, the coun- cillors had littie choice but to approve the scaled down motion and we are not suggesting that there was anything to be gained by kicking off another raucous, squalling debate. Council cer- tainly cannot operate effectively unless it tries to operate as a whole and any attempts to mend the rift that was caused *ver the course of the Iroquois debate in the last six months is to be commended. The question, however, is whether or not that rift has really been bridged. After council shot down the $6.2 million Iroquois expansion, Counilor Ross Batten brought forward a motion requesting staff to begin making moves toward the construction of a multi-purpose recreation facility to be built M~Aw~'I'4îLL wl north of Rossland - a motion which was ap- proved. This motion appears to be a commit- tment on the part of council to build a complex which would have a pool, fitness area, seniors and library areas, administrative and outdoor recreation facilities. However, the motion also states that the complex be designed s0 that it can proceed in stages as development dollars become available. In other words, the future of Whitby's recreational development is entirely dependent on the political will of the councillors. While the motion has nicely served to diffuse the r controversy arising from their decision not to proceed with the $6.2 million Iroquois expansion, Counilors Drumm, Bugelli, Batten and Emm have yet to prove they have a genuine commit- tment to the project. Tis council has at Ieast another two and a hall years in which, to work together toward the realization of a multi-purpose recreation com- plex in Whitby. At least three of the councillors are committed to the realization of that dream but they may have a difficult time ahead of them if they discover that the other four do not share that dream. In the interim, like Tom Edwards,j Marcel Brunelle and Bob Attersley, we'll just have to wait and see. -raTFI EVffl« F ANY ~C. LOCAL. RADIATiON REAlIN6e, (4or A >OWoe cg IMILK -68JmC Pié, A M-ILr. APPRôMAULt 4 ltîs r'RE-NCt-MI W 4 Ny'orf4Ele% YOU CAN FINP fôR CÃ"MPMWY dJiA L ,-RUw»Ir, m c2Ltme 1C OVFJK 'joUa 1rHl5WiLL t4Ã"T HELp Hn.p MAKV 'lut buRrlduHDiN4 AREA 1-OO HAVE pu 4HAP >(0L4 1 I