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Page A, Whitby FrePreps, Wednesday, Novembegp, 1994 The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents! MEMBER OF: ONTARIO CANADIAN COMMUNITY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER L*CNA NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION E 1 CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD ISSN#0844-398X The Whitby Free Press is distrbuted free to 99% of the homes in Whitby, Brooklin, Ashbum & Myrtle as well as numerous public and commercial outets in Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering & Port Perry. 27,000 COPIES DELIVEIED WEEKLY MAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE Canada $32 + GST • Outside Canada $75 + GST Published every Wednesday by 677209 Ontario Inc. Box 206, 131 Brock St. N., Whitby, Ontario L1N 5S1 Phone: 668-6111 Out of town: 1-800-668-0322 Fax: 668-0594 Doug Anderson - Publisher Maurice Pifher - Editor Alexandra Martin - Production Manager Printed on newsprint with minimum 20% recycled content using vegetable based inks. 0 All written material, llustrations and advertising contained herein Is protected by copyright. Any reproduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express permission of the newspaper is prohibited and is a violation of Canadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution should bear a credit Une to the whitby Free Press. Activists go unnoticed To the editor: On Oct. 24, at the meeting of the board of trustees for the Durham Board of Education, a motion was put on the floor regarding the proposed pay increase for the chair of the board, from the current salary of $23,800 to a new salary of $30,000, representing a 26 per cent pay increase. The motion was not seconded, allowing the motion to die on the floor. Does this mean that the motion is dead? No, it does not. This just means that no decision had been made that night (it has been shelved), and that the motion could be put back on the floor at any time, allowing trustees to vote on it again, whether at a public meeting or a closed door meeting. As a concerned parent, I feel that the board should be told to deal with this issue once and for all, and put it to rest. Being the parent of a special needs child, I am constantly being reminded by the Durham Board of Education that there is insufficient funding available to supply enough educational assistants to handle the needs of our sp children in Durham Reg Over the past numb we have seen spending board, job losses on wage freezes to our ed support staff, as welli decrease in the operati This being the cas we justify a pay incr trustee? If the job become too heavy for to handle, delegate. Dc excuse that trustees boards, council memb making more mo members of our board different issue altogeth to work within our i theirs. As taxpayers in Dur let's not be snowed byi trustees such as we other polit ical bodies. Let's say no to thi get on with the matt that need to be regarding the educat children. Let your voice By Michael F. Ewasyn 'Strange' gestur To the editor: Re: 'Study proposed for Downtown,' (Whitby Free Press, Oct. 29) I find it hard to believe that Whitby council has "approved in principle" yet another study of our downtown area when, as the article states, council has already done six such studies. The resuit of these expensive studies is that council seems unable to figure out what should be done to improve our downtown, all the while increasing penalty tax collected si this area. It seems strange t would suggest this I gesture only a few m ignoring the advice an 85 per cent of downtow who wanted to advisec receive support fromc were denied. P Try'd & Tri There are people in our society who, despite their best efforts, go unnoticed but more often are ignored by politicians. These people are the activists. These people have tfen the timet0 give complicated political e issues a household understanding. They are out there Iooking for simple solutions to the ext remes of ail the politicai rhetoric that exists in most bureaucracies. These the OBIA people realize that simple solutions ince197 inor basic answers went out with the etimes and oversized :hat counicil administrations. They also realize last minute just how frightening it is to the ionths after average citizen to sit down and wishes o f bargain on an issue for five to 10 s minutes before the councilshf their i mbard municpaiies, when the politicians, ounc t aidltet and pianners can lake coucil bu ai te tmeneeded or have carte blanche Io a behind-closed-doors lul Savage meeting at our expense. sMeanwhile the average citizen ngwholooks at scrutinizing tha Whtby process neither ges paid for nor reaps any more than personal satisfaction elements for trying to improve their community or world in which they live. e will admit that I have been caeed and thanked on several occasions for coming forward by private citizens. However, politicians usuaIiy run up ýecial needs fiags of caution when I speak. ion. Take, for instance, My ier of years, involvement in municipal affairs cuts by the and an issue such as Lick Pond. the board, This, I remind you, is flot my 9 to 5 eucators and job, as it were. I don't have a Town as a drastic staff to summarize the hundreds of ng budget. pages in the reports, drafts, ;e, how can proposais and acluai legisiation rease for a etc. that came into my hands upon load has my request one person I aiso pay out of my pocket for n't use the the reports which the Town staff, from other in some cases, chafed me for. I do ers etc. are this at a cost which affects my )ney than famirfe rather severedybn ot to 3. That is a mention my job and my friendships. er. We have I have given countless hours 10 the budget, fpot reading and digesting of the facts, just so that lite can be made a litt e ham Region less compiicated politically for Thbodfothers. aryo For my efforts, I have been raked over the proverbial hot coals by politicians and their less than s issue and co-operative foowers on the ers at hand public service staffs at Town hall, addressed although some have been ion of Our ext remely helpful and mibe heard. u tderstanding. Not too many of us are noticed Davm Lang or even understood, and some like Wh rtby mysef who are very phieosophical and methodical about the consequences of our efforts, in some cases never even receive a simple thank you. However, undaunted we continue. Especially when the benefits come along, there is usually a politician who will 'hop on the bandwagon' and try to be a glory monger. Despite the moral and ethical crap that they preach about honesty and integrity, politicians have no reservations about the image that they project at election time. Many times have I been told by a newspaper editor that my letter is too vague or I was asked what my point was. Of course, they usually do not realize that after reporting about a political issue, they may spend several issues of print trying to copy the exact same item a few hundred thousand words later. No one has ever recommended me or others like me for an award, and, no, I'm not asking for one for my efforts. Other activists have called me for advice and I have never turned them away, unlike some of our politicians. I do not like to do things for publicity's sake, either. The people have a right to know what is going on in their government and just how open and accessible this system is, moreso how accountable the bureaucracy really is or is not. Hiding the truth will only make things much worse down the road. Knowing what really triggers the activist to lobby for changes is important. Just looking at the performances of our current politicians, I foresee a great common interest for change and a greater need for public intervention. Is there any wonder why, as a community activist (the common and concerned type), that policitians would want to label us as "undesirables." t should be noted that the things which I myself have accomplished and those of other private citizens are not open to the public domain as a politician's are. t is important to recognize people who have given their time without selfish gain or political election opportunism attached. I want to thank the Lick family for their decision that Lick Pond remain a public place to be enjoyed by all, especially for free ice skating. Despite the development dreams of the developer and politicians who would have drained this important resource. it shall remain for all to enjoy for some time to come. Robert Lick, Edie Gomille, mysef and the many area residents who organized themselves to attend the Ontario Municipal Board meeting in January '92 are among those who were there to keep the record straight, while the politicians were a no show during the process. Unfortunately, one such politician has now surfaced to claim political opportunity during their campaign. Sadly, for that individual, it is a matter of historical public record that the events are not as they have been assumed to be, and the activists have scored but another victory. Reform Party deserves apology To the editor: Now hold iti Let me get this straight. Four years ago, the Reform Party recommended not only a reduction in the number of immigrants to this country but also based the number of immigrants on Canada's economic needs. This seemed and seems like a reasonable policy. What seemed unreasonable were the hysterical ravings of the slaves of political correctness who screeched, "Reformers are racists, bigots and anti-immigrant." Flash forward to today and we have the governing Liberals stating that the number of immigrants must be reduced and that the number of immigrants should be based on Canada's economic needs. So the question remains. Does this mean the Liberals are also racists, bigots and anti-immigrant or does it mean that the Reformers were not and are not racists, bigots and anti-immigrant? I would say the obvious answer is the latter and that the Reform Party deserves an apology from the hysterical slaves. Marnee J. Stern Pickering ' eon Snowed? 1 1