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The only Newspaper owned and operated by Whitby residents for Whitby residents! MEMBER OF: ONTARIO CANADIAN COMMUNITY COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER M NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION , CANADIAN CIRCULATIONS CNA DIVISION AUDIT BOARD ISSN#0844-398X The Whitby Free Press is distributed free to 99% of the homes in Whitby, Brooklin, Ashburn & Myrtle as well as numerous public and commercial oulets in Whitby, Oshawa, Ajax, Pickering & Port Perry. 27,000 COPIES DELIVERED 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. * All written material, illustrations and advertising contained herein ls protected by copyright. Any repoduction by any means for commercial purposes without the express permission of the newspaper ls prohibited and ls a violation of Canadian copyright law. Reproduction for non-commercial distribution should bear a credit line to the whiby Free Press. To the editor... Our problem, too To the editor: Now that the election dust has settled, it appears the first hot issue for our new council will be the future of Whitby Transit -- an item not brought to strong light by any of the political contenders. On Nov. 28, Whitby Transit drivers will go on strike against their employer, Trentway Wager. This will have a major impact on the economy and welfare of our town: employees whose livelihood depends on getting to and from work; retail businesses whose loss of profits during a make or break time of Christmas rush sales; children whose safety is of concern since there will be no school bus service; seniors and other residents who reply on the system for transportation to everyday activities such as grocery shopping and doctors' appointments. Now our politicians may say it is not our problem since the jobs are contracted out, but it is. The Town of Whitby pays Trentway Wager for their services with our tax money and, in turn, is responsible for ensuring that this contract is fulfilled. In talking with some of the drivers, it does not appear that they are asking a lot. They have been without a contract for three years. Not only have they been without a raise in three years, but they are also the lowest paid in Durham Region. Job security is another issue under debate. Trentway's contract with the Town is up in November, 1995. The drivers feel that Trentway is stalling in negotiations in hopes that the Town will buy out the remainder of the contract and take over the system, as in Ajax and Pickering. While this would be a good idea, let's hope our council learns from Ajax's mistake. As taxpayers, we do not wish to pay, as do Ajax citizens, two and a alf years of court fees and back salaries just because their council wanted to take the "cheap" route and start with all new staff and no seniority. I have been using Whitby Transit since I moved here three and a half years ago and have seen the rapid growth. That is also evident by the awards from the province for 'Most improved Transit.' I enjoy and trust the system, and from the letters this paper has received in the past, it it evident that other people feel the same way. So, new Town council, we put you to the test, and ask for your support in seeing a quick resolve to this upcoming problem. Marg Slade Whitby Support appreciated To the editor: I would like to thank the people of Whitby for their support during my election campaign for mayor of Whitby. I am extremely grateful for the tremendous amount of community support at the election polls. Although I was unsuccessful (by a small margin), I would like to note that I will continue to be involved in our community and look forward to the next election. I would also like to mention that the Whitby Free Press has done an outstanding job of reporting the facts and issues throughout this election. Keep up the good work. Pat Perkins Whitby Let's do better To the editor: Town Council of Whitby, the people have spoken. Your plan for the waterfront is not good enough. Scrap it, and get a better one. Peter Bramma Whitby "Don't worry, it's perfectly safe. Itjust smells funny." Viewpoint Is it time for block voting in municipal elections? By Doug Anderson The municipal election last week showed all the early signs of being different. There were issues this time. There were also two grassroots groups, SOGH (Save Our General Hospital) and Save Lynde Shores playing an active part in the elec- tion. The WAFA group was also ap- plying pressure from the wings to keep new ice surfaces near the top of the political agenda. Yet when the votes were counted, very little had changed. The voter turnout was actually lower than in the 1991 election. It was barely half the number of people who had signed the hospi- tal petition. People showed a high level of interest but they didn't vote. Part of this can be blamed on cyriicism ("It won't make any difference anyway") but the chronic low turnouts in municipal elections must be blamed on the complexity of the ballots and the confusion that this creates. In spite of the fact that I was, myself, a candidate, I found myself searching around on election day for information on cer- tain candidates in order to decide who to vote for. When I had as- sembled the newspaper articles and leaflets I was still left with more questions than answers. I still didn't know- where school board candidates (for example) stood on issues of concern to me. If I was still left wondering on election day, then I'm sure most other people were, too. There are simply too many candidates for too many positions with very little infor- mation to differentiate them. The votes tell the tale. 34.4 per cent of the electorate voted for one of the mayoralty can- didates (16,310 out of 47,568) The next highest vote was for ,the ward candidates where once again only one was being elected. 32.8 per cent voted for a councillor. For all the other positions, more than one candidate was being elected. Assuming that voters put the full number of Xs on their bal- lots (some would not have), then only 28.2 per cent voted for regional councillor, 26.1 per cent voted for board of education, 25.7 per cent for separate school board, and only 20.8 per cent for hydro commission. The more people being elected the fewer votes were cast. As most readers will remember, my election ads carried the acronym ROAD which stood for representative, open, accountable and democratic. ROAD tried to bring some ele- ments of block voting to the elec- tion. It was intended to identify a group of candidates with similar views with which the electorate could readily identify. Although several candidates shared the ROAD philosophy, most shied away from anything that smacked even remotely of party politics. For some reason or other, block politics is a no-show in southern Ontario municipalities. The result is low voter turnout and a huge ad- vantage to incumbents. "Man-in-the-street" interviews indicate that many people who voted simply chose familiar names. When these people vote, while "...voter turnout was barely half the number c people who had signed the hospital petition." others, who try but fail to make sense of the profusion of can- didates, do not, then it is not surprising that incumbents get elected time after time. They usual- ly have the more familiar names. Just a week earlier, Montreal threw out its mayor and council and voted for a new party led by a former administrator with no prior political experience (do you note the parallel to Pat Perkins?). People voted for the party and the platform. The voter turnout was much higher than 34%. An analysis of public opinion in elections at all levels indicates that roughly 15 per cent of the popula- tion is very status quo oriented. It is the same 15 per cent who stuck with the Tories in the last federal election. Most of these people will always do their civic duty and vote regardless. Most will vote for in- cumbents. For Pat Perkins to have come as close to defeating Edwards as she did, she had to have polled close to 90 per cent of the rest of those who voted. If another five per cent had voted she would have won. If all the people who signed the SOGH petition had voted ... The new council really has to wonder what kind of mandate it has. In most places (Oshawa, for ex- ample) regional councillors are elected on a ward basis so each voter is choosing only one. Many communities also elect their school boards on a ward basis. Such simplification would cer- tainly broaden voter participation, but there would still be a minimum of five positions to fill instead of just one in federal and provincial elections. Parties or blocks would make the process less confusing. In simplified terms, a party is an identifiable group which nominates a set of candidates who adhere to a common platform. People then vote according to the issues rather than "familiarity". They would have specific ex- pectations and benchmarks against which to judge the perfor- mance of the politicians they choose to represent them. One of the arguments I used in support of ROAD was that, to all intents and purposes, the incumbents on the last council behaved very much like a gov- f ernment party. There were regular private caucuses which resulted in a high level of solidarity when they faced the public. During the campaign, mem- bers of council repeatedly promoted and endorsed their teamwork. This was the clear voice of a government party and it was rein- forced further when seven of the eight incumbents ran a joint ad in support of their position on the Lynde Marsh in the dying days of the election. If the opposing candidates had been as united as council they would have won in a walk. What ROAD needed to succeed was a broader base - a network of ratepayers' groups which could have generated a consensus on the full range of issues and then selected and endorsed the can- didates to carry the banner. People who have followed Toronto politics over the last 30 years readily recognize David Crombie's period as mayor as Toronto's renaissance. Crombie emerged as the cham- pion of a ratepayer network that swept across Toronto in the late '60s in response to the same kind of dull, patronizing, inefficient politics that we've had in Whitby for many years. The same kind of renaissance can come to Whitby. Unfortunately, the full impact will have to wait another three years but active ratepayers groups can have an im- pact at any time. Municipal politics is supposed to be the level of govemment that is closest to the people. To make that a reality, people need to get in- volved and work together.