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Wednesday October the HERALD Opinion Town officials should be accountable The rude behavior displayed by many members of local ratepayer group Furiously Opposed to Acton Dumping 0 A D during a recent Town council meeting may not be excusable but it is certainly understandable A shouting match between 0 A members and council erupted during the meeting over the reconstruction issue of the Third Line in the area of the Acton quarry A member Gord Van devalk appeared before council saying Town Administrator Dan Costea had failed to follow a previously passed council resolution concerning the Third Line reconstruction project When Mr Costea attempted to defend himself he was met with a chorus of 0 A members chan ting liar liar Needless to say this kind of caterwauling or any other type doesnt befit a council chamber However the peoples angry response is understandable since Mr refused to at least acknowledge his error in judgement The resolution in question ap proved Sept 30 calls for staff to request the provinces Ministry of Natural Resources make the Third Line an integral part of the replacement site plan for the Acton quarry 0 A D members want the Third lane reconstructed through the quarry in accordance with a 1974 agreement believing the reconstruction project will prevent the quarry from being converted in to a dump In the letter Mr Costea sent to the MNR dated Oct the Ad ministrator refers to the project in connection with a rehabilitation site plan for the quarry instead of the replacement Bens Banter by Ben site plan When council was first con sidering the resolution rehabilitation site plan was used in the wording At that time 0 A members objected to the use of the word rehabilitation They have always wanted the reconstruction plan in corporated as part of the replacement site plan A members claim there is a better chance of stopping the dump proposal if the reconstruction project is connected to a replacement site plan After much discussion council changed the resolutions wording to include replacement site plan Its not difficult then to un derstand the ratepayer groups anger when they find out Mr used the word rehabilitation site plan in his correspondence to the MNR To add injury to insult Mr denied he had done anything wrong The wording of the dence is in keeping with the advice of the Town solicitor and I would prefer to take the advice of our solicitor over Mr Vandevalk said Mr the meeting Mr Costea further explained the words replacement and rehabilitation are interchangeable If Mr thought the words were interchangeable he should have pointed out that fact when council was first considering the resolution If as he says he was following the solicitors advice in using the wording rehabilitation then he have provided the solicitors reasons for this advice However Mr Costea did none of the above In last weeks column I wrote how Town staff should be open to public scrutiny and here is a perfect exam pie supporting that article Working for the public Town staff just as councillors must an to the ratepayers for their ac tion and if they cant support those actions they should have to face the consequences as Mr Costea has rightly had todo Political affiliation not issues of utmost importance For all of those who watched the developing of the Thomas Hill affair a sense of dissatisfaction was left lingering in our mouth There we have two perfectly credible people and still we know that one of the two has been lying Even being more generous we still have to accept that one of the two has a rather strange percep tion of what really did happen Moreover we are left with the feeling that the Senate that most august body has not been able to deal with what was after all a rather simple issue And that maybe the wrong person is now sitting on the bench of the American Supreme Court Finally we have the reputation of two people lying in shreds for at least a large part of the popula tion The guilt or innocence of Judge Thomas has been the subject of discussion without any positive outcome until finally a point and I must say a rather obvious one came to light which at least may teach us something Imagine irec dgc Court where the Judges would not sit as impartial observers of the trial but would have a vested interest in the outcome One or two of the Judges are favoring the accused and do their best to discredit the victim The are partisan of the victim and do their best to make the accused look like a monster Arealkangaroocourt But this rather absurd travesty of justice is exactly what we witnessed in finding the truth Another View They either wanted their man confirmed or they were doing their utmost best to deny him the job The confirmation hearings are not designed to discover the truth They are at best to make sure that the dent of the USA has not chosen a complete dodo for the job on hand The senators are there to win political points and not to deal with other matters So not sur pnsingly they did their job They counted the Votes and went with the political wind In other words we were not ex posed to a travesty of justice we witnessed a typical political exer an exercise which has nothing to do with justice being rendered In politics it is not right or wrong which counts is how many votes you can get which carries the day For Canada who is considering introducing a similar system of reviewing political appointees the lesson is clear Sure our MPs or senators will do their job but only within the guidelines of their political affiliation To expect them to perform differently is not only naive but it goes against the grain You do not play tennis by the rules of football If we wish the past of political appointees or even politicians at large to be reviewed in the light of moral or even simple legal standards we need a different approach One where as in the courts the objective is to get to the truth not one where the ob jective is to carry the day or gain political brownie points Peoples Forum Minister gets involved with municipal election To the Editor Without a vision the people perish Prov 18 Well its election tune again And you may be asking What are the issues this election Monday night I had the very agonizing experience of sitting from to 10 30 p m in the Council Chambers and watching our representatives at work We were there because of a concern about the development of an ex isting structure beside the Presbyterian Church in To my surprise every issue on the agenda and the four additional delegates were also there on issues of development The process was extraor As an observer I noted that every item of business without exception was sent back to Planning Nothing was dealt with Every issue has now to come back to another meeting Our concern was and the Planner Ian Keith said that a request for rezoning had been made several years ago but because of full agendas they were not able to address the con cern but he hopes to get to it next year Mr Keith said to a council room full of irate taxpayers that the problem is the complexity of the planning process between town and region and agent Peo ple are confused about what the role of government agencies in the planning process is He sug that all of the agencies and departments involved in the plan process are merely technical agencies and they give no concern to the merits of any project What really sent a shiver down my back was he said there were currently 30 to site plans before him each year that need to be dealt with as quickly as possible because in most cases the applicant is only days away from building The thinking then by our coun cil is that its far easier to ap prove an individual application than it is to plan This is er roneous thinking If the town was developed in agreement with the residence then each application could be approved in terms of its conformity to the overall approv plan Then and only then will the approval of development go through without angry taxpayers yelling and screaming in the council chambers over every pro posal If were not going anywhere any road will get us there But if we have a vision of what kind of a community we want to live in well need a plan that we all agree on I for one will give up my right to a councillor for a year if we could be given a planner who would develop the zoning for Nor val We don t need councillors who can only nod and tell us how it used to be We need someone who can make concrete the vision that the people of have for their hamlet Mayor Russel has requested that Planning look at putting a freeze on development of the Steeles Avenue and Winston Churchill Boulevard area because here again development is piecemealed with no clear direction for the growth that is already taking place I don think in our economy we should be talking about stopping the development but rattier address ing our great need in this area for planning Lets get the planners that are needed to get the job done properly Until then it seems to me that our councillors are redundant Most of then were very quick to point out that planning was part of their campaign well nave they been all year These problems are not new but are becoming increasingly com pounded because our current representatives either dont know the wishes of the people they represent or they dont tand the mechanics of how to realize those wishes It is time that our politicians become aware that they can not bend to every individuals desire for aggressive commerce at the expense of the human rights of others People have a right to live in areas of quiet with minimal traffic and safety for their children All development is not inherently good And the high cost for poor development Is paid for by the quality of life of the residence The community has a right to protect their standard of living and our representatives first concerns must be that standard of life Respectfully submitted Rev Mary Campbell BA Minister Presbyterian Churches The town deserves better Dear Editor The Town of Hills deserves better the residents of the Canada Homes and Fern brooke Homes subdivisions deserve better On October and 23rd we were invited to hear our elected officials speak about issues that were important to us This meeting was an excellent op portunity for those three dans in attendance to make themselves known to the elec in our area those who were not invited did not have the opportunity to meet with us If this information was a year ago or even six months ago I would not be writing this letter but for these three politicians to hold this meeting and not invite those run ning for the same positions as they hold is unfair to Robert Barlow candidate for Mayor Lin da Walton candidate for Regional Council Ron Chatten and Peter Norton candidates for Local Council and it is unfair to residents of Georgetown South Will we and other residents of Halton Hills have to wait for three more years to have the issues that affect us addressed by our elected officials Will our elected officials only meet with us to discuss our concerns when their jobs are on the line Three weeks before an election is no time to hold a meeting with residents to hear their views about their neighborhood Unless we vote for those can didates who were not invited to this election meeting a meeting held in a developers sales office with information provided by town and region staff we will be stuck with three politicians who are good at listening and talking to the people only once in three years and then only three weeks before an election Sincerely V Newman Georgetown Farm families hurting To the Editor Please take the time to read this letter as it is very important to our livelihood and to Cana dians in general We are a farm family involved in a dairy operation In Terra Cot for four generations and would like to continue to do so in the future The future at this moment seems rather dismal as ing of the Canadian farmer seems to be the greatest concern of the government for the past few years with such issues as supply management and tarriffs quota changesmerge of fluid and industrial quota farm credit reduction in crop prices We are an endangered species and must constantly stand firm and fight to maintain a decent liv We urge the government to maintain and support Article of Gatt Tariffs cannot be used for supply management Without supply management our country will lose many farmers Cana will see unemployment figures rise to an even greater high We again urge you to maintain support for Article Canada must not agree to any deal that does not include a strengthened and clarified Article XI Sincerely The Mountain family