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6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday June 17, 2006 Commentary The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone (416) 340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline. Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Guest Columnist A one-legged stool Asif Niazi International environmental consultant magine a Grade 6 teacher announcing that today we will make a plan. The bright children realize this means no work, just talk, and immediately engage Asif Niazi with bright ideas. Plant trees one says. Have bike stands another says. At the end of class there is a long list of ideas. If only ideas could make a plan. Now turn to Oakville's Environmental Strategic Plan, which took the Town about two years to prepare. In the process they engaged a consulting firm, the public (through workshops and a survey) and many hours of meetings, writing and re-writing. It has 18 initiatives such as tree planting and bike rack installation. What it does not mention is the number. Will the Town plant two trees or 20,000? Will there be enough racks for current bike riders or has the Town estimated how many racks would be sufficient for the next five years? What impact would this initiative have on air pollution and smog in Oakville? The Plan does not quantify. In fact, there is such a dearth of figures that suggests the authors were perhaps innumerate. After all, there is nothing strategic about wanting to plant trees. Planning involves estimating how many and where to plant. Strategy involves identifying the resources to achieve the plan and identifying what sectors or areas will funds be drawn away from to realize this new initiative. Without such details, the Plan is a Grade 6 wish list. The three critical flaws that render the Plan devoid of strategy and seriously marred are: · State of the Environment: Before a plan for the future could be drawn, a snapshot of the existing situation is required. For example, before deciding on how many new trees to plant, it is useful to know how many already exist. Which areas are barren and have potential for planting? For transportation, what does the current traffic volume look like? Is there a correlation with traffic volume and cases of respiratory complaints at the local hospital? Most information is available and its compilation would not be a complex task, especially considering the Town engaged a consulting firm for about two years in preparing this plan. Analyzing the state of Oakville's environment and presenting it with empirical data would have laid a solid foundation for current and future planning. It would also have served as a justification for the decisions made on behalf of Oakville residents. Without describing the current state of Oakville's environment, the authors lead us to believe, in good faith, they know what they are doing. Empirical data should be provided by the Town to support the conclusions they reached. Transparency in analysis is a safe way to gain the confidence of the taxpayers. Moreover, the data itself would support analysis and render a plan based on the actual environmental issues Oakville faces rather than the heuristics of a committee. Sure, a public consultative process was followed, but citizens need to know what is the most pressing environmental issue in Oakville. What is the second most pressing, and how was that priority determined. The Plan does not tell us. Only with such background information can both, the concerned citizen and the expert, be expected to conclude real solutions to real issues. There is no State of the Environment and there is no data or analysis breakdown to justify the 18 programs listed. Public spending requires a rationale and this document lacks the required groundwork for such rationale. Ironically, there is talk of preparing a State of the Environment IAN OLIVER Publisher NEIL OLIVER Associate Publisher TERI CASAS Business Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager KELLY MONTAGUE Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ROD JERRED Managing Editor WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertiser, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Caledon Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post, Burlington Shopping News, City Parent, Collingwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror, Erin Advocate/Country Routes, Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Review, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review, Huronia Business Times, Lindsay This Week, Markham Economist & Sun, Midland/Penetanguishine Mirror, Milton Canadian Champion, Milton Shopping News, Mississauga Business Times, Mississauga News, Napanee Guide, Newmarket/Aurora Era-Banner, Northumberland News, North York Mirror, Oakville Beaver, Oakville Shopping News, Oldtimers Hockey News, Orillia Today, Oshawa/Whitby/Clarington Port Perry This Week, Owen Sound Tribune, Palmerston Observer, Peterborough This Week, Picton County Guide, Richmond Hill/Thornhill/Vaughan Liberal, Scarborough Mirror, Stouffville/Uxbridge Tribune, Forever Young, City of York Guardian I RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: ATHENA Awards United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION See Omissions page 7 Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64? H e apparently wrote it when he was a callow kid, all of 16 years of age, playfully peering into the future and whimsically imagining his own dotage. About eight years later, in 1967, he recorded it with three of his mates on a seminal album with which you might be familiar: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song, of course, is When I'm Sixty-Four. And on Sunday, radio stations around the globe will be once again playing the tuneful track as former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney turns the age he wrote about as a teenager, back even before he was Fab. Sixty-Four. It would be an altogether insignificant birthday ­ nothing as momentous as, say, 60, or even 65 -- had McCartney not written the famous song. But he did and so, as Mark Caro recently wrote in The Chicago Tribune: "The cultural alarm that Paul McCartney set 39 years ago is ringing." By any honest evaluation, When I'm Sixty-Four is a quirky little tune, an equally frivolous and infectious toe-tapper, a throwback vaudevillian number incongruously set amid the rock-raucousness and progressive-psychedelia of Sgt. Pepper's. Critics were naturally divided ­ not regarding the album, over which they fawned , but over the song: some calling it irresistible, oth- ers calling it odious. Others complained that the song was, like Paul himself, altogether too cute. While others contended that the song, like Paul himself, was indeed the actual heart of the matter, the latter contingent suggested that Paul's ceaseless desire and determination to push the acceptable envelope -- to include such an anomalous song on the concept album he had envisioned, and to include in that song such creative and baroque trappings as Andy Juniper multiple clarinets and lyrics about (gasp) aging -- was really what made the Beatles. What set them apart. What made them Fab. During the recording of the song, the band sat around and determined that it would be 2006 when McCartney turned 64. Then, according to engineer Geoff Emerick: "We had a good laugh and wondered what we'd be doing." Well, John and George are probably doing a sold-out gig at The Celestial Gardens, naturally wowing `em, with John encouraging those in the cheap seats to clap, and the audience's uppercrust patrons to just rattle their jewelry. Ringo, meanwhile, is just off being Ringo. And Paul, well, professionally he's flourishing with his last release, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, receiving rave reviews and three Grammy nominations; personally, he is about to be entangled in drawn-out and doubtlessly messy divorce proceedings. Still, all told, one must conclude that time has been kind to Paul. He is, after all, a living legend. And about the only thing his detractors can say against him is that his solo career ­ while formidable -- has paled in comparison to his output with The Beatles and therefore, John must have made him better. Well, that's an obvious two-way street. John's solo career ­ while formidable ­ paled in comparison to his output with The Beatles and, believe it, Paul made him better. Like two great runners in a race, they pushed each other every mile. And anyone who denies this either simply does not know the band's true history as told by those who lived it, or else is an unredeemable revisionist. The whole was infinitely greater than the sum of the parts. And the whole was sheer genius. Yes, Paul, we will still need you, we will still feed you, now you are sixty-four. Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.