The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

6- The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday August 4, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com 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. Commentary Guest Columnist NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director TERI CASAS Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production Metroland Media Group 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, MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager WEBSITE oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver is a division of Change and growth brings turmoil Ted Chudleigh Halton MPP hange defines our time. Much of our society is muddled up in technological change, trying to make the best use of constantly changing standards in digital information exchange and adapting it to our real lives. Here in Halton we are also dealing with change of another sort. Nothing, it seems, is changing faster in Halton than the ground beneath our feet. Only a few short years ago we could trust the continuity of our land, our landmarks, our roads, schools, sports facilities and the time it took to move through that landscape. Now it seems every day brings a new building, roadblocks, gridlock, and new ways of getting from here to there. Back in the bad old days of Bob Rae's Ontario, Halton began to hatch a plan to bring water to the vast tracts of the region which did not have access to it, fully aware that water would bring homes, people and change. In Oakville and Burlington much of this new development was seen as merely an extension of already well-developed urban areas. Local officials believed that the jolt of change would affect only new residents. They were wrong. New residents of Oakville and Burlington are faced with a transportation network stitched together with so many rough fixes that it is almost unworkable. A trip that used to take 15 minutes now takes twice as long, thanks to inadequate arterial roads, numerous lights, and changing traffic volume. Local hospital facilities have not kept up with the increasing demand. Once all this growth was underway, the provincial Liberal government came to town, unrolled its scroll and decreed that Halton must grow faster and larger than intended by our town fathers, and that population densities in current urban areas must be intensified. Our local officials seem to be resigned to this intensification. In fact they have gone cap in hand to the Liberal government and said if Queen's Park wants Halton to grow, then Queen's Park had better pony up the cash to build the necessary infrastructure. I think that they should also shift their focus to slowing down the growth, and return to allowing market forces to determine population densities of urban areas. I'm not against higher densities in urban cores where it makes sense, however I'm foursquare against forcing intensification by decree. Additionally, having big city bureaucrats in Toronto decide how Halton should look and feel is simply wrong. It is time we regained control of our growth plans. Planning is an inexact art that is practiced in a very fluid environment. If we want to change the result we have to change the process. The first step is unshackling our planning from provincial expectations and directives. The second is to properly fund health care needs based on current population rather than dated information. The third step is to utilize detailed demographic information in the planning process, including developing commuting estimates and the age range of new inhabitants. That information alone will help tailor infrastructure requirements of schools, recreation facilities and roads in advance of growth. Ted Chudleigh IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. 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 RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America C THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville TV AUCTION Vignettes of an arresting concert and a great gush of Glaus Andy is on holidays. Andy is all over the map. Like City-TV, Andy is everywhere. See Andy at the Toronto Blue Jay game... The Jays are soundly spanking the Minnesota Twins: that's him sitting along the third-base line, up a few rows where the ducats get cheaper, the air thinner, and the players on the field smaller. He's in the section served by the seasoned hawker who is sweating profusely in the afternoon sun as he lifts his sales shtick high into the humid air: "Ice," he loudly intones, taking a huge break before croaking, "Cold," and finally finishing with a pained bellow, "Beeeeeer." Fans crack up each time he cranks up. Ice...Cold...Beer! At Blue Jay games, Andy always unwittingly sits near interesting people. Eccentrics, (self-professed) experts, crackpots and gasbags gravitate to him. Once he was seated in front of a crapulous yahoo who insisted on regularly bellowing, apropos of nothing: "Back the truck up!" Today he's beside a woman who has a big crush on Toronto's big third baseman Troy Glaus. Everything out of her mouth is a great gush of Glaus, Troy-this and Troy-that. From her banter Andy determines this woman knows her baseball. She admits to being a bit fanatical about the home side and confesses proudly she could pick every Blue Jay out of a lineup not by their distinctive facial features, but, rather, by the shape of their backsides. Even that bum, Josh Towers? Andy wonders. Yes, she crows! Even Towers' bum. Wait a minute. There's Andy at The Police concert at The Air Canada Centre standing in the aisle talking to Andy Juniper an usher. Andy was a huge fan of Sting and the boys back in their heyday. On this night it seems Andy has heard enough of the opening band Fiction Plane (fronted by Sting's son, Joe Sumner) and he's asking the usher -- who in his time has surely seen more than his fair share of tardy and delinquent rockers -- when he predicts The Police will storm the stage. The usher answers with admiration and awe: "They'll come on at exactly 8:45 and finish at exactly 10:45 ­ regular, like clockwork." Considering the age of the band members ­ with Andy Summers closing in on 65 ­ it's doubtlessly good to be regular, like clockwork. At 8:43 the main lights are still on and Andy figures the usher's timetable is wrong. Then, suddenly, lights off. And, at precisely 8:45,The Police on! The show starts slowly, but builds. Andy is with his sons who know the band's hits, but not their entire incredible playlist. Afterwards the clan is in agreement: Every little thing the band does is magic. Finally, Andy can be seen frequenting restaurants in and around Port Carling. He's residing just down the road at a resort with family and relatives. It's summer and he is, in the vernacular of his offspring, "chill-axin." Chillin' and relaxin'. He's got four pocket novels in his possession. And he's got the new Crowded House CD, perfect music for the road. And although holidaying, Andy never breaks from seeking knowledge. He reads bumper stickers, billboards trying to find tiny pearls of insight and wisdom in unusual places. On his last day before returning to the real world, he finds enlightenment emblazoned on the front of a woman's T-shirt. The shirt reads: "Co-Ed Naked Farmers: We know how to plant it!" Whoa! Back the truck up! Andy Juniper can be visited at his Web site, www.strangledeggs.com, or contacted at ajuniper@strangledeggs.com.