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Airport & Out-of-Town Service www.oakvilleunitedtaxi.com 5 Friday , O ctober 15, 2010 O A KVILLE BEA V ER w w w .o akvillebeaver .co m and the municipal act, so municipali- ties can properly protect sensitive environmental areas. Oakville Mayor Rob Burton said he would continue to protect the Natural Heritage System and would look for ways to protect additional environ- mentally-sensitive lands throughout the town. Burton said he has developed a good relationship with provincial authorities and is confident in Oakvilles ability to enlist their help in protecting environmentally-sensitive land. John McLaughlin said he would work to protect the Natural Heritage System and pointed out the commu- nity has the power to do this. McLaughlin said Oakvillegreen played a major role in stopping the paving of bike paths along the Petro Canada trail system by expressing its concern to Oakville Council. He also said the problem could be dealt with by bringing a few hybrid or hydrogen buses to Oakville. He said more public transit would get more vehicles off the road and might make it unnecessary to build or widen additional roads. Mayoral candidate Raymond Ray was not present for the debate. When asked what he would do to help the environment Burton said he would continue to drive the town in the direction of sustainable green infrastructure. Our new transit depot, for exam- ple, is what was required to make it possible for us to support and main- tain hybrid buses. The old one could- nt handle them. With the completion of that capital project we will be in a position where we can shift our fleet to hybrid and other greener vehicles, said Burton. The other thing we are going to continue to do is continue to develop district energy systems in three differ- ent areas of town where the density will support it. The benefit of that is reduced pollution because instead of having a whole bunch of buildings polluting, you have only one clean system that provides heat and cooling to the buildings. Its a huge gain for the environment and it has the side benefit of making money for the Town and that relieves the pressure on property taxes. Burton said many of the Towns future buildings will use geothermal power and a plan is underway to encourage the development of solar installations on the roofs of business- es and residences. Mulvale chastised Burton for using a plastic disposable bottle at previous all-candidates meetings, but bringing a reusable water bottle to the Oakvillegreen meeting. She said, unlike Burton, she walks her environmental talk daily. When the announcement was made that the power plant had been stopped, Mulvale said she called on the resi- dents group Citizens for Clean Air (C4CA) to use the money it raised for energy conservation. Mulvale said her vision is for Oakville to move from being one of the largest consumers of energy to one of the smallest. Mulvale called for 30-minute off- peak GO trains to get residents off the highway and called for a more effi- cient transit service that people would actually ride. Mulvale would like to see a hybrid of the Environmental Strategic Plan and the Economic Strategic Plan. Mulvale said she firmly believes the situation does not exist where for the environment to thrive the economy must suffer and vice versa. McLaughlin attacked Burton stat- ing the mayor had said hybrid buses were studied and considered not to be economical during a previous all-can- didates meeting. McLaughlin said most other com- munities have hybrid or zero emis- sion vehicles and Oakville should have them, too. He called for Oakville Transits existing diesel buses to be replaced with hybrids despite the fact that three diesel buses can be purchased at the cost of two hybrid buses. McLaughlin said this cost discrep- ancy would be made up as the hybrid buses will use less energy. He said the Town should convert its entire fleet to hybrid vehicles stat- ing there is no excuse as to why this hasnt been done. McLaughlin spoke about the need to conserve energy and to install solar voltaic panels on Town buildings. Other questions dealt with issues ranging from development to paying for the new Oakville hospital. When asked about development, McLaughlin cautioned against raising development charges too high. Ive heard it said that we are going to shift the cost of paying for future growth on to developers. What that means in actuality is that devel- opers will build new houses and then pass that increase on to the new homebuyers. Youre paying for the development cost not the developer, he said. Yes, make developers pay for development that puts a burden on the town. I have no issue with that. What I do have an issue with is saying as a platform you are going to shift debt to developers because it doesnt really work that way. When the time comes to pay that is coming out of your pocket whether its future resi- dents or current residents, whoever is buying those new homes. Mulvale said she is fine with devel- opment charges being raised for new residential development and new retail development, but said the Town should be cautious when it comes to increasing development charges for new industrial development. Mulvale said Oakville needs more high quality jobs and cannot risk chasing these jobs away by increasing the costs of bringing them here. Burton said there are three choic- es when it comes to who pays for development. The first choice is no one pays and it doesnt get built. The second choice is existing tax- payers pay for it and the third choice is new residents who buy the new homes pay for it. Burton said it is appropriate for new residents to pay for development as their arrival is making that new development necessary. He said council agreed with him on this issue and thats why council unanimously voted to raise develop- ment charges to their highest possi- ble level. Burton target of criticism from two challengers Continued from page 1