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Peoples Forum THE WEEKEND OUTLOOK Friday April 19 11 Page it Objects to demolition of house Dear Editor Last Saturday morning shortly after am residents at the west end of Maple Avenue were dismayed to awaken to the sounds of heavy equipment beginning the demolition of a se cond home in their neighborhood By the evening there was nothing left The destruction of this perfect ly sound nouse is deeply disturb ing for a number of reasons In deed it was the similar demoli tion this time last year of a cen tury old home which angered and shocked residents We banded together formed RAIDD and began the long fight to stop the planned attempt to build two condominiums on the site The scheme will require drastic changes to the existing Official Plan of Hills and radical of the three pro perties involved The entire neighborhood is presently zoned single family residential and the developer Mr Zupet will re quire Town Council to approve a zoning bylaw change to multiple family residential if his speculation is to pay off This must not be allowed to happen Not only would it destroy the character of one of Georgetowns charming old neighborhoods but a very dangerous precedent would be established If a speculator can assemble parcel of land and then have it rezoned to suit his wishes no neighborhood in town will be safe It is equally disturbing to think that Mr is so certain of the outcome of this business that he has seen fit to demolish two of the three homes which he has ac quired It is certainly to be hoped that the demolition of two dwell ings cannot be used as leverage to encourage Council to approve the necessary zoning changes It is equally to be hoped that the change in the description of the existing land use from single family home to vacant in section a of his revised Development Application will not add any credibility to the application either in the eyes of Council or in the opinion of the Planning Department Sincerely yours Ken Thorn Chair Maple Avenue Group RAIDD Red Cross offers thanks Dear Editor On behalf of the Georgetown and District Red Cross I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the peo ple who took part in the recent Acton Blood Donor Clinic Three cheers for the people who came out to the Acton Legion Hall to donate a pint of blood on Thurs day March It was our best turnout in some time Special congratulations go to Mrs Bollert who received her certificate for making 50 dona tions of whole blood Also receiv ing certificates for 35 donations were Mrs and Mr John Special thanks goes to the Ac ton Legion for being so willing to continuously host the clinics at their hall And of course the clinic would not be such a success without the many volunteers who man the clinic Thank you to all of the great donors and volunteers from Ac ton and all of Halton Hills Through your efforts you have made it possible to give others the gift of life We look forward to seeing you again at the next clinic on June We appreciate your continued support Sincerely Sandra Moon Acton Hollow ring to objection Open letter to the Chairman of the Halton Board of Education MrBillHarrlton Dear Sir Thou Doth Protest Too Much Now Unless you were misquoted your objection to having the On tario Municipal Board hold an open hearing when they review the debenturing of the million dollar replacement of Trafalgar HS has a hollow ring to it You voiced no objections to the following The closing of OTHS neighboring 20 million dollar Perdue and leasing it for one dollar because of declin ing enrolment in south Oakville for both high You voted to replace in October 1989 after Perdue closed in June 1989 After your vote on replacing OTHS you voted to have another new 25 million dollar Oakville high school built Com bined cost for new Oakville high to taxpayers to exceed million dollars with a one loonie return on a 20 million dollar property owned by the By January 1991 you were aware that the Town of Oakville would not issue a building permit for the replacement of OTHS until the Board had the approval of the Yet the Board pro ceeded to make an application to the Town of Oakville and paid the fee of 208700 dollars which is now in a daily interest bank account of the Town of Oakville In March the Board finally sub mitted its application to the OMB and must await a bearing date before proceeding further However as much as you wish to protest your recourse can only be within the rules of the Any attempt to avoid an open hearing at the OMB will be construed by the Taxpayers of that a backroom ar rangement Is being withheld from public scrutiny If this Board has nothing to hide or coverup it merely has to provide its data to the OMB At risk is the Boards credibility unless it welcomes an open hearing in stead of protesting Yours truly George Pickios Oakville Dumb legislation Taxpayer looking for advice Editors note The following letter was released for to the Hills Herald for publica tion Copy of a letter to Honorable Michael Wilson MP Dear Sir There have been reports in the news media that the present governments fiscal policies are driving Canadians into poverty wish to emphasize these reports by giving you my per sonal financial standing in total and although you may use this in formation any way you wish I respectfully request that my name and address be treated with the fullest confidentiality I have lived and worked in Canada for thirtytwo years in cluding six and a half years in the Volunteer thanked Dear Editor I would like to take the op portunity during Volunteer Week to thank our Red Cross volunteers for the time and dedication they have given toward many programmes and services in our community and world wide through our Interna tional Services Our volunteers are the heart beat of the Red Cross without you we would not exist Once again my deepest ap preciation to the Georgetown and District and Acton District team of volunteers Schenk President and have never claim ed or collected unemployment or welfare benefits My income places me what the Federal Government claims is the lower middle class Thousands of others like me are shouldering the heaviest tax burden and I for one am totally sick of it I am asking you for advice on how to make a decent Take Home Pay that will encourage me to continue on and not Throw in the Towel In closing I would like to em phasize that I paid out a total of a month in 1990 for Government and Property Taxes Yours respectfully Brian Ont Opinion Dear Editor Writing letters to the paper is time consuming so I have been trying to cut down on the number I have been writing The problem from my point of view is that both the Feds and Ont goverment gives one so many pieces of dumb legislation and are so greedy it is difficult to keep ones cool Did you know that according to the CAA federal exlse tax on gas has gone up by 466 per cent since Ever wonder why the money in your pocket goes nowhere And how much have wages gone up in the same time frame The NDP in their wisdom sent out a pamphlet paid for by tax payers asking if we wanted in formation on the PCs NDP or liberal parties Since when have tax payers been responsible for putting- out information on political parties It seems one more way to spend money on a dumb idea Since the minority parties obtained about per cent of the vote in relationship to the how come they were not in cluded Is this discrimination Personally I am proud of the fact that Libertarians were not in cluded in this Garth Turner in to the paper dated April 10 once again like owning property suggests tax payers should get out and complain Funny thing that is what he was elected and paid to do Most people are too busy try ing to keep there head cbove water to take time off to do Gar ths him One more item officers of companies under the are now going to be held responsible for failure to pay wages in the event the company gets into financial trouble Question who will be stupid enought to be a company officer and be held per sonally liable for things that may be out of his her control Sincerely Libertarian Acton Mulroney appointment smacks of pure sleaze OTTAWA Theres an over whelming view by those whove ranted on the subject that Prime Minister Brian made a horrendous mistake in appointing John to the CBCs board of directors The feeling is that since this University of Toronto professor is Canadas most vociferous critic of the CBC for example he once called the CBC a lousy left- wing liberal pinko net work its outrageous that he now helps direct the institution he loves to hate Perhaps it is But it seems to me that if the other 14 board members cannot handle the con trary views of Mr Crispo it might just be time for some fun damental changes in the way the outfit is run His arrival should spice up the meetings In other words I am not con vinced Mr Crispo is a bad choice What I am convinced of however that the manner in which he was appointed smacks of pure sleaze put another way it stinks to high heaven Qualifications aside the new member of the CBC board should be paralyzed with embarrass ment Come to think of it the prime minister should be even more embarrassed But Mr Mulroney has always managed to be stoic about even his most astonishing appointments Prac tice they say niakes perfect Lets not fool ourselves about the timing Its no idle coin cidence that the prime minister made the appointment one day after Patrick Watson the chairmandesignate tore a strip off Mr in public and one day after Mr Crispo ap peared before the Canadian Radiotelevision and Telecom munications Commission to re mind everyone how much he detested the corporation NO CONSULTATION Does anyone think it was mere ly an oversight that Mr Mulroney broke tradition and failed to consult the chairman- designate about the appoint ment Sure sure How about some nice swampland in Florida No there is absolutely no doubt the prime minister was furious over Mr Watsons reaction to his comments on the corporations budget cuts Mr did put a certain government- serving spin on what the chair man had said about the budget a spin that infuriated Mr Watson He said the prime minister was playing a cheap trick on him in a way that expresses a lofty kind of contempt for all those peo ple whove lost jobs and that it was unworthy of a prime minister No prime minister is accustom ed to getting that kind of response from designated heads of Crown corporations And Mr Mulroney as weve learned is not without his sensitivities Anyway within 24 hours and without any advance warning the man who colncidentally holds the CBC in contempt for deliberate continued repeated intellectual dishonesty in virtually all of its news and publicaffairs programming was suddenly on its board of directors Now if you were Mr Crispo wouldnt you feel like one of those smart bombs the Americans fired at Baghdad The prime minister undoubtedly chalked up a direct hit NEW FORUM The new director a prodigious proponent of the CanadaUnited States freetrade agreement now will have an interesting new forum in which to advance his views one of them being that the CBC was biased against that deal Hell also no doubt explain to his fellow directors what he meant when he said the CBC has lot anything resembling jour nalistic integrity In fact he can expect to be ask ed for a lot of interesting explana tions And that in itself wont be a bad thing As he told a reporter in a recent interview theres no point having a group of yes- people sitting around the same table I think you need different points of view I dont want to be a token anything I dont want to be coopted and I dont want to be stubborn Acknowledging the fact that he dabbles in overstatement Mr says many of his com ments have been taken out of con text Its not true he claims that he wants the corporation abolish ed But he does want some mechanism to ensure the CBC provides balanced coverage Just working on this should keep things interesting for Mr Crispo and his fellow directors Should also keep Mr Watson on bis toes as he chairs the meetings No theres nothing wrong with having this man sitting on the board of directors What was wrong wrong wrong wrong was for the prime minister to ap point him as an apparent act of vengeance hurriedly and without the usual courtesies Nothing would have been lost had be waited even a week or two Nothing that is except the sleaze