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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Thursday, March 22, 2012 · 6 The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5566 Classified Advertising: 905-632-4440 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. Neil Oliver Vice-President and Group Publisher, Metroland West David harvey Regional General Manager JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief Daniel Baird Advertising Director ANGELA BLACKBURN Managing Editor Riziero Vertolli Photography Director Sandy Pare Business Manager RECOGNIZED FOR EXCELLENCE BY: Ontario Community Newspapers Association MARK DILLS Director of Production Manuel garcia Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution Sarah McSweeney Circ. Manager Website oakvillebeaver.com The OakvilleBeaver is a division of Room for learning Editor's Note: The following letter was sent to members of Oakville Town Council and a copy filed with The Oakville Beaver. I am writing to thank you for recognizing that the proposed protocol needs further input, and for voting to defer a discussion on implementation of reduced setbacks for cell tower locations in the Town of Oakville until more citizens have an opportunity for input. And, applauding you for seeking further information with your insightful questioning at (Monday's) Planning and Development Council meeting. As I said, this is rapidly evolving technology, and yet here in Canada and in Oakville, we have the opportunity to draw on learning from parts of the world that are, in fact, ahead of us in many ways in this industry. A just-released announcement from Industry Canada outlines the Proposed Revisions to the Frameworks for Mandatory Roaming and Tower and Site Sharing, and is directing telecoms to share roaming agreements as well as co-location. This can reinforce what Oakville chooses to implement. The free-standing tower that the industry legal spokesperson pictured Monday night may not generally be the way to go as those towers do not support co-location and may not support roaming -- do we really want a proliferation of unregulated towers under 15 metres going up for each separate carrier? Individual companies seeking supe- Letter to the Editor Canadian Community Newspapers Association Suburban Newspapers of America THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: United Way of Oakville ATHENA Award DAVID LEA / OAKVILLE BEAVER SPECIAL EFFORT: The Halton Regional Police and partners donated $10,196 raised at the 25th Annual Special Olympics Torch Run Ontario. Pictured (holding cheque) are Halton Police Chief Gary Crowell, Sgt. Kim Hill, Special Olympians Bill Hickson and Emily Boycott. They are surrounded by Halton Catholic District School Board representative Mario Mule, Halton Public District School representatives Valerie Klempa and Helen Reese, Special Olympics Ontario marketing and fundraising manager Lynn Miller, Cody Jansma, Law Enforcement Torch Run manager and Wendy Gzechowski, Halton police assistant co-ordinator. rior coverage in the interests of a competitive leg up will result in increased radiation for Oakville residents -- 24/7. For new towers or monopoles under 15 metres, we request the protocol state they must be shared as a colocation antenna and allow roaming agreements. Industry Canada is directing this, and Oakville has a chance to back them on this request to cell phone providers. As well, we support at least a 200metre setback for sensitive areas or the maximum power density for the closest residential dwelling should be 1,000 microwatts per metre-squared (for any location sited under a 200-metre setback). This is in line with other progressive legislation in Europe and would respect biological safety limits and not simply the thermal effect limits imposed by Safety Code 6 -- while allowing industry access and coverage. A new European Parliament Declaration, in part, urges member state governments to apply existing rules regarding electromagnetic radiation and exposure to harmful substances and to apply the precautionary principle strictly, with effective health and environmental measures, in order to immediately protect those affected, whose number is growing exponentially. Thank you for allowing me to speak. We look forward to working with you further. Wendy Perkins, Oakville The many ways we will surely pay for summer in March t has been a glorious gift from the gods -- unseasonable (and unfathomable) weather replete with inordinate amounts of sunshine and soaring temperatures. Forget spring-like, this extended stretch of weather has seemed more like summer. In March. The weather is all anyone can talk about of late, which is understandable, considering how we were so suddenly and unexpectedly released from the surly bonds of winter. And we acted accordingly. We liberated summer wardrobes from hibernation and raced outside. Cyclists took to the roads, gardeners plunged thumbs into the soil, fish shimmied out of the muck at the bottom of our pond (weeks earlier than usual), and one morning I found myself out on a golf course, playing 18 holes, in short sleeves, wishing I'd put on a little sunscreen -- because I burned. (Did I mention it was March?) But we're Canadians. We simply don't accept gifts with open arms and unfettered appreciation, not without feelings of unworthiness and guilt, and certainly not without appropriate amounts of apprehension and suspicion. What had we done to deserve this gift? What was the ultimate I cost (had our man-made global warming accelerated to the point where Oakville was the new Miami)? Many people were predicting that down the road we would surely pay for this. A blizzard in April. Or perhaps a short, cold, rainy summer. In other words, in our Canadian minds, we couldn't completely surrender to the joy Andy Juniper of a few weeks of crazy weather because we were mired in permanent vigilance and our assumption that disasters -- famine, plague, pestilence, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria (sorry, I went a little Ghostbusters there) -- surely loomed around the corner. One sunny day during the meteorological madness, we lost power for three hours here in Moffat. This odd hydro disruption somehow fried our water purifier and potentially exposed us to E. coli -- we've had it before in our well water hence our reliance on the purifier -- which meant we had to go a few days sans water while we bleached out the system. It was one of the guys working on our water who noted that when you're without power, and when you lose the ability to have water spilling forth freely from your taps, you can't help but contemplate apocalyptic scenarios. He asked whether I believe that the world will end in December. Apparently he does. And, no, I don't. Further, I had to question the level of his belief: I mean, if I knew in my heart of hearts that the end of the world was mere months off, I don't think I'd be spending my last hours bleaching water pipes. Personally, I think of the wonky weather as a weird and wonderful gift. An anomaly. Something that certainly doesn't happen often, but has happened before, and will no doubt happen again. In fact, the weather we've been experiencing had my mind wandering to a March Break back in high school. My girlfriend off to Florida with friends. Me, hanging at home. And her calling to say that the weather in Florida was downright rotten. And me saying that her call was taking me away from a game of pickup basketball in the driveway with a handful of buddies -- all in T-shirts and shorts, sweaty and sunburned, in weather that seemed like summer. In March. Andy Juniper can be contacted at ajjuniper@gmail.com, found on Facebook at www.facebook.com, or followed at www.twitter. com/thesportjesters.