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A6 - The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday, March 27, 2002 EDITORIALS AND LETTERS THE OAKVILLE HE mil! 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-2809 Grculation: 845-9742 IA NO LIV ER Publisher N EIL O LIV ER Associate Publisher TERI CASAS Office Manager JILL D A V IS Editor in Chief M A R KD ILLS Production Manager K E L L YM O N TA G U E Advertising Director R IZ IER OV ER TO LU Photography Director STEVE CR0Z1ER Circulation Director R O DJERRED Managing Editor THE O AKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: M e tro ta n dP rin tin g .P u ttsh n g& D e trfc u tn gL td, n clu d tt V W P tfc m rgN o w sA d v e rtis e rA J Ir* x iH e ra ld i'C c u n e r.A rtn u t E n tw p n s eN e w s .B a rrieA d v a n c e .B a rry 'sB a yT h eW e e k B o to nE n te rp ris e .B ra m p to nG u a rto n .B u rlin g to nP o st B u tm g to nS h o p p n gN e w s .C X yP a re n t.C o lfc n g w o o d /W a s a g a C c n n e c t» n .E ast'm M trct E rin* * x atB /C o u n * yR o m e s . E to b e c k eG u a rd ia n .F la m b o ro u g hP o st. 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F o re v e r'fc u n g ,O tyd G u a rtla n Recognized for Excellence by S C Ontario Community Newspapers Association O T ^ .1 H YMCA Jing4eBefiFund g, W B U O OMEJ A G O N tn C T I f r iw y . CanadianCommunity N«wspapm Association SKY Suburban Newspapers of America w TV AUCTION MM W ly © Ws (Oakville &A*ttar9$ O z /f > e n fr T h eO d tv l* .M to na n dO s& x i ||| | oakvlll« qall«rl«s | o tO a lm tM Good-bye Mike, hello Ernie W ith his first challenge now behind him. O ntario's prem ier-elect Ernie Eves m ust focus his attention on an even greater task: selling him self and his P rogressive C o n servative party to an electorate thirsting for change. Eves, with his second-ballot win over Finance M inister Jim Flaherty, appears to be well on the way to healing whatever rifts there may have been in the Tory ranks. The fact two other candidates. Tony C lem ent and E lizabeth Witmer, threw their support behind Eves after the first ballot indicates any hard feelings that may have developed during the cam paign for Mike H arris' old job were quickly forgotten. For the Tories, it is in their best interest to quickly focus their atten tion on the Liberals who, in the wake o f W alkerton, a nervous econ omy and an O PSEU strike, are smelling blood. Eves could also face the fallout from the pending sale o f Hydro One and fears o f escalating electricity bills following deregulation in May. Polls indicate the Tories are run ning 10-15 percentage points behind the Liberals, despite the fact Liberal leader Dalton M cGuinty appears no more prem ier-like than he did dur ing the last election campaign. The challenge for Eves is to con tinue with the heart o f the Tory doc trine tax cuts and offering business a friend -- w hile show ing the province an Eves-led PC party is m ore w illing to listen to Harris antagonists- labour, teachers, nurses and the poor. It's a tricky line Eves will have to walk as he can't be seen as paying lip service to groups the Tories have alienated in the past. Eves must also have workable plans to deal with other issues that face the province such as ensuring post-secondary institutions can handle the double cohort o f students expected this year, the doctor shortage and finding funds he's prom ised for education and the environm ent. Eves has approxim ately 18 months to sell him self to Ontarians or risk joining the late Frank M iller in the prem ier-for-a-minute bin. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Can Eastview handle more portables? I am writing this letter as a result o f attend ing a Halton District School Board (HDSB) Eastview Site Plan public meeting on March 20. The Town was seeking input from Eastview School neighbours as part of the process to decide if the HSDB is allowed to locate up to 12 portables at this school start ing with seven this fall. In September the enrolment is expected to increase 47% to approximately 750 students. As a future parent o f an Eastview student, I find it is difficult to see how the Town can possibly approve the site for 250 additional students for many reasons, but I will address mainly two issues, parking and safety. Parking space is already at a premium. Will additional parking com e from the already small playground? The Town believes that since kids will be bused in, parking is not a big issue. From my experience at Pine Grove. I know it doesn't work that way. Often, we leave to pick up our kids for after school activities or appointments, not to mention rainy days, pizza days, special activities, ski days or evening assemblies. Will neighbours appreci ate the additional demand we will make on street parking? Parents will park their vehi cles wherever they fit, including fire routes. This is a real school fire safety concern. Remember we are talking about 47% increase in student population. Two safety issues are security and heath. Portables mean additional vandalism. Eastview is different from most school sites, since it is surrounding by open park areas, making it more difficult to supervise during the day and almost impossible to supervise at night. Portables provide hiding places for stu dents. drugs and alcohol. From a health stand point, it is difficult to believe that Eastview with a student capacity o f 595 will be able to meet the washroom requirements o f 750 stu dents. Before we start talking about how to place the portables on the site, I urge the Town, Eastview neighbours and parents to first ques tion if the site can handle 250 more students safely and with minimal disruption to the community. The Halton Board "dumps" the students into the school, but it is up to the Town, the principal, teachers and parents to magically provide our students "with the highest quality of education", in five months with very limit ed funds. As in the past, I am sure the Town/school will think o f creative solutions to all the con cerns mentioned at the meeting, but will they be addressed to our satisfaction? To my knowledge, the Town has never turned down a request for additional porta bles. Will they roll over to meet the requests o f the board? Will the Town question the board about alternative solutions such as excess capacity at a neighbouring school? Or will we all roll over and just 'm ake do"? Eastview neighbours, parents of Eastview, Pine Grove, QE Park. Gladys Speers need to attend the Town meeting (TBA) and make sure our concerns are heard and properly addressed. In five months it will be too late. (By the way I live in Glen Abbey beside a fairly new school which did not need seven portables to accommodate the Grade 7/8 students, since the board built a beautiful addition to the school). The squeaky wheel gets the grease! C. HALEY L T IT I* i: hi tiii: \\ i;i:k Whatever happened to courtesy and respect? Does anyone remember a time when people said "hello," "thank you," "excuse me," or "may I help you with that?" People, who seem to have no time to offerthese simple gestures o f courtesy today, have no problem taking all the time in the world to curse often punctuated with a rude gesture involving the middle finger. These colourful expletives seem to come at the drop of a hat, often directed at some poor individual who just hap pened to turn right instead o f left, go slow instead of fast, for no particular reason and with no hidden agenda to worsen your day or to punish you in any way. And so these rude, discourteous words rumble across our days and through our lives. Across the boardrooms and the schoolyards, out o f our televisions sets, our radios, and the movies that we see. As much as they may trouble the ear, the heart is troubled more by what they herald as a greater problem -- a growing lack of respect for our selves, for each other, and for life in general. I steel myself for another day - a day when I will be pushed down the highway by a yet another convoy of transport trucks, SUVs, vans, and a blur o f Civics and Cavaliers, all it seems commandeered by drivers, who are obviously rushing to the bedside o f a dying relative, or at least something as equally important. For they seem so intent on pushing me off the road -- no signaling, danger ous lane changes, and following much too close. What is the speed limit anyway? Surely not w hat's posted -- 100, 120, 130 km/h; it's re-established second by second by whomever can push further faster! A dangerous game of Russian roulette played out daily on the roadways. Now, who won't get home for dinner tonight? If it's me, I hope it is for a good reason! And it doesn't stop when I get out o f my car. Rude behaviour and lack of courtesy seem to be everywhere. I'm trammeled at the grocery store, or when lining up for stamps. Will the butter supply not last? Surely we won't run out o f stamps! What is so important that seconds are made to seem like hours? Are we in such a .hurry for the "moments" in our lives to pass? I recognize that we all have "stu ff' that needs to be done. We all have "things" that we feel are important to do, and we all have a right to do them. But at whose expense or at what expense? What is really important after all is said and done? Perhaps John F. Kennedy said it best when he spoke about diversity and tolerance when he gave, the Commencement Address at the American University* on June 10, 1963: "We can help make the world safe for diversity. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. · We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mor- · tal." I don't know -- is it just me? L. LA VECCHIA Town should follow supermarket chain's lead in banning pesticides Oakville's Town planners and council have been receiving a lot of heat from residents concerned about the plans to re-zone the last remaining open space within the Town's juris diction from agricultural to residential/com mercial. Residents are concerned about the effects of such growth on their environment, and consequendy on their own health. Sometimes the residents' efforts have been referred to as pressure from a "special interest group" (both in the press and in council meet ings). Recently, Loblaws announced that all its Garden Centres throughout Canada are to become "Chemical-pesticide free by 2003". W hy? Could this also be a response to pres sure from special interest groups? Hardly. According to Lbblaws spokesper son Geoff Wilson: " In response to overwhelming consumer demand to eliminate the cos metic use of pesticides in home gardens, Loblaw Companies Limited has decided to discontinue the sale o f chemical pesticides in our garden centres, starting with the spring season 2003." These two issues are closely related, and officials at all levels of government had better take notice. We can only hope the federal government will soon update its current Pest Control Products Act (which dates back to 1969, and allows all kinds o f pesticides to be sold in Canada that are prohibited in other parts of the world, including the United States). And we can also hope that our local munic ipal government will respond to the "over whelming consumer demand" to retain the remaining lands north of Dundas as open space so that the cosmetic use of pesticides there, at least, becomes a non-issue. R IC H AR D H O M M E Keep up the good work, says reader Looking at the front page o f the Wednesday, March 13, Oakville Beaver I thought that this was one of the best examples of the Beaver' s new layout design. You've done a nice job with the design changes and the work merits a compliment. At the same time, many letters that appeared in that issue of the Beaver clearly showed the vehemence of the OPA 198 argu ment and by publishing those letters, the Oakville Beaver deserves recognition from both sides of the argument. The Beaver should be commended that, despite its own position, such as the one defined in its weekend editorial, it also stepped up to the plate and provided the forum for oth ers to publicly state their differing views. SIM O N DANN Pud f DID Y O UH A V EV -unj lP ^A TTH EBIR TH D AY J & . By STEVE NEASE BWY/MAX? Your Opinion Counts The Oakxille Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considera tions and grammar. In order to be published, letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to T he Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Road, O akville, O n., L 6 K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@ oakvillebeaver.com . The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish any letter.