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2 - Orono Weekly Times Subscriptions $38.09 + $1.91 GST = $40.00 per year. No Refunds. Publishing 48 issues annually at the office of publication. "We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Aid to Publishers - Canada Periodical Fund toward our mailing costs." Wednesday, September 22, 2010 ORONO WEEKLY TIMES - 5310 Main St., P.O. Box 209, Orono, ON L0B 1M0 E-mail: oronotimes@rogers.com or Phone/Fax: 905-983-5301 Publisher/Editor Margaret Zwart Production and Display Advertising - Roxanne Johnston Classified/Sports - Sue Weigand The Orono Weekly Times welcomes letters to the editor on subjects of interest to our readers. Opinions expressed to the editor and articles are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Orono Weekly times. Letters must be signed and contain the address and phone number of the writer. Any letter considered unsuitable will not be acknowledged or returned. We reserve the right to edit for length, libel and slander. If your retail or classified ad appears for the first time, please check carefully. Notice of an error must be given before the next issue goes to print. The Orono Weekly Times will not be responsible for the loss or damage of such items. Incineration burning issue this election It appears that this municipal election campaign is dominated by a single issue: the incinerator. Most of the questions raised at the two recent candidates' meetings held thus far dealt with the incinerator issue. All the new candidates seeking election speak out against incineration, while the incumbents who voted for incineration during this term of office make no mention of this as one of their accomplishments in their campaign material. Even though the Region identified incineration as its preferred method for handing residual waste in May of 2006, incineration was never mentioned during the fall 2006 election campaign. Right from the beginning of this term of office, incineration became the single biggest issue, dominating these past four years. Clarington's four local councillors, Adrian Foster, Ron Hooper, Gord Robinson and Willie Woo, consistently voted to do their due diligence for the Clarington residents for the first three years of this term. They pushed for peer reviews of all the Region's studies and reports on the proposed incinerator, at no cost to Clarington. They refused to be a 'willing host' for the incinerator, they pushed for additional monitoring of the stack emissions, they pushed for additional public information meetings, and they pushed for a report from the municipal solicitor on the host community agreement. Up until May of 2009, Clarington's four local councillors could out-vote Clarington's two Regional councillors and the Mayor, who also sits on Regional Council, on incinerator related issues. Not that this really mattered, because Clarington's Regional councillors never presented Clarington's democratically arrived at decisions at the Regional level if they were contrary to incineration in Courtice. In May of 2009, Gord Robinson changed his position, and voted with Clarington's three Regional Councillors to declare Clarington a willing host for the incinerator, even though Roger Anderson said it would make no difference to the process whether Clarington was a willing host or not. In June 2009, Durham Region Council voted to approve the environmental assessment report on the proposed incinerator and submit it to the Ministry of Environment for final approval. The final vote last June was very close. In fact, if Clarington's three Regional representatives had not voted in favour of the report, it would not have passed. If Clarington had not declared itself a willing host for the Region's waste incinerator, other Regional Councillors -being loathe to impose an incinerator on a municipality that didn't want it -- may not have supported the project. The anti-incineration lobby had promised councillors it would call them to task at the next municipal election, and it is doing just that. Councillors, who thought they could get away with going against the very vocal anti-incineration lobby, are now feeling the heat. At the last public candidates' meeting, Robinson said he did not vote in favour of the incinerator, he voted for the host community agreement. In voting for the host community agreement, an incentive package the Region offered for hosting their mega project, Robinson voted to declare Clarington a willing host for the incinerator. That was as good as voting for the incinerator. He also voted with the Regional Councillors not to hear a verbal report from the Municipal solicitor regarding concerns he had with the host community agreement. Mary Novak tried to distance herself from her pro-incinerator voting record at the last candidates' meeting by stating, "I didn't vote for the incinerator, I voted for the process." Her votes in support of the process have left us one ministerial decision away from the incinerator becoming a reality. As big as the incinerator issue is, it isn't the only issue of this election. The next council has to decide how we are going to attract clean businesses to come to Clarington, to reduce the tax burden on the residential property owner. It has to make Clarington a clean, green, safe and exciting place to live, promoting sustainable developmen twhile while maintaining a stable tax base. This is not a job for the faint of heart, nor for those who are not able to defend their voting record. To The Editor: The fee is the factor Dumbfounded would have be permitted on the property, if they didn't charge a fee." Now I understand. The fee is the factor. Charging a fee is what rural lands must be protected against. Marta Jaworska, President, Jaworski Republic The opinion piece about our family says: "...Rural lands are zoned agricultural for a reason, and the line has to be drawn somewhere to ensure that rural lands are protected." Protected from what? "... All of these activities by by-law To The Editor: Re: Editorial - Community centres should be used for public meetings - September 15, 2010 I am dumbfounded that this by-law has been in force since 2005 and the current council, who should have been aware of it if they were not, has seen fit not to reverse it. Or is it that they do not want to have to stand in front of the voters of Clarington to justify their previous actions and/or give some other candidate who is trying to unseat DUMBFOUNDED see page 4 Heavy handed bureaucracy To The Editor: I was disappointed to read your unpleasant and factually untrue piece on the Liberty summer seminar. I have attended the Seminar for the last 5 years. The event makes no money. Indeed people like me have had to give gifts to keep it from losing large amounts of money. Most of the people who attend the events are Peter's friends. If Clarington is getting bad HEAVY HANDED see page 4 The high cost of democracy... To The Editor: On September 8, this newspaper ran with an opinion piece by the editor, Marg Zwart, entitled "Seminar fallout gives Clarington a bad rap." I'd like to take a moment to clear a few things up, and to respond to the argument. There's a suggestion in the DEMOCRACY see page 4