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PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, June 6, 2000 - of oe Week... How confident Everyone should have their water tested. your drinking water? Garry Collins are you about | just had mine the quality of tested. | was scared. Mark Fraser Not very confident these days. With everything that's happened, everything should be tested. Mike Fraser | use the Brita sys- tem and I'm fairly confident with that. Julie McClure We're on a well. | think we're fairly safe. It's easy to check. Lyn Jay Fairly confident. | trust our officials. Letter to the Editor will commerce ruin Port Perry? To the Editor A current promotional brochure on Port Perry may read something like this... "This quiet, picturesque, Victorian town, nestled on the shores of Lake Scugog offers you a pristine lake that provides... ...a gross indecent view of the back end of a grocery store, complete with garbage bin and hydro terminal! But wait it gets better? They are putting on an addition. Soon this eyesore will increase in size as the town council of Port Perry continues to prostitute the town to developers and the dollar. This is progress? Shame on the councillors and developers whose self indulgence will deprive gen- erations of people the enjoyment of what could have been a truly beautiful and picturesque area. Port Perry's south shore is a sad legacy but this proliferation of the region will not stop un)ess YOU the citizen's of Port Perry speak up! It takes no imagination, just greed, to..."PAVE PARADISE AND PUT UP A PARKING LOT" and we are seeing a lot of that greed in motion all around Port Perry. And, as usual, very few will get rich at the expense of many by squan- dering the natural riches we have all been blessed with. With the help of people such as the Reid's, fast food cor- porations and developers, (to whom Port Perry is only a dot on a map) and a town council who is out of touch with the heartbeat of this region, a Port Perry promotional brochure may soon read... "you'll feel right at home in Port Perry as it closely resembles Scarborough's golden mile". Be sure to visit the fish museum... etc, etc. Don't laugh, it's happening. And commerce will ruin Port Perry... if you let it. R.W. Moore Caesarea sorting, wasn't it? Weeping twenty-somethings, clad in le bleu, The outpouring of love, grief and reverence toward Maurice . The Rocket Richard last week, by people far too young to have ever seen him play, was really Page Seven by Jeff Mitchell None of this is said to diminish the greatness and attraction of these departed celebrities, and their impact on the generations that watched their ascent to the heights they attained. | have no doubt the old-timers lined up outside Notre Dame Cathedral in Montreal last Wednesday did genuinely feel as though they had lost a hero; if not a friend. And it is blanc et rouge, with Number 9 on the back, mourning the passing of an icon. They didn't know for sure what that icon represented, but dammit, if there was some public mourning to be done, they were sure enough going to get in on it. Nothing like a full week of public grief to create a 'sense of togetherness among people with tragically little to do, and keep editors happy, or as close to happy as we ever get. "It's getting close to deadline... where's Johnston with today's grief shot?" A better example of this phenomenon, of course, ~ was when Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car accident. A member of a royal family in a land far across the Atlantic gets killed in a crash in yet another country, even farther away, and people here are wailing as though they'd seen their own puppies crushed under the wheels of 15 Harley-Davidsons ridden by bikers from Montreal. Elvis Presley passes away on the toilet, and years later grown men are still trying to capture his fitting that so many thousands lined up to pay tribute to The Rocket. The point is that grief, once such a private expe- rience, felt at the loss of a close loved one, has become something quite a bit different. A spectacle. And sometimes a most unseemly one. These are the new rituals of tragedy: Flowers, candles and public nose-blowing. Adolescent girls gathering in circles and singing. Mobile media com- mand posts. Day after day after day of interviews with people who drove 27 hours straight because "They Simply Had To Be There". Lost in the miflst of such grandstanding is the quiet, genuine grief and, sometimes, believe it or not, joy that is experienced by the majority when the era of a great one, such as Rocket Richard, comes to a close. His passing was not a tragedy for us, but rather a cause for remembrance and remi- niscence. As a boy | loved Bobby Orr, but | don't think I'd drive even to Parry Sound for his funeral, let alone to stand on the main drag and cry for The National. ration, and the ill-fitting polyester. essence, right down to the girth, the copious perspi- Call me cynical. But | guess | just don't get it. Random Jottings by J. Peter Hvidsten CRITICISM OVER DEVELOPMENT UNFAIR Over the past three or four years, since Reid's Independent grocery opened along the south shore of Lake Scugog many people have voiced their displeasure in the use of the land for a commercial venture. We've all heard the comments on the street and we've seen them in letters written to this paper. | can't agree more that it would have been nice to see the entire south shore of the lake developed into an extension of our existing Water St. parkland. Who wouldn't like to see the entire area as a large green- belt with walkways, playground equipment and fishing iers? P In the letters to the editor columns of today's news- paper, you'll find a letter from an area resident who strongly voices his opinion about the development of the south shore lands by commercial enterprises. While on the surface, his arguments are very appealing, some of the criticism is unfounded. Mr. Moore writes "soon this eyesore will increase in size as the town council of Port Perry continues to prostitute the town to developers and the dollar". Not only is this statement unfair, it's untrue! The lands in question were zoned commercial long before the present council. The land has been used commercially for more than 30 years. Think back and remember Conway Gardens, Bayshore Take-out, Tripp's Laundromat, and a Coin Car Wash were all along that stretch of 7A Hwy. Municipal councils don't have the power to remove an exisiting commercial designation, so were power- less in preventing a grocery store, or.any other com- mercial enterprise from locating on this land. The only control the council had, when the proposal to build a large grocery store on property was brought forward, was the site plan. This basically gives them jurisdiction to ensure the size of the building (based on the size of the property), the location and number of parking spots, number of light standards, entrances and exits, etc. They had absolutely no way of stopping the land owner from developing the property. There was a time, about six or more years ago, when the land was for sale, and the township, like any- one else, had the opportunity to purchase it. The approximate $4.5 million for the land was just too much for this municipality to absorb for parkland, so after sitting vacant for some time, it was purchased by the mother company of the present grocery store. Blaming council for allowing the development to proceed with an addition, and saying they are "out of touch with the heartbeat of this region," once again is laying blame at the feet of the wrong people. As | understand it, the present addition to Reid's was part of the original commercial development plan, and approvals were in place even long before the existing building was completed. There's no doubt a greenbelt would have been asthetically more pleasing, but the land owners have every right to develop the land they purchased, as long as they conform with the guidelines in the site plan. Reid's have proven they are good corporate citizens, and despite the comments of those who feel the lake- front should be parkland, they do not deserve criticism for building on land zoned for that very use. At least that's the way | see it. SE -- TN yr