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"Scugog"s Community Newspaper of Choice" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, June 26, 2001 - 7 Public School) Question of the Week... How are you planning to spend your summer vacation this year? (Asked at Prince Albert Tyler Daly I'll be working in "construction and playing beach vol- ley ball Luke Doupe Playing baseball and working in an office. Gordon Costain Playing soccer, going to PE.l. with the Scouts, and Camp Borden with cadets Ali Versluis Bill Dickenson, Camping, soccer Crossing Guard and working at Taking a rest, that's home. for sure! LETTER Let's keep the ball park "To the Editor: Do my eyes deceive me? Move the baseball dia- monds from the lake? No, no, not that.. | know things are a-changin' and I'm trying to be open minded and all that, but not the baseball diamonds, too. To those of us born and bred here, the ball dia- monds are an institution. . On Wednesday night, sitting in the bleachers watching my boys play ball, feeling - the cool breeze off the lake, linhaled deeply. I turned to watch my little guy playing in the dirt with a kid he'd just met. Once again the warm breeze caressed my face and I yelled, "huda fire'em in there chuck." This was a self-actualizing moment. It is great to be here. It is great to be home. It is great to now be a mom watching my kids play ball in my community of choice. Many others, teenagers, elderly, children and adults enjoy the lakefront pro- foundly in this way. There are many ways for us all to enjoy the park. Let's not remove real community from the downtown. When | was a kid I could usually find Gramps sitting in the bleachers on a Saturday afternoon watching agame. I'd saddle up beside him, he'd squeeze my knee 'till yelped, give me a quar- ter and I'd be off to buy a popsicle. That was great. Can we not honour some of what has made Port Perry a community that works? There is more to the infras- tructure of community than business. In a culture that constantly consumes, it is 'important to remember that shopping and tourism are not at the root of what "grows us up." How much more do we have to cater to shoppers? The people who live here barely venture downtown on the weekends as it is. Anybody you know in the park on the weekend? Well, you may find a few, at the ball diamonds. Suzanne Doupe, Prince Albert ong n at the hai barbecue (assembl; and deals can be made "the argument is persuasive, and the cash pay-off to the clerk compelling enough), not unlike the way the clocks in cars years ago would cease functioning the instant the vehicle left the lot, never to tell time correctly again. This requires manual lighting. Or, as we. barbe- cuers of some seasoning (pardon the pun) would say: "Goin' in to get the job done." There are various items available at stores for this task, most notably those long-nosed barbecue lighters, and | recom- mend them, if you can find them for less than $5.99. sidewalk bold fara A - The problem is that they run out of gas more quickly 2 Fa WE 22 delight and amusement of his: children and neigh- . bours... iene d The dally. displa of immolation on my porch hes ond become the stuff of neighb: eo Remen ber het ne he. 1 hood, he odge? Fo | and still Sonne yo after the ost kal fine ball charred "has subsided, and the barbecue is happily simmering "away, awaiting steaks, or burgers, or chicken, or my 'amazing tiger shrimp with oyster-flavoured sauce. The obvious response to this tirade is: "Buy a new barbecue, you idiot." | | have taken this up with the finance department, and have been rejected; repeatedly. So, like those Canadian servicemen puttering precariously about in ailing Sea King helicopters, | must make do, no matter how dangerous and humiliating the consequences. Have a safe and happy summer. The Final Bell By Rik Davie mer. A YEAR WASTED Meetings of the Durham District School Board are over for the sum- The back-stabbing and allega- tions among trustees are over until August 27, and we are left to ponder a year wasted. Charges and counter charges of secret meetings, secret agendas and secret deals by a group of trustees once known as the Durham Six (now down to four) still echo, unresolved. A call for the Minister of Education to investigate the shenanigans of our 11 elected keepers of public education is, as of yet, unanswered by 'The Iron Lady of the Classrooms', Janet Ecker. Open support for a private school tax credit by public trustees Martin Demmers (Scugog) and Paul Crawford (Pickering) has been left hanging in the air. This voice of support for private school funding by public board members is, according to secondary school teachers union boss Shelly Page, "nothing short of a conflict of interest on their part." The fact that the statement was made by the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation, the group which punished the Harris government for making them work an unfairly heavy (and it is) work schedule by taking away extracurricular activities in Durham schools for nigh-on-to four years now, may take some weight off Ms. Page's statement; but right is right, and she is. If these two trustees, who just failed in a bid to tighten rules governing what books may be used in Durham classrooms and think little of calling meetings without the public present wish to support private schools of any type, it is certainly their right... and the right of anyone. Just don't do it while you claim to be defenders of a public system that could use the millions that will go out in tax credits for what amounts to a personal choice luxury. Speaking of money: 20 or so supporters of special education had no trouble getting Martin Demmers to say he would support taking away long-awaited salary increases for the over worked staff of the board in order to keep 18 Educational Assistants who were never really lost anyway. They were only lost on paper, to return in the fall through attrition and budget savings (but try and explain that to the media-shy Mr. Demmers). The list of issues not dealt with by this board so far is long and varied, and certainly supercedes any agenda, or goals of a single trustee... or four of them. The way some of them dealt with the problems facing public education was to walk (or run in one case) out of the last board meeting of the year when a motion - which could have seen Harry Potter books banned in Durham for the second time in as many years - a motion that failed to pass. The Durham Four - Martin Demmers, Paul Crawford Susan Shetler (Oshawa) and Cynthia Steffen (Oshawa) - made exits from the board while business remained, and even motions they themselves had planned went unread. Mr. Demmers literally ran from the press, refusing - as he hurried to his car with a briefcase in one hand and a Swiss Chalet chicken dinner in the other - to answer any questions about his early depar- ture, or even agree to an interview before press time. What's a reporter to do? His job. | guess. Watch and wait and tell you everything | see and hear. Perhaps more importantly, tell you the things not heard, not seen.