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A 6 - The Oakville Beaver, W ednesday, July 10, 2002 EDITORIALS AND LETTERS 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 337-5610 Circulation: 845-9742 THE OAKVILLE REIVER Recognized for Excellence by IAN OLIVER Publisher NEIL OLIVER Associate Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief KELLY MONTAGUE Advertising Director STEVE CROZIER Circulation Director TERI CASAS Office Manager MARK DILLS Production Manager RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director ROD JERRED Managing Editor Metroland Printing, Publishing & Distributing Ltd., Includes: Ajax/Pickering News Advertisef, Alliston Herald/Courier, Arthur Enterprise News, Barrie Advance, Barry's Bay This Week. Bolton Enterprise, Brampton Guardian, Burlington Post. Burlington Shopping News. City Parent. Colllngwood/Wasaga Connection, East York Mirror. Erin Advocate/Country Routes. Etobicoke Guardian, Flamborough Post, Georgetown Independent/Acton Free Press, Harriston Review. 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Jinge B e" i SKY Suburban Newspapers of America 0 © JM iena JTkvard Qaktritk v? hrnr'fh FOR BUSINESS EXC&LENCE The Oakville, Mitlon and District R E A LE S T A T EB O A R D ·*723F77 Region accountable for water It's good to hear that Halton Region is "putting its money (or ours) where its mouth is" when it comes to water quality. The summer heat is sizzling and residents are turning on the taps more than usual -- to cool off, to water parched gardens and, most importantly, to keep their own bodies hydrated against the heat. While many residents grab bot tled water to drink, Halton Region officials took a hot summer day to showcase what they're doing to make the local tap water supply safe. Regional Chair Joyce Savoline said the municipality does every thing it can, has top-notch staff and technology, and spares no expense. Still, in the wake of Walkerton, it's all a question of trust. Trucks rumble by on the road with slogans linking bottled water and trust. And that's what it boils down to. Yet, in this age o f mistrust, par ticularly o f government, who are you to trust? It's unlikely that a pri vate company is out to provide tainted water any more than a municipal service is. Why, then, are we quick to hand over trust to private enterprise, but not our municipality? Why do we pay for a municipal service, then pay again to purchase a product because we have reser vations about the service w e're paying for? Or maybe, as is feared in health care, we believe w e're becoming a two-tiered system -- one public and the more premium version for those who can pay. While trust is a very individual decision, we applaud Halton Region's efforts and its desire to be open about what it's doing for water quality. After all, that open process is the hallmark of accountability and responsibility. It's easy to look at what goes wrong in a system rather than what goes right. Things did go dreadfully, fatal ly, wrong in Walkerton, and it should serve as a lesson to those responsible that our water supply is a very serious business. Fortunately for us, it appears Halton Region takes its business, and responsibility, seriously. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Trustees say they did the best thing for students Your June 28 editorial, `Trustees missed their chance" prompts a response and an effort to enlighten you and your readers. In your commentary, you perpetuate several inaccuracies. You state that "under provincial legislation, trustees can be fined and/or removed from office for passing budget deficits." The relevant legislation does, in fact, make a trustee liable to these penalties and more -- but not until a trustee votes to defy an order from the Minister of Education with regard to spending, following an inspection and/or takeover of board operations. Refusal to accept a balanced or "compli ance" budget is simply the first step. The fact is that most of the Halton District School Board (HDSB) trustees were quite will ing to refuse acceptance of the compliance budg et that the staff are legally obliged to prepare. The truth of the situation is this: Halton is a growing region. In many other districts, the schools boards are facing declining enrolments but, in Halton, our enrolments are increasing: so is our need for student accommodations. We need to build new schools. We are building new schools as quickly a s'we can. Two elementary schools are under construction right now, and scheduled to open for September 2002. Ground breaking for four more new schools is scheduled for next year, including a new sec ondary school for the Glen Abbey area. The Capital Strategic Plan currently proj ects 41 new schools to be built by 2019, to accommodate the growing populations in Oakville, Burlington, Milton and Halton Hills. Herein lies the crucial factor that caused the HDSB trustees to "drop the ball" as you so ineloquently phrased it. The Ministry of Education can - and has done, in another locale - cancel the school board's line of credit with their bank. Like most businesses, school boards rely upon bank credit to manage the cash flow demands that do not coincide with the flow of grants from the province. For Halton District School Board to lose our borrowing ability would mean immediate ces sation of all construction projects. The board has already closed some `underuti lized- school buildings, in compliance with the province's funding formula, and we really need someplace to put those students, come September. Also HDSB suffers penalties (the funding for mula, again) for continuing to transport students to those underutilized schools. In order to access available funding for our system, it is essential for us to `catch up' to the population growth in Halton by building schools where the students live. We are years behind due to previous boards' reluctance to close schools, and so must con tinue to build in the newer areas, or continue to be penalized through grant reductions. Further, you speculate that the trustees of. the Halton District School Board either feared "a provincial audit" or "lack...intestinal forti tude." You couldn't be more mistaken. Perhaps you missed the news release (and your reporter's article) that quoted another motion that was passed on June 26: ... that the Halton District School Board immediately make the following request of the M inister of Education: that a Ministry of Education representative meet with the director of education and appropriate senior staff to* examine the HDSB budget, in detail, and pro vide solutions to the financial shortfalls that are inherent in this budget. Any audit, provincial or otherwise, is welcome. Our books are open and subject to public scrutiny; the figures are audited annually by independent auditors, and published on the board's Web site: www.haltondsb.on.ca. (In past years, the Annual Report was pub lished in your newspaper, but is no longer in the paper, due to cost constraints.) It's also worth mentioning that a couple of Oakville parents, with a particular interest in board finances, took the opportunity to review our boOks and, in April, went to the press with their findings. In an article published in the Beaver (April 8), one of those parents stated: "There is no way they could possibly find enough savings in their budget...they couldn't even find enough money to pay for the esti mated $5.1 million in deferred repairs and maintenance for 2001-2002. This new funding model has resulted in nothing less than a com plete mess." Clearly, the Halton District School Board is not "crying w o lf', nor are we "afraid" of "something.. .a provincial audit might turn up" as you speculate in your editorial. It appears to us, the trustees of the Halton District School Board, that our personal will ingness to suffer the wrath of the Minister of Education is outweighed by our unwillingness to further penalize the students in our commu nities. Had you understood the situation, I'm sure you would agree that our (unanimous) decision on June 26 was, in fact, the right decision for our students and our communities. MARY C HA PIN, W ARD 3 A NNETTE KIRK, W ARD 4 KELLY AM OS, W ARDS 5 & 6 ETHEL G A R DIN ER, C HAIR. HALTON HILLS ERICA ANDREW , MILTON DEBBIE DOW NS, BURLINGTON W ARD 2 DAVID ABBOTT, BURLINGTON W ARD 6 Via e-m ail Oakville needs a vision to combat environmental degradation While Oakville Town council is to be commended for fast-tracking an anti-idling bylaw, let's be honest. It's a band-aid solution. Rather than managing the symptom of car emissions, Oakville needs a vision for the disease of environmental degradation. Automobile exhaust is a lethal problem. People are not merely suffering from toxic air; they are dying prematurely. To suggest the matter is serious, is to understate reality. People must be encouraged to wean themselves off cars, never mind just idle less. To that end, a moratorium on the construction of new roads, including the provincial Mid-Peninsula Highway, needs to be introduced. M onies earm arked for road co n stru ctio n should be directed tow ards an effective GTA public tran sit sys tem -- one that is seam less, affordable and accessi ble. In addition, a moratorium on growth is needed, certain ly until gridlock is eliminated. The decision to forge ahead with OPA 198 is an unmiti gated disaster, guaranteed to exacerbate a festering prob lem. In touting Oakville's desirable quality o f life, do we not realize such a claim is as flimsy as a house of cards? Without clean air, water and soil; without good health, what possible benefit is derived from the plethora of con sumer goods at our disposal? By all means, an anti-idling bylaw, as long as it's under stood this is merely a stop-gap measure; an Aspirin to stop the pain, rather than cure it. In passing such a bylaw, will the Town ban construction of new drive-thru facilities? W ill those in existence be grandfathered for no m ore than, say, three years? O ne certainly hopes so, since the drive-thru sym bolizes the heart o f the prob lem. At the end of the day, it's not up to council. Rather, it's up to the people of Oakville. Do we want a healthy environment or not? If so, it's up to each and every one of us to do something about it. Why not start by refusing to use drive-thrus. PETER D. PELLIER Editor's note: The HDSB had a special board meeting scheduled fo r last night (Tuesday, July 9) to delve into a revised Capital Strategic Plan -- which included a look at eliminating nine future elementary schools and two future secondary schools in addition to the closure o f two existing schools. Reasons cited fo r the potential revision were the need to reduce the number o f growth-related capital projects and a need to consolidate surplus capacity. Watch fo r a fu ll story on the meeting in an upcoming edition o f the Oakville Beaver. Oakville should have space to make a place for the homeless I was perturbed to read in the Oakville Beaver that there is oppo sition to the Salvation Army's pro posed 40-bed homeless shelter in Iroquois Ridge. To com bat this shelter for the hom eless is som ething that surpasses my little im agination and defeats my hum an reason ing. It is a paradox and an egoistic insensitivity that, in Oakville, where we build colossal houses right and left, we do not have the capacity to draw near the human miseries and find a spot for the homeless. G IUSEPPE FAVA Pud WE. SH O U Lp RENTA By STEVE NEASE R oughing IT G"iN BE , Ye a h /,, BUT WHAT KIND OF C0TTP6E. SHOUIPWE RENT? _ ONE WITH AIR ^ CONDITIONING, A HOTTUB, SATELLITE T V AND A FbOL TABLE/ ' ( YOU CALLTHAT" \T? GoTTASE up north Fo R OUR .FUN/zO^ You're Ri6Hr. Fof&ETTHE POOLTABLE. We welcome readers thoughts, opinions The Oakville 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 The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Road, Oakville, On., L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakviIlebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish any letter. HOLIDAY ..A V