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Pag(j 4 The Canadian Statesman, Bowmanville, March 4,1998 Elle Cattabian Statesman Former Publishers and Partners Rev. John M. Climie and W. R. Climie 1854 - 1878 M. A. James, 1878 - 1935 • Norman S. B. James, 1919 -1929 G. Elena James, 1929 - 1947 • Dr. George W. James, 1919 - 1957 Produced weekly by James Publishing Company Limited P.O. Box 190, 62 King St. W., Bowmanville, Ontario L1C 3K9 Tel: 905-623-3303 HOURS: Monday to Friday 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Fax: 905-623-6161 lnternet-statesman@ocna.org Publications Mail Registration No. 07637 For 144 Years, Our First Concern Has Been Our Community Publisher - John M. James Assoc. Publisher - Rick James Plant Manager - Rick Patterson Ad. Manager - Brian G. Purdy Editor - Peter Parrott Production Supervisor - Ralph Rozema, Suzanne Bennett, Tim Bowers, Kevin Britton, Sharon Cole, Laurens Knldeway, Barb Patterson, Tyler Sellick, Jim Snoek, James Stephenson, Vance Sutherland, Jim Tuuramo Advertising Editorial Laveme Morrison, Wanda Partrick Brad Kelly, Lorraine Manfredo, Laura J. Richards Office Supervisor-Angela Luscher, Junia Hodge, Grace McGregor, Nancy Pleasance-Sturman, Marilyn Rutherford, Libby Smithson Let the People Decide It's about time that Durham's regional councillors Stopped dragging their feet and voted to make the position position of Regional Chair a fully-elected job. Last week, Durham's Regional Council agreed to review this possibility. But, many councillors were a little little cautious about the whole idea. They worried that anybody anybody running for election in such a large area that encompasses eight local municipalities would have to mount a huge fund-raising campaign to make it all possible. possible. Using the example of the mayoralty campaign in the Toronto mega-city, they pointed out that the cost of running starts at around $800,000. This would make it impossible for the average guy to seek the office of regional chair and the councillors warned that candidates would have to align themselves with partisan political parties to raise the required cash. Such arguments are pretty weak. For example, if the costs of running for the regional chair's position were prohibitive, why not pass legislation legislation to limit the expenses? We wouldn't argue that, since it is difficult for a citizen of average income to run for the job of MP or MPP, then the solution is to make these offices open to the public. The fact is that, according to current rules, one of the highest-paid and most influential political officials in Durham is elected by a group of 28 people serving as Purham's regional councillors. In other words, only 28 people have a say in deciding who will hold one of Durham's most important jobs. Things don't get much less democratic than that. This is the problem that must be solved. The situation is the result of the Region of Durham Act, which is a statute passed by the Province of Ontario and which must eventually be changed at Queen's Park. However, there's every indication that Ontario's government government would be more than ready to allow a change in the rules if local politicians can make up their minds over the alternatives. It seems to us that there's an underlying problem : behind the concept of a Durham Region chairman being ; elected at large in the regular municipal balloting. It might as well be discussed openly. We suspect that some regional councillors don't want to alter the balance of power in today's regional government. government. Whoever was elected to the post of regional chair would be a high-profile and powerful politician, He or • she would, in effect, be a mega-mayor just like Mel ÏJastman in Toronto. And if Durham.,has a powerful ■"mega-mayor, that individual will take away some of the .power belonging to the mayors and councillors who serve on Regional Council. Regional chairs of the past have certainly been influential. influential. But, they have usually reflected the wishes of the regional councillors who, elected them. They did not compete with their councillors for power. If Durham's regional representatives are nervous about creating the post of a Durham super-mayor, whose power would rival that of the regional council, they might consider another option. In other words, if they are afraid of giving the office of regional chair too much power, why not give it less? They might opt, for example, to limit the job to presiding presiding over regional meetings and attending a few official official functions. They might reduce the salary and perks associated with the post and change the rules to enable one of the councillors to also serve as regional chair. This would be similar to the situation which exists in ; the House of Commons or provincial legislatures where ■ politicians chosen as Speaker of the House retain their status as MP or MPP. This is about the only alternative we can imagine to ! the option of an elected chairperson. ; The only other solution is to turn the appointed post ; into a fully elected one. Volunteers It is estimated that the value of work supplied by volunteers volunteers is worth $4.6 billion per year in the Ontario : economy. The provincial government has said it intends (in the future) to require every graduating high school student to perform a certain number of volunteer hours as a requirement for graduation. In addition, the provincial government is currently seeking nominations of outstanding outstanding volunteers for an awards program. Nobody questions the value of volunteerism, especially especially at a time when governments are cutting back on services they provide. . But, we would also suggest that our appreciation for volunteers should consist of more than an occasional ihank-you note or a plaque or medal. It seems to us that there should be at least a modest income tax credit available available to volunteers as a way of offering some tangible recognition and perhaps encouraging more people to ^volunteer. 1 It seems odd to us that you can give five dollars to a [deserving charity and instantly claim a receipt for [income tax purposes. However, you can be a volunteer Tor ten years, giving five hours per week to your chosen organization and receive no comparable benefit. •; Volunteers are the sort of people who will help out [regardless of whether they receive any recognition in [return. That's why they arc called volunteers. ; 1 But, it wouldn't be impossible to recognize their hard dvork with a few dollars in income tax deductions. Not Cnough that anybody will get rich, of course. Not enough to undermine the federal tax structure, but cnough to provide provide encouragement. ■ It would be merely a matter of developing one more tax form in which any registered charity would certify that Mr. X or Ms. Y, has spent a certain number of hours in volunteer work and is therefore entitled to claim a tax credit. Maybe it's something Finance Minister Paul Martin might consider in the next federal budget. E-mail us your letters to the editor at: statesman@ocna.org Letter to The Editor GO Service Is Needed teCs Setz... Vie^dlac-Vie, nausea, chills ■ • • Aiu evDnev Vtave. The-Tlu or you spent The yieek-eodi doiruf vwwr flfS'OS>*98 Attention: Mayor I have been plagued by a persistent problem pertaining pertaining to the Lishman/Halminen property, property, addressed by PO-12- 98. The solution would require the reason or reasons reasons for the lack of an Environmental Impact Study in regards to the proposed Official Plan Amendment and Zoning by-law Amendments. Having lived beside the proposed severance for almost 25 years, I believe I know the basic natural physical characteristics of the land in question. The property has a cold water tributary to the Wilmot Creek running in a southeasterly southeasterly direction on it, as well as adjoining tableland woodlots. Section 4.3.8 of the Clarington Official Plan states that "An E.I.S. shall be undertaken for development development applications located within or adjacent to any natural feature identified on Map C." Point (g) of the same section says "the study shall examine the cumulative impact of the proposed development and in particular the impact on groundwater function". This point is extremely pertinent to this sandy recharge area, in that any problem involving septic effluent would be detrimental detrimental to the best cold water spawning habitat in Durham Region, the Wilmot Creek. Myself and other concerned concerned residents have repeatedly asked why the Lishman Proposal does not require an E.I.S. but sadly to date we have not been provided with a satisfactory satisfactory answer to this very serious serious question. I repeat once again, why is an E.I.S. not needed when the E.I.S. is shown to be required in our new Clarington Official Plan? Another foreseeable problem is that in the future will other development development proposals be fast- tracked through planning because in the past PO-12- 98 did not need all the required studies. Thanks Bill Woods The following is part of a letter to Clarington Council. Your Worship and Council Members: I would find it callous of Council not to be concerned concerned about the possibility possibility of GO Transit service along highway #2 between Bowmanville and Oshawa being cancelled. There arc many people in Clarington who, for one reason or another, do not own a car and depend on the services of GO Transit for access to Oshawa and all other points served by the system. Many people depend on a reliable transit transit service to come and go to work, appointments and shopping. Although not a daily user of the system, I do use it frequently to go to or from work in Courtice and Toronto. The demise of this route would seriously seriously affect my ability to earn an income. I am pleased to see from the second article that Council is examining' the issue of public transit within Clarington and I must agree with Councillors Young and Mutton when they state the need for a public transportation system system which extends beyond the highway #2 corridor from Bowmanville. With consideration to the environment environment and the consumption consumption of ever dwindling resources, I feel that Councillor Young as Chair of Public Works should be concerned by this development development and I am pleased to know that he is examining examining ways to maintain or expand the existing service service or failing that, looking looking into alternative systems. systems. Clarington has grown recently, with one of the major selling points being part of the GTA and accessibility accessibility by GO Transit. If this growth is to continue, members of council should take this information information seriously and not dismiss dismiss it without consideration consideration to the effects that it will have on local residents. residents. Respectfully, Gavin M. Stephenson Thoughts Unlimited by Rick James Male Chauvinist Software For all those people complaining about the slow access speed of the internet, one of the main culprits to blame for tortoise-paced download times is one of my computer buddies who takes great delight in sending me jokes by e-mail. Every time I check my e-mail, there is a new contribution from "Philthy's Joke of the Day." Some are good, but most are very bad and not worth the bandwidth bandwidth they occupy on the internet. But, the one he sent me recently is reasonably funny and should appeal to any guy who thinks he has a rudimentary understanding of the workings of computers and women. As for the women, I'll do my best to find ammunition for a counter-attack next week. Okay all you macho men, here you go...and please remember, don't shoot the messenger. A few years ago I was running a computer program called GirlFriend 1.0 and I had some problems with it. I've been running the same version of DrinkingBuddies 1.0 forever as my primary application, but all the GirlFriend releases I've tried always conflict with it. I hear that DrinkingBuddies won't crash if GirlFriend is run in background mode and the sound is turned off. But, I'm embarrassed embarrassed to say I can't find the switch to turn the sound off. I just run them separately and it seems to work okay. What I didn't realize about GirlFriend version 1.0 was that there was a timed upgrade or the program shuts you down completely. GirlFriend 1.0 also seems to have a problem running at the same time as PGA Golf 1.5 and Virtual Pool 2.0, often Hying to abort Golf and Pool with some sort of timing incompatibility. I probably should have stayed with GirlFriend 1.0, but I thought I might see better performance performance if 1 upgraded to GirlFriend 2.0. After months of conflicts and other problems, 1 consulted a friend who has some experience running GirlFriend 2.0. He said I probably didn V have enough cache to run GirlFriend 2.0 and eventually it would require a Token Ring networking connection to run properly Instead of upgrading to the Token Ring, I purged my cache. Girlfriend 2,0 quickly uninstalled itself and crashed my system. I very cautiously upgraded to GirlFriend 3.0 beta. This time I used a virus protection program and also installed a SCSI terminator to my hard drive. It worked okay for a while until 1 discovered that GirlFriend 1.0 was still in my system. I tried running GirlFriend 1.0 again with GirlFriend 3.0 still installed, but GirlFriend 3.0 has a feature I didn't know about that automatically senses the presence of any other version of GirlFriend and communicates with it in some way, resulting in the immediate removed of both versions. The version I have now works pretty well, but there are still some problems. Like all versions of GirlFriend, it is written in some obscure language I can't understand, much less re-program. Also, to get the best connections with your hardware, you usually have to use gold-plated contacts. And I've never liked how all versions versions of GirlFriend are "object-oriented. " A year ago, a friend of mine upgraded his version of GirlFriend to GirlFriendPlus 1.0, which is a memoiy hard-coded resident version version of GirlFriend. He discovered that GirlFriendPlus 1.0 expires within a year if you don't upgrade to Fiancee 1.0. So he did, but soon after that, he had to upgrade to Wife 1.0, which he describes as a huge resource hog. It has taken up all his space, so he can't load anything anything else. And although he didn't ask for it, Wife 1.0 came bundled with MotlierlnLaw 4.0, which has an automatic pop-up feature he can't turn off. I told him to tty installing Mistress 1.0. But, he said he heard if you try to run it without first running Wife 1.0 Uninstaller, Wife 1.0 will delete MSMoney files before doing the uninstall itself. Then Mistress 1.0 won't install anyway because of insufficient resources. After all this, I learned all I really needed was DrinkingBuddies 1.0. If It Were That Easy... Faithful readers will remember last October when I predicted the stock market would crash on October 29th. I missed it by one day, a day late unfortunately, but several people asked me for advice about when the next market correction would be. Big mistake. With my new found confidence I boldly stated the markets would bounce around until February of 1998 when another significant downturn would occur. I even went so far as to say that Boeing and Bombardier would be big movers in the next few months and you should dump the kids' college fund into those shares, Guess what didn't happen, The Dow Jones has hit record highs in the last lew days of February and despite the volatility in Asia, there aren't any signs of slowdowns in the exchanges. That is, of course, except two stocks which have been dropping steadily since my column column appeared. You got it, my big movers Boeing and Bombardier. As I've said many times before, if stock brokers were any good at what they do, they wouldn't have to be stock brokers for very long.