6- The Oakville Beaver, Friday May 25, 2007 www.oakvillebeaver.com OPINION & LETTERS The Oakville Beaver 467 Speers Rd., Oakville Ont. L6K 3S4 (905) 845-3824 Fax: 337-5567 Classified Advertising: 845-3824, ext. 224 Circulation: 845-9742 Editorial and advertising content of the Oakville Beaver is protected by copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. THE OAKVILLE BEAVER IS PROUD OFFICIAL MEDIA SPONSOR FOR: The Oakville Beaver is a division of IAN OLIVER Group Publisher Media Group Ltd. NEIL OLIVER Publisher JILL DAVIS Editor in Chief ROD JERRED Managing Editor DANIEL BAIRD Advertising Director RIZIERO VERTOLLI Photography Director TERI CASAS Business Manager MARK DILLS Director of Production MANUEL GARCIA Production Manager CHARLENE HALL Director of Distribution ALEXANDRIA CALHOUN Circ. Manager The price of peace We find it difficult to believe the Halton Catholic District School Board can buy a peaceful solution to the political games that have plagued its board table in recent months. Furthermore, we don't think spending thousands of taxpayers dollars -- from a trustee training budget or otherwise -- trying to resolve trustees' dysfunctional behaviour is a wise expenditure. Surely the board could have accessed less expensive in-house resources to help deal with its need to resolve conflict and improve its team building. While it's refreshing trustees agree they face some roadblocks to functioning at peak efficiency, we're not so sure a handful of sessions with an outside consultant agency is going to turn things around. It's naive to think a recent attempt by five trustees to remove the chair and vice-chair from their positions will be easily forgotten following a few "visioning sessions" at taxpayers' expense. From where we sit, the divide at this board table isn't a power struggle solely among new and veteran trustees. Long-serving Burlington trustees Bob Van de Vrande and Chair Al Bailey have been locked in a power struggle with Van de Vrande determined to see an elementary school school uniform pilot project start next fall and Bailey believing board policy was ignored to push the pilot through. Before the last municipal election such animosity at the Catholic board was rarely expressed in public sessions and this paper's criticism of trustee behaviour was limited to the Catholic's board's counterparts within the Halton public school board. More recently things have quieted down among public school trustees while the Catholic board's elected officials have increasingly been at odds. Perhaps these neighbouring school boards might consult each other for a less-costly solution to the Catholic board's trustee conflict. While opposing viewpoints are a healthy feature of any democratic body, there's a distinct feeling at the Catholic board that the infighting goes beyond political differences. Lately, it has felt personal. The Oakville Beaver welcomes letters from its readers. Letters will be edited for clarity, length, legal considerations and grammar. In order to be published all letters must contain the name, address and phone number of the author. Letters should be addressed to The Editor, Oakville Beaver, 467 Speers Rd., Oakville, ON, L6K 3S4, or via e-mail to editor@oakvillebeaver.com. The Beaver reserves the right to refuse to publish a letter. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Too many dreams being built at the cost of our environment Today I went past a charming brick house on my street -- with holes in the walls and its roof open to the sky. Another casualty in the Bigger-and-Better-BecauseWe-Can Movement, it was being demolished to make way for a big, new house. What made me weep was not so much that this was a perfectly lovely, well-kept and much-loved home being razed, nor even that the carefully tended and beautiful gardens were destroyed in a matter of minutes. What made me weep was the sheer waste. We live in one of Canada's richest enclaves. I understand that people feel they have earned the right to material rewards and well-tailored, comfortable lives. What I don't get is why people can't combine their indulgences with a modicum of effort in reducing waste and destruction, and contributing to the well being of people less fortunate than they. So many things in that house could have been reused: beautiful windows, doors, fixtures, the bricks. Not one piece escaped the landfill. This despite the fact that we have readily available outlets for "repurposing" building materials. I'm sure it was a matter of convenience and time. Could the new homeowners not have postponed their dream home by a few days in order to ensure that these materials were directed elsewhere than landfill? It seems to me that far too many dreams in Oakville are built at the price of our environment and our social conscience. Yet we are the well-educated, who know the cost to our planet of these excesses! That's what breaks my heart. And frankly, we should all weep over the loss of so much of Oakville's history and character in the service of this wave of construction excess -- how many original farm and early Oakville houses now remain beyond the downtown core? Please, please think a little bit about what you are doing and how you are doing it before you raze another home in our town. Call places like Habitat for Humanity before you destroy so much that could be put to good use! Better still, consider how you might alter that older home to create a lovely, updated residence, instead of adding to the opulent, increasingly common "fine homes" in our town. KATHY VANDUZER Pud BY STEVE NEASE snease@haltonsearch.com The Oakville Beaver is a member of the Ontario Press Council. The council is located at 80 Gould St., Suite 206, Toronto, Ont., M5B 2M7. Phone 416-340-1981. Advertising is accepted on the condition that, in the event of a typographical error, that portion of advertising space occupied by the erroneous item, together with a reasonable allowance for signature, will not be charged for, but the balance of the advertisement will be paid for at the applicable rate.The publisher reserves the right to categorize advertisements or decline.