The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Tribune comm “h‘ f, I =su 2.35. 3mm. 81 905-640-2612 Fax: 905-640-8778 cuss: 1-800-743-3353 DISTRIBUTION 1-855â€"853-5613 Advertising Manager Anne Beswick Dnmcmn. Busmzss Anmmsmumon Robert Lazurko Cm SERVICES Katherine Percheron All submissinns must be less than 400 words and include a daytime the right to publish or not publish and to edit for clarity and space. E-mw mm.m York Region Media Group community newspapers The Sun-Tnbune, pumished every. Thursday, is a dMsion or the Mainland Media Group Ltd” a wholly- ownod subsidiary 0! 10mm Corporation. alwswu‘flfl'yrmyvm Dmncmn. Rm Esrm AND Cussman Gard Paolucci Editor lim Mason jmasonOyrmg. mm Circulation Co-ordlnator Daphne Lau-rie Ill(m.'riv(u'_vrmg mm Delivery issues? Duuacmn. Dlsnumrnon Tanya Pacheco LETTERS POLICY Debra Weller For all your delivery inquiries. please contact yrcustomerserviceo yrmgoom OPINION L l'fi1 worried about our collective election IQ. fellow Whitchurch-Stouffvil- I’m not concerned when several‘people call me and ask which ward they live in. even if 1 don't work in the town clerk‘s office on Sandiford Drive. (1 look it up for them. just like Kramer in that Seinfeld episode when he neceived all those calls for Movie Phone.) Our wards are not marked on our tax bills â€" excellent point, caller. And the boundar- ies have recently changed to better reflect our population explosion. And. save for the throes of an election campaign. how often do you really care which ward you live in? It's not like we have "You are now entering beautiful Ward 3" signs at the border. That péople inquired tells me they're engaged. But 1 am worried when people have no clue who is running. especially when we have a potentially exciting five- man race for mayor without an incumbent in sight. Or so I thought. At the mere mention of the election. our server in a Stouffville eatery assumed Wayne Emmerson was seeking re-election and proceeded to give pointed editorial comment on the mayor's 17~year career in oflice. Luckily for his tip. there were no members of the Emmerson family in our large party. Do you need to brush up your election IQ, Stouffville? Another resident was wise enough to know Emmerson is seeking the chairpersonship of York Region. But. she. too. assumed he was running for mayor, just in case the other mayors and regional councillors of York didn't give him the job after the election. Wrong again. Stouffville. The roast of the mayor. the bobble heads and the farewell flash mob at his final council meeting this month were sure hope you’ll tell me I'm signs limmerson is not running Maybe it's too early. ()ur front lawns haven't been wallpapered with can- didate signage yet. That will begin next week. Only the regional roads are fair game until Tuesday. We'Ve had two mayoral (Phil Bannon. Richard Bartley) and one councillor (Michael Hum- phreys) candidate at our door to date. We've seen spotty attendance at candidate meetingx Maybe it's because we're too dam-right boring east of the 404 and nonh of 19th Avenue. No Doug Fordian wild card. last-minute candidates for mayor. No loud voices or wild accu- sations leveled at last Thursday's all-candidates gathering. And this isn’t Lindsay where a mayoral candidate was charged with criminal harass- ment last week. You may have heard. we're trying to get more than half of local voters to the polls this fall. it's all part of our company's regionwide Big 5-0 initiative. Prove me wrong. Whitchumh-Stouffville. If I was selling pharmaceu- ticals, Globe and Mail sub- scriptith or duct-cleaning on commission. I'm not sure I'd be banking on my bonus. mmtsmdnnanm muonme Please and thanks with Jim Mason OffThe Top LETTER OF THE WEEK No need to slam pig roasts My spouse and I had a pig roast last weekend and it was a wonderful event for familiies and friends to get together and enjoy the wonderful taste of pig roasted over an open fire. ' l was very' shocked and disappointed to see that someone would write such a letter about pig masts. Re: Pig mast has no place in society. letter to the editor bylan Beck. Sega-Ala 1 can only think that Ms- Beck is a vegan and does not eat animals or animal bi- products. To say that “children seeing a pig on a spit is an outrage" is ridiculous. Democratic right to disagree Re: Pig roast has no place in soviet}: MIN (0 the editor by [an Berk. Sept. 18. l anxiously await The Sun-’l‘rihunc‘s arrival each week; it's a great way to stay connecied with what's going (m in the community we have called home for more than 20 vears. We cannot shelter our children to the point they are native in society and won't know how to survive if lost in the wilder- new. In the wild we must hunt. fish and cook meat over an open fire. there is nothing barbaric about this. I almost always find the letter of the Week fascinating: people otTering their opin- ions on a wide array of topics. some with well informed reasoning and others sadly lacking. But, because of the democraty we sometimes take for granted. those opinions are published and offered to the rest of us to stretch our thinking. People who 9:31 mean can only hope the animals are treated humame prior to con- Ms Beck's letter is one such example. She clearly has strong opinions about animal abuse and expresses them in rather graph- ic terms. Because of democracy and free speech. such opinions can be expressed without fear. And. because of democracy. 1 can freely counter that l believe the writer's view to be seriously misguided. Suggesting that roasting a pig in public is even remotely equivalent to “hanging raped and murdered young girls from the trees of India" is in itself. using the writer's own words. "an abominable outrage”! I couldn't disagree more. But. thanks to democracy in action. we can both share such opinions publicly without fear. We have freedoms in this country we all too often take for granted. Those freedoms have come at the steep price of lost lives in years gone by. Municipal elections are upcoming Oct. 27. While they may not have world-changing implications, the outcome will affect how our beloved town will be run over the next four years Be informed. Make your opinion GENERAL MANAGER lohn Willems PUBLISHER Ian Proudfoot known. (Iomo out and vote DAVE ARMSTRONG \‘l‘Ul'HW’IlH RS. Great job by editor lim Mason. the library and The Sun-Tribune team at the all-candidates meeting last Thursday. It was well run and informative. Another example of democracy in action. l‘hanks to all who made it happen and good luck to the candidates who so pameionately want to make a difference in our town. sumption. but let’s face it. it's dead long before it goes on the spit. Now to compare a pig to children being hung in India is the utmost disturbing and barbaric. Perhaps Ms Beck. you should channel your energy into fighting for the children in India rather than picking on people who enjoy meat and find nothing wrong with a pig mast. Events should be more inclusive Events that focus on meat consump- tion tend to exclude some members of our community. I'm speaking on behalf of our friends who are vegetarian for religious and cultural beliefs and on behalf of our family who is vegetarian for a variety of masons. It is people like you who ruin things for others. We used to say the lords Prayer in our schools. until people complained. And we used to say Merry Christmas and now it's season's greetings. If you don't agree with something. don't participate. but don't try and ruin it for others. Although it was great to see a fundraiser for Special Olympics. a segment of our town could not or chose not to attend Meat Fest because it was all about meat. Same goes for the supposed day of family fun at the Royal Canadian [legion last weekend. I think what the Royal Canadian legion in Stout‘fville is doing for its people is it won- derful event that should continue despite the negative people in our society. There are those of us who can‘t or won‘t attend an event where the focus is a pig roasting on a spit and there are others who. while not vegetarian. are. just conscious of where their food comes from. how it's treated. how it affects the health of the planet. as well as their own health. With approximately four per cent of our population vegetarian and with more people becoming cognizant of what they are eating. events in our town should wel- come people of all beliefs. Events such as the Strawberry Festival are much more well-rounded and inclusive for everyone. T. AHIER 8n )UH-‘VILLE Sfi‘Wfiibune Sim/Mlle 6290 Main St. StoufMlle. ON. MA 167 myoflmgionsomw DAWN SMITH m n 'H-\ II 1 r