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Back to HomeLetters - March 24, 2011Letters: March 24

Re: Central Fontenac Fined For Illegal Gravel Pit, Shelley Hamilton

Re: Central Fontenac Fined For Illegal Gravel Pit, Helm Ozolins

Reuses.com website not needed, Ron Hipfner

Re: Scott Reid’s mailouts, Edward Kennedy

Bill C-393, Sylvia Powers

Re: Ompah Library, Helen Forsey

Questions, Jerry Ackerman

Re: Scott Reid’s mailouts, Adrian O'Connell

Re: Central Frontenac Fined for Illegal Gravel Pit

I was appalled and ashamed as I read in the Whig Standard Wednesday March 16th that the Township of Central Frontenac had been charged with THEFT. I have a couple of questions with regard to this matter:

Who authorized the theft? Who took part in the theft, and are these employees still employed by the Township of Central Frontenac? If so they should not be as right is right and wrong is wrong! Secondly, will we as taxpayers pay for this THEFT by raising our taxes more than the projected 13.7 %? The fine is $36,000.00 and the money owed to the province for the stolen goods is $58,817.33. That is an additional $94,817.33 to be paid out of the budget or will this reflect in the Township paying higher insurance rates to cover the “mistakes” they make?

Shelley Hamilton

 Re: Central Frontenac Fined for Illegal Gravel Pit

To: Mayor Janet Gutowski

In view of the recent revelations at a Kingston radio station and in The Frontenac News of the municipality’s activity operating an illegal aggregate pit on Crown land in Kennebec township without a permit, I have serious concerns about what further skeletons might be hiding in the municipal closets.

Since the municipality has already pleaded guilty to this offence I believe it is not out of order to ask you, Madam, to have the courtesy to explain to the people voting for you "WHAT IS GOING ON!"

Firstly, explain who initiated this illegal activity? Next, who on council voted in support of this endeavour? Thirdly, explain how this $94.817 fine will be paid for? Certainly, it should NOT be paid for out of innocent ratepayers’ pockets, who are already paying too much in taxes.

A couple of years ago I approached you to help oppose MPAC's excessively inflated property assessments, as it greatly affects ratepayers, especially those of us on fixed, or little income. Unfortunately your response was negative. Therefore I urge you, or your Treasurer, to enlighten the readership on how much this municipality collected in additional taxes since 2002 due to MPAC's inflated property assessments.

I understand that Randy Hillier opposes MPAC's fantasy assessments. Q. - Why don't you join Randy in his efforts??

Mayor Gutowski, I see your smiling face in the media frequently. However, smiles and ribbon cuttings are shallow.

ONLY ACTION COUNTS!

Helm Ozolins

Reuses.com website not needed

Interesting reading that while SF Council is struggling with a tough 2011 budget, they still find favour with Mark Segsworth’s proposal to expand services, specifically the southfrontenac.reuses.com website. As a regular user of very popular Kijiji, Freecycle, and Craigslist sites I don’t exactly see the need for yet another goods for sale/trade/donation website.

While the vendor, who also happens to be the author of the draft “Waste Management Strategy” (which I found wanting), is not charging for the web service this year I wonder about the staff time involved to manage and promote the site. A casual check of the other communities participating in the reuses.com network (since 2009) shows a pathetic participation rate.

Perhaps Council could consider at their next meeting enacting another electronic service, namely “responding to emails”.

Ron Hipfner

Re: Scott Reid’s mailouts

Stephen Dukoff's education has been sadly neglected if he thinks that the Liberals believe in family values. (Letter to the editor, March 17, 2011) 

It was P. E. Trudeau who legalized open season on innocent unborn babies in 1969.  It was Martin who set things up with swingers' clubs making it possible for children as young as 14 to have so called "consensual" sex with adults of any age and gender. It was the Liberals who consistently opposed the raising of the age of sexual consent to 16 from 14. It is now Ignatieff who says he would raise taxes, consider hiking the HST, force us to pay a carbon tax, and seeks to eliminate the $100. per child per month Universal Child Care Benefit.  

Harper created that child benefit, eliminated the "marriage penalty" for single income families, and supported first time home buyers with a tax credit.

Indeed, Mr Harper also reduced the GST, cut income tax for the lowest bracket, and raised the amount one can make without paying income tax.

Mr Dukoff's ruminations remind me of the individual a few years ago who was so desperate to find something to criticize Scott Reid about that he complained that Scott's donations every year to buying defibrillators were being donated to out of area locations. I wonder if that is because Scott has been doing this so long that there are no local areas without defibrillators.

Molière once quipped "An erudite fool is a greater fool than an ignorant fool." but I would refer to the saying, "Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune". ‘Nuff said.

Edward Kennedy

Bill C-393

On March 9 three of us from this area joined with many other supporters of Bill C-393 in the public gallery of the House of Commons. I wanted to see if the approximately 80 grandmothers and their neighbours in MP Scott Reid’s riding had made a difference. Had he decided to listen to his constituents who wanted him to demonstrate compassion and vote YES to sell generic drugs in developing countries?

172 members of parliament including 26 brave Conservatives supported the bill while 109 Conservatives and two Liberals voted against the bill. Scott was one of the MPs who voted against it. It surprises me that our MP could be so indifferent to the wishes of those who live in

his riding. People in this riding hired him by voting for him. So we are his bosses not Harper or the drug companies (which still stand to earn royalties from the generic drugs).

Bill C-393 is still not made into law. The next hurdle is the unelected senate (one of the Conservatives’ broken promises, now with

a majority of Conservatives.) Our senator is Hugh Segal, whose email address is [email protected]  and phone number is 613-995-4059 or 1-800-267-7362.  It took a bit of research to find his number. We need Mr. Segal to vote in favour of the bill quickly because if an election is called, the bill will die. An earlier Senate bill (Bill S-393) died when government was prorogued in Dec. 2009. It would be heartbreaking to have it die again. Please urge him to push for an early vote on the bill. We are so close to proving that most Canadians are compassionate and caring people.

Sylvia Powers

Re: Ompah Library

Thank you for highlighting the issue of the Ompah Library in your report last week (North Frontenac Council, Mar 17, 2001). We who love our little library are very appreciative of the support we have had from the township and the county, which reflects the broad-based desire of citizens to maintain a viable library presence in small as well as larger rural communities.

Ompah is a particularly good example of the importance people attach to having genuine local access to library books and services. In addition to those of us who regularly order books and/or visit the library to browse and then borrow, we have an active local book club, which takes advantage of the KFPL's Book Club service.

During the time when the Plevna Library was closed, our branch was actually open for the full 14 hours a week that is now so unevenly divided between our two communities. As Marily Seitz pointed out in her presentation to Council, use of the Ompah branch much more than doubled when our access was increased.

As things stand now, however, even dedicated library users find it a challenge to schedule our lives around the two short "windows" when our branch is open each week. Meanwhile, planners and consultants in city offices pull the numbers out of context, and try to use them to justify the reduced hours policy, which is a big part of the problem in the first place.

Small rural libraries naturally cannot provide all the services that larger libraries can, but that does not mean they are irrelevant. On the contrary, as our township and county have recognized, small local branches are vital elements in our communities. We have to make this clear to everyone involved in the library board's decisions.

Leaving some of us with almost no library access in order to centralize services elsewhere is counterproductive and does not reflect the noble purposes of literacy, education and ultimately democracy which libraries exist to serve.  

Ompah is only one example, but it could be a key one in policy terms. Four hours a week is just not enough. I want to join others in urging our local and county councillors, and our fellow citizens, to actively pursue enhanced library access for Ompah and for all our communities.

Helen Forsey

Questions

Some questions I'm wondering about: What's happening to our money? our jobs? our pensions? our savings? our investments? our living costs? our taxes? and, what's ahead? I want to start a conversation, sharing these concerns with others' ideas and plans. So, I've arranged for a Friday evening and a Saturday morning discussion at Sharbot Lake’s Oso Hall. Join me on Friday, April 8 at 7PM for a one-hour video "Hope is not a Strategy". Discussion to follow and continue Saturday, 9AM to noon. Some materials for sale, but no admission charge.

Jerry Ackerman

Re: Scott Reid’s mailouts

While MP Scott Reid's approval of parents who spank their children may elicit support from all those susceptible to the hot button issues which tend to pepper his referenda, the rest of us should be greatly concerned since parents who spank their children help to create adults who commit crime.

Numerous studies over the past century, including an intensive investigation by the University of New Hampshire in 2008, have repeatedly demonstrated that children who are spanked are significantly more likely to become adults who steal, commit sexual crimes, engage in unprotected sex, bullying behaviour, as well as physical and sexual abuse of their own partners and children. If these are Conservative "family values", then God help the Canadian family.

Just as property owners do not and should not have absolute rights to do what they want with their property, parents should not have a right to visit violence upon their children and partners. This matter is not merely a family matter but a societal concern, which is why more and more jurisdictions throughout the world have progressively outlawed physical violence in the home and at school, including corporal punishment.

All is not lost, however. Mr. Reid can take comfort in the knowledge that the wrong doers of the future who have been inadvertently fostered by punitive attitudes of the present, can be accommodated in the planned multi-million dollar prisons which appeal so much to Mr. Reid and his "spare the rod and spoil the child" constituency.

I always look forward to receiving Mr. Reid's missives because they are such a delightful combination of myth and fact but reading them involves both pain and pleasure. For instance, one winces in sympathy at the merciless pummelling meted out to poor Mr. Ignatieff and at times wonder, will he be able to survive Mr. Reid's bullying? But I suspect he will - after all, the Liberal leader has been in all manner of dangerous places prior to sitting in Ottawa, including Afghanistan and Harvard.

Adrian O'Connell