[All] FW: "Region fights dirty in losing battle over development" (Aug. 22, p. A11)

[Eleanor Grant]

Greg, I think you should still send it.  People need to hear things more
than once!  And you make quite different points from the other
letter-writer.

Since some time has passed you might need a sentence or 2 to remind folks
what it's about.  But the issue is definitely not stale!

Cheers,

Eleanor
 On Aug 27, 2013 1:12 PM, "Gregory C. Michalenko" <gcmichalenko at uwaterloo.ca>
wrote:

>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Gregory C. Michalenko
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 22, 2013 9:26 AM
> *To:* letters at therecord.com
> *Subject:* re: "Region fights dirty in losing battle over development"
> (Aug. 22, p. A11)
> Der Grenlings,
>
>  I sent this prospective letter-to-the-editor to the Record just before
> rushing off for a few days up north.  When I returned, I was anxious to see
> if it got printed -- and discovered it hadn't because I had forgotten to
> include my phone number for verification.  Meanwhile, another good letter
> bringing up the same points had been published, so i decided to forget
> about mine, since it was now stale.  But here it is 4 Gren Only.
> - Greg
>
>   Der Editor:
>
>  Columnist Peter Shawn Taylor is being disingenuous when he claims that
> the Region of Waterloo "fights dirty" in taking a group of developers to
> court over an OMB ruling.  He makes a pitch for sentimentality in stating
>  that these developers have a better idea of what seniors want in their
> retirement years than the Region's professional staff.
>
>  I'm suspicious of the motivations of the group opposed to the Region.
>  These are not your farmer Johns or descendants of long-time farm families
> that have nurtured their land for generations.  Rather they have names such
> as 1441179 Ontario Ltd., Lea Silvestri Investments Ltd., and Northgate Land
> Corporation.  Clearly these are land speculators whose main interest is
> profits, and not assisting the Region and cities to improve the way we add
> housing for our growing population.
>
>  One of the appellants to the OMB is Activa, whose masthead on their web
> site trumpets "We are a land development Company that turns vacant* land
> into communities" (italics mine).  I'm sure our farmer friends are
> delighted to learn what a wonderful friend they have in Activa which  can't
> even see that farms and agriculture exist beside our cities.
>
>  For some strange reason a street has been named after Activa in one of
> the cities.  If we were interested in reflecting reality we should rename
> it "Bully Boulevard".
>
>  Greg Michalenko
>
>  *   NB:  please put the word "vacant" in italics
>
>  53 Menno at
> Waterloo
> N2L 2A6
>
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>
>
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