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<div id="divRpF350898" style="direction: ltr; "><font face="Tahoma" size="2" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Gregory C. Michalenko<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Thursday, August 22, 2013 9:26 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> letters@therecord.com<br>
<b>Subject:</b> re: "Region fights dirty in losing battle over development" (Aug. 22, p. A11)<br>
</font>Der Grenlings, </div>
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<div id="divRpF350898" style="direction: ltr; ">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.</div>
<div id="divRpF350898" style="direction: ltr; ">- Greg</div>
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<div style="direction:ltr; font-family:Tahoma; color:#000000; font-size:10pt">Der Editor:
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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.</div>
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<div>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. </div>
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<div>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". </div>
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<div>Greg Michalenko</div>
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<div>* NB: please put the word "vacant" in italics</div>
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<div>53 Menno at</div>
<div>Waterloo</div>
<div>N2L 2A6</div>
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