Editor:
I wholeheartedly support Thom Patterson’s wish to properly survey our Clearview community on their views on allowing ATVs unfettered access to our roads and trails. Moreover, I agree with many of the points made in your editorial of August 14 urging caution in moving forward too quickly with such a contentious issue.
Surveys have proved to be a valuable aid to councils, organizations and the media in better understanding the will of the people in our region. Assuming that councillors agree that they represent their constituents and their views, why would they not want to know the opinions on ATVs of the majority of their citizens, not just a few letters from those with an axe to grind or a buck to make?
Surveys have been used extensively in Southern Georgian Bay to better understand what its citizens feel about issues that face the community. Over the last 15 years, many surveys have been conducted throughout our region. Among them:
• For the Collingwood Hospital to bench mark how the hospital is performing for its patients,
• For the Collingwood BIA who commissioned a survey to establish how well their downtown was perceived among all the towns and villages of Southern Georgian Bay.
• On The Bay magazine conducted a survey among readers throughout Southern Georgian Bay to find out if the community wanted to see the grain terminals in Collingwood torn down and replaced with something quite different. The magazine also did an on-line survey to see if the community supported the Collingwood Hospital Board Of Director’s choice of the Poplar Sideroad location.
In each case the surveys were conducted among a sample of about 400 or more residents in Southern Georgian Bay and proved valuable to those organizations in making decisions that properly reflected their communities interests and wishes.
Given these surveys do not constitute a plebiscite, where the results have to be acted on, but simply deeper insight and guidance in making decisions that reflect the majority of citizens, and not the wishes of a vocal few, what are the councilors afraid of? Democracy?
And who ever the integrity commissioner is, fire him or her because they are a disgrace to their office, if they cannot see the clear conflict of interest with a councillor with a pecuniary interest in ATVs, who brings forth an ATV motion to dramatically expand ATV use in our environmentally sensitive township.
To the new groups that have formed to fight this motion, do know that if you can raise the funds, you can have the same professionally conducted survey to establish the community’s views on this issue you feel so strongly about.
Jeff Shearer,
Nottawa.