INCREDIBLE ANGER OVER JIGS HOLLOW PIT GO AHEAD

I'm not sure what is worse namely consistent bad decisions or inconsistent ones. If you know ahead of time your Council is beyond hope then you ride out the storm and don't waste your time and energy appealing to their better sides. Also if citizens are convinced that their Councils are there only to protect and serve the interests of the priveleged few then they can go to Council and basically publicly confront them for their sins. In the case of our current Council we definitely have problems. That being said both individuals on Council as well as the entire Council have made some good decisions along the way. Woolwich Bio-En and Jigs Hollow Pit are not in that category.

Today's Woolwich Observer is filled with stories, Letters to the Editor and an excellent Editorial by Steve Kannon. The story is titled "Jigs Hollow gravel pit cleared to proceed". Steve makes it clear that 70 residents in Council chambers were not buying what the gravel pit lawyer and the OMB Chair Mary-Anne Sills were selling. Jan Huisson, one of the Participants, afterwards stated that allowing four of them to speak last Monday "...amounted to so much window dressing.". That's what most of this hearing was. It is outrageous and disgusting for the OMB Chair to suggest that the only evidence of value came from the proponent's bought and paid for experts. Over the last couple of years as well as last Monday the Participants representing the Friends of the Winterbourne Valley outlined numerous holes in the so called "evidence" produced by the proponent. They also correctly pointed out that the onus is on the proponent to prove his case.

Clearly both the law and its' interpretation are biased. Once again citizens in an allegedly free democratic country are seeing the truth. You buy your justice and truth in this country. Our politicians have sold out long ago to vested, wealthy interests and democracy and individual citizen rights have gone as well. Environmentally, constructing gravel pits along the Grand River is prima facie, gross stupidity. The gravel is merely more accesible and hence cheaper to remove from the ground. That's what this is all about. Meanwhile our lying politicians pretend that they are following allegedly honest process and procedure but they are really nothing but window dressing. Shame on the OMB, shame on the provincial Ministry of Natural Resources and shame on any of the three on Woolwich Council who knowingly sold out their own residents and taxpayers for the financial benefit of a few.