Editorials
May 01, 2008 10:02 AM
Imagine being kicked out of your place, be it a house, business or club.
That’s what’s happening in Stouffvile, to folks in the Ninth Line and Main Street neighbourhood.
As everyone in the community is sometimes painfully aware, the Ninth Line, like the Tenth Line, does not make a straight line when it bisects Main.
Drivers must get onto Main, endure another stop light, then proceed on their trek.
For at least 25 years, politicians and bureaucrats have talked about eliminating the jogs.
Now, they’re doing something about it.
A proposal for straightening the Ninth has been presented. The Tenth is scheduled to follow. Meetings have been held.
Stouffville politicians and York Region want construction to start by 2010.
It all sounds fine and dandy in the name of progress, unless you are personally involved.
Seven homes are affected, along with the Royal Canadian Legion and Earl Hoover Machine & Welding Ltd.
They all have to go, unless an 11th hour change in plans is made.
Imagine it. Your home, shop or club is about to be sold out from under you. You will be compensated, but you do not know how much money you will be offered.
That’s trying enough.
You have to give up the home where your children were raised and special occasions were celebrated. It’s not just a building, it’s a home.
Royal Canadian Legions were erected by veterans after the Second World War. That’s how it went in Stouffville 50 years ago. Footings were put in and a building in Ringwood bought and put up on the Ninth Line site, all by war vets.
Most of the veterans are no longer with us, but our debt to their legacy remains.
Legion branches have closed, but the Stouffville branch remains very active. It donates money to causes, from the local hospital and veterans welfare, to college scholarships and track meets.
Its bar is a Stouffville social hot spot.
If the legion has to move, the municipalities involved need to treat it with kid gloves.
Its founders deserve nothing less.