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The Observer | Saturday, September 27, 2008
Transit corridor at heart of region’s re-urbanization plan......................... »13 Football teams take to the field
»15 VOLUME 13, ISSUE 39
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2008
www.ObserverXtra.com
Paintball operation shot down
Woolwich approves new review guidelines for gravel pits
Woolwich denies bylaw application; owner seeking lastminute compromise
STEVE KANNON
See GRAVEL »02
STEVE KANNON
PHOTO | MARC MIQUEL HELSEN
New review guidelines are all well and good, but Woolwich should put a moratorium on new gravel pits until tougher rules are in place, say residents concerned about the impact of such operations. While welcoming the township’s proposal to change the way it studies applications for new gravel pit licenses, opponents, including members of the Conestogo Winterbourne Residents Association, called for actual rule changes to make it harder to get a license. In the absence of preventing new pits opening, they want stricter controls on the operations to reduce the harmful impacts, including noise, dust and increased truck traffic. Planning staff recommendations approved by councillors Tuesday night deal only with how applications are reviewed. There are no changes to the Woolwich’s aggregate resource policy. For that reason, West Montrose resident Tony Dowling and Keri Martin Vrbanac of the Conestogo Winterbourne Residents Association asked council for a freeze on new operations until after a township official plan review slated for 2009. Better still, said Dowling, open up the aggregate resources policy to immediate
PRICELESS
THE EXTRA MILE Riverside PS students Owen Wild and Sam Davidson show off the popsicle sticks students receive when completing a lap at the school’s Terry Fox Marathon. The event encourages children to walk, run and wheel laps to foster healthy living.
Riverside students to cross Canada Together, they hope to meet or exceed Terry Fox’s distance MARC MIQUEL HELSEN Looking to follow the lead of a legendary Canadian and have some healthy fun at the same time, students at Riverside Public School last week kicked off their school’s annual Terry Fox Marathon. For the second year in a row, children at the Elmira public school will run, walk, and wheel their way around a 400-metre perimeter within the school’s property in an effort to reach – or surpass – the 5,373 kilometers that Terry Fox covered in his Marathon of Hope in 1980. “Terry Fox is a Canadian hero that kids really connect with,” said Connie Lepp, one
of the teachers at Riverside who helped organize the event. “We wanted to connect with Terry Fox and understand the kind of distances he ran every day; we wanted to do something that was going to keep kids sort of fit and promote a healthy lifestyle starting young.” Last year the students ran a total of 6,083.6 kilometres, and are hoping to better that record this time around. Until Oct. 30, students will have a chance to do their laps in gym class or during recess or Quality Daily Physical Activity (QDPA) sessions: it’s entirely up to them how many laps they run. Lepp said the event is a good
way for kids to get exercise, set and reach goals, and to learn about personal integrity – participants collect a popsicle stick for every lap they complete and are expected not to cut corners. At the end of their sessions students provide teachers with their results and the total “mileage” is collected and compiled onto a classroom graph. Every week the school will get updates on how they are doing and where, exactly, they are in terms of distance on the map of the country. “We’re a small school, so, I don’t know if we’ll get all the way to the west coast, but we want to see how far we can get in Canada,” said Lepp.
Their common sense said one thing, but the rules another. In the end, Woolwich council came down on the side of the regulations, nixing Eric Schwindt’s bid to keep his paintball operation going for another three years. In a split vote, 3-2, councillors Tuesday night upheld a planning staff recommendation to refuse Schwindt’s application for a temporary-use bylaw. The Shoot to Splatter operation is deemed incompatible with the agricultural zoning on his 100-acre farm. Schwindt had requested a zone change to allow the business to continue on his property, located at 4956 Arthur St. N. and 1470 Cedar Spring Rd. Although the paintball operation has been a going concern since 1996 – originally run by someone who rented the land, the business was purchased in 2006 by Schwindt and his brother Miles – its status only became an issue last year. That’s when Schwindt agreed to sell a one-acre parcel to allow an expansion at the neighbouring Calvary Conservative Mennonite Church. Since then, the hog farmer has been trying to convince
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