TARA Letter from your President:

Dear Members of TARA,

As your new Tecumseh Area Residents’ Association president I would like to first and foremost thank you for the responsibility, leadership, and guidance you have bestowed upon me for 2008. I look forward to maintaining our community strengths, promoting our residents’ interests, and nurturing the community voice which guides our association’s objectives.

TARA has been an important guiding body for the Tecumseh area since its commencement in 1976 and our involvement in community matters has been expanding yearly. This year is no exception as important highly political and social issues have developed which command attention and important decisions from our association this year. With our concern being centred in the enhancement of safety and general quality of residential life, it is our duty to confront these issues and begin making decisions regarding our involvement.

However, a problem lies in deciding if these issues go beyond the scope and reasonable circle of influence of your local neighbourhood residents’ committee. These boundaries are determined by both the interests of the residents and TARA as your guiding body. There is no doubt that TARA could offer some input on these subjects, we could probably consume our entire annual time and effort on some of these present issues. However, a collective decision by TARA has to be made on which larger issues need to be passed on and which we should ultimately devote our time to.

One of the more specific concerns this year that continue to demand our attention is the ever increasing need for electricity in Ontario affects us locally by the very close approval of a Gas-Fired Garbage Incinerating Electrical Generating Plant in the South Mississauga Area. This very controversial subject continues to be covered in-depth by several others more knowledgeable than myself, so I will not go into detail. The important element here is the varied effects such a subject covers and what kind of change our association can promote. Do we get involved in a complex and potential highly political issue which will consume huge amounts of TARA resources and time? Will our involvement have enough impact for our community?

In the past we have taken on some controversial subjects and successfully lobbied City Hall on your behalf; for example the reduction of our Land Transfer Tax. We concluded that it was a reasonable and logical decision to fight the City of Mississauga and avoid this tax increase for anyone in our neighbourhood. But when it comes to the choice of Nuclear vs. Gas-Fired Electrical Power Generation vs. none at all, the decision becomes less clear; it is a more complicated and controversial issue involving community interests, environmental interests, financial interests, etc. This is just one of the larger controversial subjects we struggle with in our on-going decisions of support.

Some of the other subjects presently before our association are construction development vs. non-development, property tax increases, air pollution concerns and others. We will continue to represent you the best we can and make these difficult decisions on your behalf. However, remember it is difficult to know what our fellow TARA members feel about these controversial subjects if we do not hear from you. In order to support our community voice we must have community input and collaboration: we are a team representing you, the Tecumseh Community.

TARA has been working towards making these channels of communication between the association and the residents more accessible. We look forward to a whole new look in the coming months and into 2009 featuring several new developments. Firstly, a new website has been designed and will be up and running very soon. This should make it much easier to receive your correspondence and comments by email. We will also have up to date articles, numerous links to important subjects, and an abundance of other topics of interest for our residents. Please keep us in mind as TARA expands and grows to better serve you.

I would like to thank you all once again for allowing all of us at TARA, as your representatives, to be of service to you. I look forward to our great new look and the continued promotion of a more productive, safe, and prosperous Tecumseh community.

Len Howell