It upset me to read the Toronto Star’s article “What price liberty? Up to $50″ about the Jaworski family in Orono who have a ‘neighbour’ who doesn’t understand the concept.  This neighbour recently took it on themselves to call to Municipality of Clarington to tattle about a conference the Jaworski’s were hosting for a registered charity called the Institute for Liberal Studies.

As a direct result:

1) the Jaworski family are now facing a total of $50,000 in fines for improper land use of  their 16 hectaires of agricultural land in Orono called Hillside Estate.

2)  Certainly the experience of the 72 conference attendees this year were marred?

3) The future of the 11th “Liberty Summer Seminar” is in question. Will it happen? Will the Jaworski’s be able to find a way to hold the 11th?

I understand there has to be rules, and that the Municipality’s must enforce them if there is a complaint, but I can’t wrap my head around how a person could hate on another ‘neighbour’ that much!  Hopefully our justice system will be more gracious and lenient — especially given this fragile economy!

What do YOU think about this?

Does your nonprofit organization care about:

• Calling your organization a public benefit corporation so the public can easily know your intent is to provide for the public good?
• Limiting the liability of your volunteer Directors?
• Accessing Community Bonds with credible oversight to raise funds?
• Ensuring that the threshold for annual audits is not reduced to $100,000?
• Maintaining your organization’s choice on the use of proxies?

Find out more via Centre for Social Innovation‘s post on this topic and register now for ONN and the Canadian Economic Development Network (CCEDNet) teleconference session on Wednesday, August 18th at 10am.

I hope you will take a moment to visit www.lifeinclarington.com and read the Fall 2009 issue of Clarington’s Neighbourhood Magazine online! There are articles, recipes and Clarington Calendar of Events plus you can enter to win a SanDisk Fuze 4GB MP3 Video Player and enter a “Guess Me! Win Me!” Classic Car Contest!

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