Dear editor:

On June 17, the Ontario Land Tribunal issued a decision in favour of the town and against the Save Our Rand Estate group, known as SORE.

In short, the decision which reacted to a technical motion, effectively stated that SORE could not pursue a zoning change on the former Rand Estate lands without the permission of the owner of the property.

The tribunal went further to clearly imply that SORE is “improper, mischievous, and troublesome” (paragraph 35 on page 8 of case #OLT-25-000553).

After all of these years of SORE defaming the Marotta family name at the pleasure of draining taxpayer money behind the shield of anonymity throughout the life of this issue, the people behind the curtains don’t even have the courtesy of releasing a statement on their SORE website about the tribunal decision and what that means for the future fight against the Ritz-Carlton hotel development application (we are already two weeks after the decision).

The nerve of anonymous people abusing taxpayer money to fund the relentless pursuit of silly applications has now come out shining loud and clear with this tribunal decision.

The Ontario Land Tribunal is basically saying enough is enough.

The only issue I have with the decision is that the tribunal stopped short of awarding all of the costs that the SORE group has siphoned out of the town’s piggybank over the last 10 years or so.

Had the decision been the other way around, the anonymous SORE folks would have had a parade before the tribunal’s ink was dry.

The silence surrounding this decision is a coverup; nobody knows about this but everybody should, because SORE just got beat up. The only difference perhaps is that they asked for it and deserved it.

Peter Rusin
St. Davids