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A PR be FO a hE en on A a ey Fae Te AA AT A TR Ce RP NR pra -- a a. - ---- - SEIS SA Sa SR AH RE A | SS St a GRA Re ON Ap 3 0 se Ca AS (ed Wb \ 3% RAL SICH Dt OR ol at vr eo i RR TE RE RTC { BLOF Ih AN URE HA Rc We - Pro © rt Taxes valid argument. . inflation' rate of 10 per cent, how much more of a W P Y As for the police budget, some councillors are property tax burden can we expect them to bear? seriously beginning to question whether rural The dangerous part of all this, is that locally Durham Region council last week went through municipalities in Durham require the same type of elected politicians are having less and less direct an exercise in budget gymnastics that left members police protection as is needed in a highly urbanized control over municipal spending requirements, and tired, irritable and in some ways, just a little bit community like Oshawa or Whitby or Pickering. the same is true for board of education trustees. confused. Are two-man police patrols necessary, for The budget for education in Durham this year ® After a marathon seven-hour debate on the $61 example, in Scugog, Uxbridge or Brock Township? will be in the neighbourhood of $90 million. But million 1980 Regional budget, two things have Nobody questions the need in downtown Oshawa ona something like 80 per cent of this total is virtually !' emerged. Saturday night, but are they necessary here? uncontrollable by trustees, because it is spent on The budget has not been legally approved by The point is this: how much more taxes can be salaries, wages and benefits locked in by collective council, and a delegation of mayors is off to see the thrown on the average property owner for Regional, agreements. : Ontario cabinet, hat in hand, to plea for more education and local purposes, before we reach the The seven members of -Scugog council now provincial money to soften the impact on property situation where a middle income is just not enough to control about 25 per cent of the taxes collected in this g | tax payers in certain parts of Durham Region. "pay for them? or a Township. And even of that amount, much is out of While the members of Regional council, includ- Some- of "the burden is taken off because of their effective control because it is ear-marked to ing Scugog's Mayor Jerry Taylor and Reg Rose, did natural growth in assessment. But this year, the maintain existing services. . their utmost last week to block final passing of the estimated rate of assessment growth in Durham is The property tax payer in Ontario and else- Durham budget, they made it clear that the budget 3.5 per cent, a far cry from both the inflation rate, where, is very shortly going to be faced with a i itself was not the target of their displeasure. and the rate of increase in government spending. decision: either curtail demand for increased and ; Rather, they were concerned about the shift in And maybe that 3.5 per cent is optimistic, improved services, and at the same time demand » i appointment of the Regional levy, which in Scugog's considering that high interest and mortgage rates that spending be frozen at the rate of inflation or less, | case will contribute to a 17 per cent hike in Regional are putting a severe damper on housing, industrial or face even more crippling tax hikes. It simply | taxes alone this year. Co and commercial expansion all over the country. cannot go on like this. | Obviously, this is completely unacceptable, and ; the members from Scugog, along with their counter- 8 parts from Brock, Uxbridge, Newcastle, and Ajax had no choice but to block the budget as presented. bd After all, they could hardly approve a budget and the appointment, and then trot off to the provincial cabinet to ask for more money to soften the blow on local taxpayers. It is obvious that somewhere along the line there has been a severe breakdown or lack of communica- a he tions over the new equalization factors which are hy supposed to make every municipality's share of 455 i Regional taxes more equitable. as Politicians from the so-called "rural" areas of Durham knew months ago that the equalized factors A would mean higher taxes in their areas, but none ALL, : thought the blow would be quite as stiff as it is. « ri ! But let us not forget that putting aside uncondi- SS tional grants from the province, and the natural rate ih of assessment growth in Durham, Regional spending 2 this year is increasing by 12.7 per cent. ii That is nearly three per cent above the rate of Ly inflation, and from the point of view of the average oi taxpayer, this must be unacceptable. s 7 fl The expansion of the Durham police force into A Brock Township and the cost of administering social z it welfare programs that fall under provincial legis- 7 lation appear to be the main reasons why spending is 8, up this year. AL Regional councillors are constantly arguing that Ti the provincial government is passing legislation on HE SLAP-HAPPY | SLAP SHOT or oi how social services programs are to be adminis- SR Wo Did they care? Not as long as the profits propose some solutions. Here they are. 2 b i I \ held up. oo There's no use going to the politicians. pi © If there is any history of this time, They are interested in votes, not principles. i 7 ; twentieth-century man will be looked on by We need a dictator. Oh, I don't mean some & i ; the higher species that evolves in about the ~~ megalomaniac like Hitler, or 'Mussolini. 30g : same way we look upon the dodo bird: a Just a nice, kindly, benevolent dictator, a 4 / creature too stupid to survive. sort of Mafia-like Don of the old school, ir Just the other day, I went down to the soft-spoken, but in charge. C licence office and paid sixty dollars for the His first move would be to call in his privilege of driving a large lump of rusting "boys" and gently suggest the elimination metal about, polluting the countryside. I of all politicians, school administrators, ENERGY CRISIS It became a crisis only when the Ayrabs told the girl that if she'd give me the $60 economists, and drug pushers, so that we" Everybody talks about the energy cameto their senses, got us by the short and back, and added three hundred, she could could start on a clean sheet. crisis, but nobody does anything about it. curly, and began to twist. have the car. She refused. And I don't I don't mean elimination in the crude In point of fact, as we say in this game Even then, it was more like a bad dream blame her. way. The politicians would have to raise when we're not sure of either our point or than reality. Our brilliant political leaders The twentieth century is one of charla- personally every cent they promised to our facts, precious few people know what a assured us that there was plenty for every- tans, dreamers, violence, and sheer naive- spend. The school administrators would be crisis is. body for another twenty or ten or thirty or tee. . assigned seven Grade 9 classes a day and As an old English teacher, I know. A fifty years, depending on whether or not We remind me of the alchemists who lunch supervision. The economists would be & crisis is a turning-point that occurs in a they were in power. flourished in the middle ages, trying to turn sentenced to twenty years of arithmetic, and story or play when something unexpected So everybody bought a second family lead into gold. the drug pushers would be impaled on sharp gives the plot a new direction. car, or a new cruiser. To hell with our We jog in polluted air to improve our stakes, at high noon, every Wednesday. To that extent, the energy crisis is no ~~ grandchildren. Let them freeze in the dark. Jungs and hearts. We buy smaller cars to Then he'd appoint some commissioners such thing. Everybody knew that oil was a The great oil companies, with their save gas and drive twice as much as we used to get things cleared up. I, for one, would be non-renewable energy, just like coal and conglomerates that sell everything from to. We buy wood stoves at wild prices, and willing to accept the onerous chores of natural gas. condoms to nylons, kept mum. And I don't firewood at even wilder. We talk about Energy Commissioner. ® But we went on blithely in our unfoun- mean they maintained mother. unemployment insurance more than we do I wouldn't be unduly harsh. I'd just ded assurance that we could always be Every time some backroom genius on research into these things. have collected and burned, every snow- warm at the turn of a switch, always be cool ~~ came up with an invention that proved you We are 'all so well-educated and literate mobile, power boat and motorcycle in the at the turn of another, kill each other in could run a car forty miles on faith, hope that we have a school system churning out country. I'd put a governor on every car so steadily increasing numbers on the high- and spit, they gave him a million bucks for semi-literates who will breed vigorously and that jt couldn't go over 30 miles an hour. I'd i ways, tear around on boats and motorcycles ~~ the patent and told him to disappear, produce semi-morons. ground every aircraft on a pleasure flight, i and snowmobiles, fly to the far corners of quietly. We have a greedy, glutonous society and tie up every ocean liner ditto. I'd issue 4 the earth for a comparative pittance, and so They were joined in the conspiracy of that gobbles up all the useless things it » tered, but the province is not coming up with the necessary funds to pay for the increased costs. It's a For the average homeowner, already struggling with a mortgage, higher heating costs, and a general on. The Garden of Eden, smelling of oil and poisoning the ozone. What a collection of nincompoops! And I do mean the poops part of it. silence by the vast motor car companies, so powerful they can dictate to governments. These corporate citizens know, and knew long ago, that they were deliberately burn- ing up the world's huge energy reserves. produces, and still can't find enough jobs for people in it to lead a life of reasonable dignity. I could go on and on, as you well know, but I must get down to brass facts, and an edict that subsidized longjohns and fine every household caught with its tempera- ture above 60 degrees. Of course, I'd expect a Cadillac and a jet liner and a power cruiser to transport me about on my various, nefarious duties. editoriol poge |