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the Herald Town Buyer Sunday February 1991 News at a Glance Realistic reaper reappears in town budget forecast By BEN DUMMETT The Herald Cuts and more cuts that appears to be the town budget committees focus in dealing with the 1992 proposed capital budget The committee recommended Tuesday which would nor mally be raised through the tax levy be cut from the 7 6 million capital budget That brings the total amount of expendituies raised through taxes so far eliminated from the budget to Aside from these cuts committee members only recommended be given out in grants to groups in town Comparatively the town handed out in grants last year Both budget committee recom mendations will go before town council for final approval sometime during the next two months The committee is comprised of town council members Groups slated to receive grants this year include Arts Alive Glen Williams Town Hall Board and Hills Ambulance Service Committee members recom mended Arts Alive receive Hills Ambulance Service receive and Glen Williams Town Hall Board receive 200 Grant requests rejected include those by Georgetown Girls Pipe Band North Halton Literacy Guild Georgetown and District Red Cross Branch Air Cadet League Squadron 756 Halton Hills Gymnastic Club Georgetown and Acton Agricultural Societies and Georgetown Horseshoe Club In defence of the low number of grants town Mayor Miller said Wednesday I believe people should have to pay more for ser vices they want but others may not Committee members deferred deciding whether the Acton Citizens Band should receive a grant requested by the group Committee members also deferre until March whether or not to approve the new 4 million Acton arena project Mayor Miller justified the deferral saying a decision cant be made until the committee has more information concerning where the arena should be located and the cost to service the building As well committee members fir st want to compare the arena ex penditure with that of all other ex penditures required this year before making a decision ex plained Mayor Miller According to the proposed capital budget report the towns 1993 tax levy would automatically increase by 3 per cent if the building was constructed during that year Approval of the arena in means financing can be arranged to build the project next year Therefore approval this year would have no effect on the tax increase the report indicates REGION NOTES Composting system questioned The establishment of a central composting system to service Halton and perhaps Peel received lukewarm support from the regions Planning and Public Works Committee Wednesday Committee members recom mended the region spend to hire a consultant consortium to in vestigate the projects feasibility but not before a heated debate tran spired The recommendation will go before regional council this Wed nesday for final approval Burlington regional councillors Bob Brechin and Barry raised the most concerns about the project Visibly angry said the region should tread slowly because fantastic costs are Indeed Public Works Com missioner Art said following the meeting the construction of a central compost facility to service and Peel would cost ap- pruximately million If the facility served and the 25 million tag would be split between the two municipalities he said Mr Leitch wouldnt estimate the cost to build a facility to serve only A composting system converts organic waste such as food waste into fertilizer The feasibilty study will deter mine whether a region or in terregional composting facility would be more economical Brechin asked why staff couldnt carry out the study instead of spending on consultants to do the work We regional staff need a detailed investigation done into the ART LEITCH technology and regional staff doesnt have the expertise to deal with this cutting edge project replied Mr Leitch Mr Leitch pointed out no such faciltiy currently exists in North America The technology for large scale composting are based in Europe he added While satisified with this ex planation Coun Brechin was angry when he learned the study wouldnt include a detailed cost analysis con cerning the project He was particularly upset to learn regional staff wouldnt in clude the cost each of Haltons four Library Board slashed budget On Wednesday evening Hills Library Board Trustees en dorsed library staff proposals putting out of the librarys draft operating budget to an ef fort to meet the target per cent increase initially set by Council The majority of the cuts will be made in the personnel budget and will require the Board to reduce public service hours at the Acton and Georgetown branches by 12 each week The new schedule of public ser vice hours recommended by staff is based on a survey conducted during In which users ed strong preferences for after- noon evening and weekend hours Effective February Library hours will be Tuesday Thurs day 12 noon to pm Friday Saturday am to pm Sun day Georgetown only l pm to pm Oct to May Library Chair Jay Jackson noted the Board greatly regretted this step but the requirement to trim personnel costs left little op tion since library service cannot be provided without staff In the event that the financial situation is eased the Board will give priority to reinstating hours municipalities including Hills would incur if the project goes ahead Municipalites would incur costs in doing the curbside collection of the material that would go to the compost facility Coun Brechin said regional staff would be required to find out these costs and include them as part of the feasibility study before he would consider approving the project Picking up on this topic Coun said We regional coun cillors are so concerned about the province forcing additonal costs on us yet were doing the same thing to the municipalities In to these concerns Mr Leitch assured committee mem bers the costs local municipalities would incur because of the project will be included in the feasibility study Local environmentalist Diane van de says a large compost facility isnt feasibile because there is no way of preventing con taminated material from entering the compost facility If this happened then the compost material would be useless as fer tilizer Questioned about this criticism Mr Leitch said Ms van de Valk is wrong Technology exists to prevent the contamination of compost material he said Expenditure recom mended Planning and Public works committee recommended Wednesday the region spend to provide residents with household hazardous waste collection and disposal services The recommendation calls for Burlingtonbased En vironmental Services Inc to provide While acknowledging the ser vices relatively high cost com mittee agreed the vuvmneiftat costs in not providing the service would be higher The recommendation will go before regional council this Wed nesday for final approval Burlington regional councillor Bob Brechin asked whether or not a userpay system should be em ployed to collect hazardous waste instead of the Region covering the However staff warned people would be less likely to have their hazardous waste properly disposed of if they had to pay directly for the service According to a staff report will have hazardous depots In Milton to serve North residents and in Burlingtoon to ser ve South residents Special blood donation Volunteers Anna Ewen far right and Elaine Chatten present- Elizabeth with a Red Cross certificate after her dona tion The clinic was held Monday from pm 800 pm at the Holy Cross Church hall Georgetown and was sponsored by the Georgetown Optimist Club Herald photo Donors have right stuff at Red Cross clinic Red Cross officials reported donors attended the Blood Clinic Monday and donated units of blood This clinic was sponsored by the Optimist Club their help with distribution of posters set ting up clinic loading equipment and general assistance at the clinic is appreciated Thanks to the Dr who was on call volunteers staff nursery help and drivers the clergy John Ollivier of Halton Cable Systems Hills Hydro for displaying promotional banners Dairy Queen for donation of juice and cups Pizza Hut for tea and ser viettes Miracle Mart for coffee for Mr L Ferguson of Macs Milk and CocoCola Ltd for soft drinks for kitchen help and Mr for use of Holy Cross Auditorium Special thanks to Betty Milton and her telephone committee to Shirley Chaplin for publicity and promotion and to Anna and Elaine Chatten convenors of Litis clinic Clinic organizers would like to thank all people who took time out to give the gift of life Donor Awards were given to Allan Moore Robert 35 Janet Duval 20 Christine Williams John McDonald Helen Weststeyn and Mike Hal Caruso Hugh Linda Mitchell Kelly Crawford Peter Ramsy Lore Calhoun and Jason The next regular clinic for Georgetown will be Monday May 11 Criminal activity drops Criminal activity in Halton Hills decreased per cent in 1991 from 1990 reveal Halton Regional Police yearend statistics released by Detective Sergeant Michael Thursday In there were reports of criminal offences while last year there were less All categories except for sexual offences theft over 1000 offensive weapons and property damage were downsome as much as per cent Having any decrease in repor ted crime is significant because we have to assume the population has increased he said Were pleased with the figure because it indicates that our efforts in crime prevention and communitybased policing are on track Assaults not including sexual assaults or domestics assaults- per cent decrease Domestic Assaults- per cent decrease Robberies- 8 per cent decrease Break and Enters- 263 11 per cent decrease Auto thefts- 67 per cent Thefts Over 80 19 per cent increase Thefts Under 720 62 per cent decrease Possession of Stolen Property- 34 no change Fraud- 184 per cent Offensive weapons- 17 per cent increase Property Damage- 561 104 per cent increase Other Criminal Code includes threatening calls trespass by night intimidation and obstructing justice 241 260 73 per cent Murders- no change Attempted Murders- no change Sexual Offences not including in vitation to sexual touching sexual sexual exploitation 20 per cent increase The biggest increase in crime was in sexual offences but Det Sgt said he doesnt believe this area has had a sudden increase in sexual offences but rather that more people are reporting this type of crime I think the problem has always been around but its just being reported more he said Theres been a greater awareness about sexual assault due to increase in media attention and education in schools As people become more aware and learn what to do they report it more Hills neighboring municipality Milton also has seen dramatic increases in the number of sexual assaults being reported Reports of sexual offences were up per cent Miltons overall crime rate also jumped significantly by per cent All the crimes in Milton and Halton Hills are investigated by one j Criminal Investigation Bureau con- taming six detectives and they were able to solve 5 per cent of crime this year The percentage of how many Hills crimes werent was not available This clearance rate is lower than per cent Weve had more longterm serious investigations last year which reduced the time detectives had to investigate less serious crimes As well the success of the bureau in when they solved 44 per cent of cases meant detectives had to spend more time in court in This also restricted the time spent on criminal investigations