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THE NEW TANNER THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2009 6 Distributed to every home in Acton and area, as well as adjoining communities. 373 Queen Street East, Unit 1 Acton, Ontario L7J 2N2 email: thenewtanner@on.aibn.com Mike OLeary Frances Niblock Angela Tyler Rebecca Ring Publisher Editor Ted Tyler Hartley Coles Editorial Contributors Advertising and Circulation Composing Marie Shadbolt Ken Baker Tracey Gardner By Angela Tyler (519) 853-0051 Fax: (519) 853-0052 Every effort will be made to see advertising copy, neatly presented, is correctly printed. The publisher assumes no financial responsibility for typographical errors or omissions in advertising, but will gladly reprint without charge that part of an advertisement in which an error may occur provided a claim is made within five days of publication. All articles, advertisements and graphic artwork appearing in The New Tanner is copyrighted. Any usage, reproduction or publication of these items, in whole or in part, without the express written consent of the publisher of The New Tanner is a copyright infringement and subject to legal action. There is a lot of talk in town about the school board declared surplus land at McKenzie-Smith Bennett School. Before its over, it is going to get interesting to say the least. Being a born and raised Actonite, the land, or shall I say, the mem- ories of the land, mean a lot to me. Those memories mean more to me than any money the board could raise by its sale. McKenzie-Smith Bennett or MSB as it is known is not its name for me. The schools will always be M.Z. Bennett Public School and McKenzie-Smith Middle School. For those who are a bit older than me, McKenzie-Smith Mid- dle School may always be Acton High School before the new one was opened in 1979. The public and middle schools so graciously named after longtime Acton prin- cipals and vice principals. There never seemed to be a school night or a summer vaca- tion day that was not spent doing something at M.Z. Bennett. Since we lived so close to the school, it was a favourite haunt for me and neighbourhood friends. We would play tennis between the two buildings that are now joined, hoping that when we hit the bicycle into mine and threw me into the curb. My elbow still has the scars to remind me. There were school playdays every spring in the field. Everyone looked forward to it. Maybe I did more than my friends as playdays were the only days me sister and I were allowed to wear shorts to school. My father always told us shorts were for the beach; not for school. Fall days were filled with track and field practice and gym classes found us trying to understand the game of softball or maybe even taking a swing at a golf ball with a golf club. In the winter, classes were going skating on the ice rink in the field. I have a scar on my bottom lip from that memory. A rowdy boy with a hockey stick and a misunderstanding. He thought the girl pretending to be a world class figure skater had his hockey puck. Hardly a week goes by I dont think of that hockey stick coming down and slicing my lip open. I suppose for some, it is surplus land. However, I believe, it is far more than that. It is memories of the past and a place where children and families will have memories for the future. tennis ball too hard it wouldnt end up on the roof. The wind would blow through our hair as we sped on our bicycles as fast as we could so we could reach the former playground. Then we would try to make it the full way across the monkey bars you could hang from without falling to the sand below. One overly warm weeknight just before dark, my friend from across the road and I tried to escape to the playground without her brother. Of course, as always, he was in tow. Before we knew it he decided it was time he climbed up the pyra- mid, made from oil soaked railway ties, which now would never make it to a playground. Suddenly he was inside of the pyramid and couldnt get out. Another quick bicycle ride back to her house to retrieve her father, we were soon there watching her brother being yelled at by their dad in Ukranian. We wont even talk about the time riding back from the playground when he knocked his My memories of MSB field Players in Photo From top left: Coach Mr. Christopher Braun, Mike Kovacevic, Garrett Nut- tall, Victor Thompson, Dave Carscadden, Jesse Check, Coach John Locke, (bottom row) Travis Kayler, Jason Field, Malcolm Stanley, Tris Hannah, Luke Van Dinther. - Submitted photo To the Editor: I spoke as the President of Acton Soccer Club at the press conference announcing the pro- posed sale of MSB land. The Club is the largest external user of the fields at MSB. I hoped to find some insight in the comments by the local trustee that would surely follow the reaction to this bad decision, but there was none. This letter represents my personal views: it has not been approved by the executive of the Club. I remain astonished that our trustee could agree that these lands could be declared surplus. As I recall, he was inducted into the Halton Hills Sporting Hall of Fame last year, thanks to his valuable leadership of the Aqua Ducks. That organization relies on access to the swimming pool at MSB for its existence: in all his years of going to the pool, did he never notice hundreds of children (in brightly coloured soccer cloth- ing) playing on the fields next to the swimming pool most even- ings, Saturdays and Sundays? Does he not remember the furore surrounding the last time this was proposed? The planning of capital assets in the education system is clearly a broken process. As Mike OLeary has pointed out, it has taken 15 or 20 years for the board to notice that Speyside School is surplus (and it is), yet the actively-used MSB fields are in the same cat- egory in their minds! In the long term, we need much better capital management in the school boards: taxpayers deserve it. The fields at MSB are a cen- tral piece of Actons recreational parkland. Actons sporting groups make use of these lands for the good of all, and the Soccer Club relies on the fields for about 50% of all the games and practices. I think user groups would under- stand if the fields were to be lost to a school expansion, but to elim- inate all other options by selling the land is a bad decision for every reason. Our community has recently benefited from the foresight of the Towns Parks and Recreation Department, with the excel- lent addition of parks at Wallace Street, Tanners Drive, Rennie Street, and the gorgeous Acton Sports Park. Citizens have sup- ported recreational projects: the Acton Agricultural Society built a building for the Fall Fair, and made it available for community use the rest of the year. Citizens contributions have provided the Three Musketears skateboard park on Tanners Drive. And many volunteer charity bingo hours pro- vided the $150,000 that facilitated the fields and landscaping at Ac- ton Sports Park. This is a time when we should be celebrating the good. HDSB needs to rethink their short-sight- ed proposal and to consider the fact that the educational institu- tions are part of the communitys assets, whether they like that idea or not. Ian M Watson Acton School playground part of Actons assests Mike was bang-on To the editor, Kudos to Mike OLeary for some very well said comments in Thursdays Tanner about the potential sale of the MSB lands. His comments about the boards actions (or, rather, inactions) leading to the neglect of Speyside school are bang on. Perhaps the MSB property wouldnt be in jeopardy if the board hadnt allowed Spey- side to fall into ruin before slating it for sale. Mike points out that in private business, this type of gross mis- management would cause heads to roll. It absolutely would. Unfortunately in the case of the board, that wont happen. Everyone responsible will wash their hands of this and insist selling MSB is necessary to fund their other projects. That is sickening. What a sad lesson for the children of our com- munity to have to learn money is more important than people. Sara Hodge