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t d tv 'It's a crisis with a capital C' to plead their case to area MPPs MPP JOHN O'TOOLE Time to look at liow the Province funds school board transportation. School bus operators, MPPs seek solutions to financial woes BY JENNIFER STONE Staff Writer Local school bus operators, who say they might have to reduce reduce service to students due to escalating overhead, got a chance last week. And while they received sympathy sympathy and assurances that their situation would be taken back to Minister of Education Janet Eckcr for consideration, the school bus operators didn't leave last Friday's meeting with any immediate additional funds. "I genuinely think these operators operators are having a rough time," notes Northumberland MPP Dr. Doug Galt, who took part in the meeting with operators, along with Durham MPP John O'Toole and Peterborough representative Gary Stewart. Dr. Gall says the situation will also be brought up at an April 4 meeting between the MPPs and the Kawartha Pine Ridge District School Board. And, as far as the request for short-term funding to give operators operators immediate financial relief, Dr. Galt says, "certainly we'll be carrying that forward to the minister." minister." The situation is dire, says Ron Gerow, a Ilavelock-area bus operator operator and co-chairman of the Kawartha Pine Ridge Public Separate School Bus Association. Association. "It's hurting to the point now where some operators are facing having to make some pretty hard decisions - do we continue to operate, operate, do we tell the board we need to look at a reduction in services, services, do we sell the operations... or do we just leave things the way they are and just go bankrupt?" bankrupt?" says Mr. Gerow. "It's a crisis with a capital 'C'." Bus operators have told both local boards of education and the area MPPs they're having difficulty difficulty making ends meet amid climbing gas prices, increasing bus replacement costs, and a mandatory emissions program which has increased their overhead. overhead. Sec OPERATORS page 2 Police no closer to answers in double murder Charges could be laid today, say police BY STEPHEN SHAW Staff Writer Homicide detectives are probing probing the medical history of a man suspected of murdering Ills wife and their "innocent" six-year-old daughter - but are no closer to understanding the tragedy that left a Pickering family shattered. The bodies of Marcia Harmon, Harmon, 42, and daughter Danielle were found in the rear bedroom on die second floor of their Lydia Crescent home Monday. Montgomery Harmon, the 52-year-old husband and father, was found in a front bedroom, unconscious from an apparent suicide attempt by drug overdose. overdose. He later regained consciousness consciousness at Ajax and Pickering Health Centre, where he was held overnight under police guard. He is expected to recover. Although there is no clear motive for the grisly murders, Durham Regional Police are looking into the possibility the suspect was being treated with prescription drugs for depression or some other form of mental illness. illness. "We're looking into all those angles in terms of medical background, but it's unfair to speculate until we know more," said Detective Brian Osborne. Late yesterday, detectives were waiting for medical clearance clearance to speak with the man, who reportedly was drifting in and out of consciousness. Police expected to lay charges by toddy. "We're waiting for an update on his condition and we hope to speak to him... Obviously, we're looking at murder charges," Sergeant Jim Grimley, police spokesman, said. The senseless slayings have See SEARCH page 2 ANDREW IWANOWSKI/Statesman photo Funeral home officials remove a body yesterday from a Pickering home where a woman and her daughter were found slain Monday. ACCREDITED . TEST & REPAIR FACILITY •An official mark of the Province of Ontario used under licence. I WHITBY - OSHAWA • noram 1110 DUNDAS. ST. E., WHITBY LOCAL (905) TOR. LINE (905) 1666-1772 686-1745 www.hondal .com ««366818 Inside ©* Statesman WHERE TO FIND IT Editorial Page 6 Classified 9 Sports 14 GIVE US A CALL General 623-3303 Distribution .. .579-4407 Death Notices .683-3005 Sincerely Yours 1-800-662-8423 Web site durhamnews.net judi.bobbitt@durham.net General FAX .. .623-6161 Newsroom FAX .623-6161 Grass fire burns seven NEWTONVILLE - Twenty firefighters and six fire department department vehicles responded to a grass fire near New- tonville and Lakeshore'roads at noon yesterday, which spread to several large rolled bales of straw. The blaze, WALTER PASSARELLA/ Statesman photo to 10 acres which kept Clarington Emergency Services personnel busy for more than two hours, covered a seven- to 10- acre area. It was not known at press time how the fire started. Single dad trying to raise funds for experimental treatment for disabled daughter BY JACQUIE McINNES StaffWriter HAMPTON - For a Hampton Hampton father, the most precious • word is 'Dada' and the biggest heartbreak is knowing his treasured treasured five-year-old daughter can't put it in a sentence or do many of the other things her peers are able to. Peter Falconed relates the struggle his daughter Angela has endured her entire life, having been bom with a condition which led to global developmental delay, a term which means Angela Angela has social, intellectual and physical disabilities which have left her years behind normal development development for a child of her age. "She has to be either completely completely over-stimulated or understimulated," understimulated," he' explains. "That means the TV either has to be really, really, really loud or really, really quiet." Discovering everyday items such as a screen door might take most tots a minute to investigate but for Angela, it can take an hour as she examines it 20 different ways, using all sens- iosynostosis. Two plates in her skull fused too soon, causing intense intense pain and abnormal brain growth. The condition went undiagnosed undiagnosed for the first year as her parents watched helplessly as their baby daughter turned blue as she "cried and cried." Doctors put it down to colic, relates Mr. Falconeri."! finally put my foot down and said something is wrong." Unfortunately, by the time Angela underwent open-head surgery at 15 months, damage had already been done. "A lot of the neurological connections were not being made," because the brain had grown up against the two plates, he explains. Even the operation itself, which took away the pain, left its own legacy, causing sensory integration dysfunction, dysfunction, the cause of the stimulation stimulation difficulties, he explains. Now her dad wants to give his daughter "a fighting chance" by sending her to an experimental but promising treatment program. program. But the cost, not covered ANDREW IWANOWSKI/ Statesman photo by OHIP or private insurance, is out of reach for this now-single „ „ , . „, . . . _ . father, who is currently staying at Peter Falconeri of Hampton with daughter Angela, 5, born home with üie i ovea ble but chal- with a condition that has led to developmental delays. The lenging youngster. single dad is hoping to raise funds to try an experimental "I'm doing everything I can. treatment. I'm using everything the com munity offers," says Mr. Pales Pales from touch to taste, he says, age of three. She is still unable to concri. "And it's all good. There adding his daughter is still in di- hold a spoon properly. apers and didn't walk until the Angela was born with cran- See FUND-RAISER page 2 Hampton father hopes for 'miracle'