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2-Orono Weekly Times, Wednesday, September 22nd, 1976 ■ Second Class Mail Registration Number 6368 1 published every Wednesday at the Office of Publication Main Street, Orono, Ontario Phone 983-5310 Editor-Roy C. Forrester Advertising Manager - Rick Paterson More Pocketbook Dig Area residents will be asked to support in connection with special Wintario grants the repairs of local arenas in centres as Bowmanville, Newcastle and Orono. From a recent news release from the Ministry it was pointed out that before Wintario grants are paid the council of the municipality must have a bonifide commitment from a reliable group or organization that a certain sum will be raised through subscription within a three year period. In some cases such as Newcastle and Orono this could be a sizeable sum of money ,to raise within a three year period. This could be further demanded in that to rebuild an arena lessens the dollar involvement of Wintario as to grants. Both Orono and Newcastle will be faced with the replacement of their arenas if both meet the same fate as the Newcastle Village arena. The present demands by the government -that local citizens must come up with a reasonable sum of money does hold merit but is not a departure from past history. In the case of both the Bowmanville and Newcastle arenas it was the thrust of local people and organizations in both centres who raised monies for their arenas, and this within a period of some 25 to 27 years ago. The sports complex in the City of Oshawa was also supported by local citizens on a voluntary basis with Provincial grants and municipal grants picking up their portion. The only exception in recent years was the building of the Darlington Sports Centre and this less than three years ago. In this case outside of Provincial grants the remaining cost was lodged against the taxpayers over all of the Town of Newcastle. There was no participation on the part of a public subscription drive and as far as we know there was no push for such participation. The entire drive came from municipal councillors and everyone is picking up the tab throughout the Town of Newcastle. It may be asked would the former Township of Darlington been able to face the cost of an $800,000.00 arena on their own? The financing of. the Darlington arena has become the exception rather than the rule during the past or iri the present. The idea of subscription from the people of the area may in itself be a binding factor for the individual communities but such centres as Orono will find it much more difficult that say an area as Bowmanville where population may be five times greater and local organization able to carry a commitment are more numerous. It was for this latter case that regional governments were formed that less fortunate areas could continue on a sounder financial basis. The, trend to local participation has in ,one way destroyed this philosphy. Letters to the Editor Concerning the angry letters letters on the subject, of the great, increases locally on land taxes that appeared in the papers last week. I can say -- speaking as a person / close to the action, that the ire was warranted for today's taxes are murder. As we are well aware, home taxes as well as other land taxes are imposed by three authorities - the Town Council, Council, the Regional Council and • School Board. The taxing record of each one of these three powers that be during the last three years is deplorable. vfho is to blame for the situation? No one else except the candidates who were elected by the voting populace or received acclamations to administer Town Hall, Regional Regional Government or School Board activity. Who are these people? Your municipal council is composed of Councillors Don Allin, Ann Cowman, Kirk Entwisle, Ivan Hobbs, Kenneth Kenneth Lyall, Bruce Tink and Garnet Rickard. The school board trustees are Sid Worden arid ■ Allan Werry from Darlington, Representing Representing Bowmanville are Maurice Prout and Andrew Thompson. Ward Three trustees - Orono, Clarke and the formèr Village of Newcastle, Newcastle, Bill Carman and George Cameron. These are the publicly elected representatives who, as a small group or part of a larger collective group, decided decided how many of your tax dollars would be needed to supply local services and how the money would be spent during this past couple of years. To begin with, your Town of Newcastle Council is responsible responsible for some good things and has also taken some very irresponsible actions. The good items include the fact that the New Council did take the old Newcastle Village, Village, Orono Police Village plus the Townships of Clarke and Darlington and meld these former organizations into a workable, viable overall overall New Town of Newcastle. The job was ordered done under the edict of Premier Bill Davis and Bill 162 of the Conservative Government - and it was done. Despite all the very apparent apparent faults of Regionalism, the New Town of Newcastle is one Regional facet that is a success. As far as I can see, it is the only facet of Regionalism Regionalism that will he successful. Under the old system, the former Village of Newcastle, the Police Village of Orono, Clarke and Darlington Townships Townships and the former Town of Bowmanville were too small to operate effectively. The former . communities had many problems. The New Town of Newcastle Newcastle with 30,000 population and lots of area to build a broad tax base on will work - in time. Now the bad news. The first Council of the New Town of Newcastle after the election and acclamations of 1973 made the mistake of mounting their desks and riding off in all directions without long term financial planning. At the first meeting of the New Town Council one of the first motions passed was one to create a $2,000,000 line of credit at the banks. This lack of financial foresight foresight resulted in the New Town mill rate jumping from 137.17 mills in 1974 - the first year of operation to 1Ÿ8.32 mills in the third year amounting to à mill rate increase of 29 per cent in Town taxes during the tenure of the first Council. Included in this tax jump was the scandalous waste of tax dollars through the Town of Newcastle planning process. Through the cost of Newcastle's Newcastle's Ontario Housing Action Program planning, the Newcastle Interim Official Plan plus the cost of operating operating the Town's Hampton Planning Department and Town's 13 per cent levy that paid its contribution to the Region of Durham Planning Department, the Town of Newcastle has spent in the neighbourhood of $630,000 in tax dollars for planning in the past three years - with little or no useful results . As a matter of record, the planning process of the town of Newcastle, the whole $630,000 worth of it, is considered to foe a very bad i joke by outside planning officials and corporations waiting to develop their land holdings in this town. To show up the folly of Newcastle planning, the 1975 budget for the planning department department ■ was set up at $139,970. 1 This budget was overspent to the amount of $282,169 resulting in a défiait of $142,179. To be sure the council had to authorize the spending of this money but the authorization authorization was given only after the recommendations of the Town's Planning Advisory Committee^ a non-elec ted body «chaired by Councillor Kirk Entwisle. To add to this scandalous waste of money, tax dollars, Council at this moment is ; heavily comrriifted to spend yet another $20,000 to $30,000 for yet another series of planning studies, "a skeleton plan" as described by Councillor Councillor Entwisle, for the former. village of Newcastle, Bowmanville Bowmanville and Courtice. Your Regional Council has also been wasteful of your tax dollars. That Council- wasted $180,000 building a second well for the former village of Newcastle on North Street despite being warned by the Ministry of Health that the Nitrate potential was to great in the area where the well was to be drilled. Despite the warning, the well was drilled and the $185,000 paid out with the result that the health department department condemned the well as a health hazard owing 'to Nitrate Nitrate content. , Now the well stands, un- ■ used, as a ihonument to regional stupidity. The Northumberland Northumberland and Newcastle Board of Education and their tax bite? Just too much of everything plus a $36,000,000 budget for 1976. ' During my term of office as a former school trustee representing representing Newcastle, Orono and Clarke on the old Northumberland Northumberland and Durham Board just prior to regional Government, I found many avenues where money was being spent needlessly. However, at this point I believe that something should be said in defence of teachers salaries às teacher's salaries' have been blamed for thé present unacceptable level of school taxes. • Personally,T do not believe that the school. teachers are the villians of the tax situation. situation. For too long our 1 teachers were getting below average pay in comparison to other workers doing similar jobs, with similar responsibilities. The formidable pay raise that the teachers did get was a "catch-up"and even now, the teachers in our area are. neither the highest paid or the lowest paid in our Province. The area teachers are receiving only an average teacher's salary speaking in Provincial terms. For my analysis, our school tax rate is increasing rapidly through the action of the school board the policy of building even larger schools. "Larger schools mean a concentration of ever more pupils entailing more transportation transportation to bring these pupils further to school which results results in more tax dollars being spent for bus transportation. transportation. Another factor resulting in higher costs stemming fcom larger schools is that, work loads develop requiring more staff. As school staff become responsible for more pupils, more staff is required as administration time for running running that large school must be added to the time devoted to educating these pupils. For instance,is it realized by the tax payers that the large schools have principals and vipe-principals? The principals are, in charge overall and attend to the administrative side -of running running the school while the vice-principtils ,attend to the day to day educational striving striving of the pupils. This is- all a--waste of tax dollars paying tribute to the "Bigness must be better" syndrome. Another thought about school school taxes. ' Schools could be built in a ■ less costly manner. I have yet to visit a school that failed to have great costly high corridors and, other space and heat wasting features costing many dollars per square foot. Another: tribute to the "Bigness must be better" syndrome. Schools could be designed to be bliilt more economically and thereby thereby release some pressure on the tax payer's pocketbook. A couple of other things that I noticed in ray day as a school trustee that entails needless expenditure of school school tax dollars. In earlier days schools used the facilities of the National Film Board for educational film requirements. requirements. This is now diminished diminished as the Board now uses its ' own audio-visual section with resulting personnel costs. To me this is only empire buildirig at the taxpayer's expense. Another item that costs school tax dollars. It always bothers me to realize that each school principal does his own. supply ordering, buying the books, pencils, chalk and paper from wherever he wishes 'at thé best price the principal can obtain. This should be halted and a system put into force where the school purchasing department (yep, they have one) could purchase these needed supplies for all the schools in the system arid "have 'each school draw from a central board warehouse. This would save a lot of tax dollars. Our school board inflicts the t&x, payer the biggest ta*r- ' bite. The school board has a $32,000,000 dollar budget, there are ways and means that this bite can be cut down. In conclusion I would like to say that the Globe and Mail in a recent editorial stated "1976 is "the election year when voters must support candidates. candidates. who will spend tax dollars very cautiously". This is the best of advice. For taxpayers can write all the angry letters they wish to write to newspapers complaining complaining of taxes but the ever increasing home tax load will only ease off when voters ■ choose a Mayor, Councillors and School Trustees who can say "No" loudly and vote "No" on proposals requiring the expenditure of increased amounts of tax dollars. The taxpayer who is hurting hurting from the tax bill must remember that Monday December December 6th is election day and all the letters to the editor that one can write will not equal one vote cast for a cautious candidate' on this day. The public can not do anything about their current tax bill except to pay it, the public can do something about future tax bills by looking, over the list of candidates and then voting for a person who can say, "No" loudly to municipal money matters if need be. Sincere Kenneth Lya._ Letters to the Editor Dear Sir : We wish to commend you highly '-for publishing the editorial, re "Lotteries". Lotteries Lotteries are a great concern to thinking people, and we hope your editorial will cause mort people to really think about the long-range harm being done to our young people, teaching them (o think that lasting good fortune is just luck. We should be teaching them that rêal happiness comes, not in having a lot of money, but in sharing what we have with others, not only our money, but a smile, a handshake, or whatever - in other words, your time and .concern. Certainly, Christians Christians should not be buying lottery tickets, when Chr' 1 was very definite in His vii x on greed. Thank you for a timely ; éditerai. Please continue with the courage to print contra- versial pieces. Yours truly, Margaret Hancock, Bob Hancock. Attention Farmersll. WHY PAY MORE? SAVE ON * Diesel Fuel * Motor Oil * Gasoline Phone .668-3381 - Collect DX FUEL OIL For Prompt Courteous Service CALL US TODAY