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sj mmjmmfflm mens league defends arena staff over ice time squeeze by bruce stapley correspondent a local mens hockey league including 300 players has come to the defence of recreation office staff after the town employees were blamed for failing to provide enough ice time to the local spirit of stouffville junior a hockey club this season don moore president of the stouffville amateur hockey league sahl held a press conference sunday because he said the other side of the story hasnt been told moore whose own league had its ice time cut back and rescheduled in recent years said his league had nothing but respect for how the town and the var ious user groups have handled the ice time squeeze we feel its very unfair that the spirit have taken per sonal shots at recreation office staff moore said the spirit was represented at a meeting called by office staff to discuss the ice crunch last spring when they didnt get the ice time they were looking for they claimed there was a conspiracy against them said moore the spirit eventually con vinced town officials to give them a tuesday night spot for practices moving an adult public skating slot to wednesday nights moore said all user groups but the spirit were willing to work together to accommodate each other there was great camaraderie among the user groups he said adding that the groups agreed to help offset the extra costs incurred by the local minor hockey associa tion when it was forced to rent outoftown ice minor hockey did nothing but give up give up give up moore said the arena staff should be commended for conferring with user groups rather than simply impos ing their own schedules its so refreshing to be asked to work things out and not just told he said theres an open door policy in this town and thats commend able moore said cooperation has been forthcoming from the user groups who knew the ice crunch would loosen up with the coming of the second pad he credited the groups for working together to bring about the second pad he said cooperation has to be a two way street but that the spirit wasnt willing to give weve always wanted to work with everybody but if its take take take then it will never work spirit owner ed hakonson said after the recently completed season that he was going to move the team province denies ordering freeze on board budgets by mike adler staff reporter the provincial education improve ment commission has not been told to refuse all school board budgets which include a tax increase a com mission cochair says we havent been given that direc tion dave cooke said in an inter view last week cooke confirmed this month as head of the powerful body which would supervise the boards under bill 104 said nothing in the legislation would allow the commis sion to roll back a mill rate set by a board he was responding to remarks from york region public board vice- chair karen barker who last week said she believes education minister john snobelen will use the commis sions power to change board budgets as a way to stop any increases the purpose of having some kind of overseer is to make sure that noth ing unusual occurs such as prevent ing a board from selling off all its assets said cooke both he and cochair ann vanstone made similar statements to a com mittee of mpps last week vanstone said the commission will look at bud gets for just any very unusual moves that a board might make and added we wouldnt anticipate very much of that but newmarket public trustee rodney dunn said he was skeptical of how much freedom snobelen who has criticized both york boards for hiking taxes will give vanstone or cooke i cant believe this govern ment is going to just let them run the show the public boards new budget chief dunn said the board had been aiming at a 176 per cent increase slightly less than last year but recent speculation he said sug gests that amount might also be unacceptable to the province its looking more like theyre not willing to allow any mill rate increas es said dunn due to a lack of support in stouffville moore said he doubted there would be a town that would give as much as stouffville had i dont think hes going to find another town that will treat him with the concern and accommodation this town has said moore mayor wayne emmerson was to sit down with hakonson this week to offer a proposal for keeping the club in town happy birthday 1 to our hard working carriers having v birthday in february charlie scorrar brad clubine laura meimari renzo mendoza be part of the carrier team call 6402100 in stouffville and 8529741 in uxbridgi tyler white mitchell meredith nicholas grove thank you stouffville it must be spring the lions are out this was the cheerful comment of many of you on saturday february 15 1997 as the stouffville lions club held their annual road toll day this caring communitys generous donations were again overwhelming your support has helped us to serve this community since 1937 thank you from stouffville lions club mi mm boards from wood core x complete packages 1 limited quantities k2 nale grave burnt a r walk kronic iurce for sports 5402 main st stouffville 905 w yd i h i k ft x v 1 ft fc ft i 3 ii m m t f m 1 m i it i i t t i i