The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

p4 the tribune thursday august x 1997 thursday august 7 1997 vol 109 no 46 the tribune comment opinions st send your letters to the editor to the address below editorial welfare pooling plan flawed from start greater toronto area politicians are reeling from the orovincial governments plan to pool welfare costs with hose of metro toronto this is of course because it just got a lot more expensive to live in the gta the province claims that because many gta residents work and use the services of metro they need to pay more af their fair share there may be an argument for this but he harris governments megacity legislation is going to force thousands of people from the heart of metro into the suburbs and beyond the city by most experts accounts will develop the blight that afflicts so many modern cities an abandoned downtown when this occurs those who annot afford to live in the gta will be forced into the inner city creating the definite polarity that exists in dlaces like detroit los angeles or buffalo the gta res idents will then be carrying a far greater financial burden another sticking point will be the cost of go transit for which metro will pay just 168 million of the annual dudget gta towns will pick up the other 92 million the whole issue came about as a result of the provinces downloading of welfare costs onto municipalities in exchange for a bigger bite of the education costs yet the plan is flawed and obviously has not been thought hrough there is still no formula for the collection of hose new school taxes gta politicians are reeling we all will be soon lessons learned from city to the south our friend mr nimby is back mr nimby first came to town back in the early 90s during the provinces search for a site to dump our trash no one wants a garbage dump in their backyard the provinces interim waste authority iwa originally select ed 57 sites across ontario one in markham to replace our overflowing landfill sites i remember the signs screaming no dump here and ruth grier not here about the thenminister of the environment enter mr nimby perhaps you know him by his other name not in my back yard well hes back only this time the issue isnt landfill its amal gamation itll never happen here nadda no way thats what many politicians in stouffville and uxbridge say about the possibility of their small piece of the global pie being gobbled up by a larger urban municipality amalgamation not in my back yard recently uxbridge council decided to ask the province for a viewpoint jordan h green full term waiting period before joining the greater toronto ser vices board gtsb thats a whole three years several other rural greater toronto area gta municipalities are asking for simi lar grace periods so that they can decide whether or not they want to participate in the gtsb other rural municipalities have decided not to create an urban-ver- susrural war and not ask for an extension stouffville council is in this camp still other rural municipalities are considering far more drastic measures to protect their turf withdrawing from the gta alto gether the town of clarington is one of these radicals vive la clarington what does the future hold for small town ontario who can tell but what i do know is we can learn a lot by watching the megacity fiasco in metropolitan toronto despite all the protests and peti tions former toronto mayor john sewells campaign to stop premier mike harris from merging metros six area municipalities into one megacity has failed metros mayors even held a pseu- do referendum north york used a dialavote system where voters could push 1 for yes or 2 for no to the megacity many people couldnt get through in scarbor ough the ballots were run in the local papers not only asking peo ple to mail their ballots but to put their names and addresses on them so much for secret ballot many people no longer residing in metro were mailed ballots including some people that have been deceased for years whatever we think of the process the results of the referen dum didnt make much difference to harris 76 per cent voted no to the megacity will stouffville and uxbridge be the same five years from now who knows instead of tossing on their for tune teller hats and glaring into new depths reached reader dear editor i had just finished reading a barry hults letter to you about the offensive remarks you made about americans thor oughly agreeing with him when i looked over the page and there was this very offen sive cartoon you had printed on thursday july 31 letters to the editor isnt it amazing how you wouldnt dare think of printing a cartoon referring to any spe cial race of people or anything pertaining to homosexuality but its quite alright to make jokes about churches well as a regular church goer and a mother of a minis ter i think the cartoon was in poor taste i cant imagine how much lower you can sink in your humor brenda hamm stouffville their crystal balls trying to predict their chances for further employment our politicians should watch and learn watch the megacity south of steeles avenue unfold and learn from it watch the issues develop the problems that arise and the reasons for these prob lems amalgamation has been a nonstop roller coaster running through our cities towns and villages since the beginning of democracy remember the village of yorkdale now its part of north york willowdale and agincourt also once were independent of north york and scarborough as were many other munic ipalities in many other cities the amalgamation rollercoaster will run through towns again and again while its stopped in metro why not study it wed be better prepared for the amalgamation rollercoaster if we said goodbye to mr nimby and just watched and learned clean up the weeds please dear editor just a note to whom it may concern we have a new railway station built out front on either side of the walk was placed some nice clean black dirt as i walked by on tuesday what a mess of weeds who is to keep this clear now that it is there those weeds will have to be pulled so the seeds will not ripen then it must be worked once a week to keep weeds down next year hopefully it will look lovely with flowers which also help to keep the weeds out dorothy wagg stouffville stouffville tribune patricia pappas publisher andrew mair editorinchief julie caspersen editor debra weller director of advertising mike rogerson retail advertising manager stacey allen classified manager barry goodyear director of distribution vivian oneil business manager pamela nichols operations manager about us news 905 6402100 retail sales 905 6402100 u- a 905 6402874 distribidion 905 6402100 fax 905 6405477 thetribistarca 6244 main st stoufifvule out l4a1e2 th tjlmjirviuo tribune jjb- i bod- saturdsyv is one of ihe2 ijsmrtrolaod pwwiofc pntlibin 5 in4 pistributfonjroun f comma- gnlty wwspapowi which inetades j i aiaxjmokering new advertiser alkstoa bemkldcourlerj barrse i advaocbr brnmnton cobrdian lbuvlmtfow xvotui cltypamnt i cojiimswoosw s coo rcokc gtuusdi mi georgdavfa lade ssixwdentiakton v ifffioftrtmhjuweek wafajf tbi1 g mjalorvrjnrtnfawnrbo jujrror y mil ion canadian champion mis- lssjfwvnsotmfotfaacora i s sifabaaimsir nottlnunbbriaad bavcr orwla 1ws oihawa- fcwtftbrwtostwflport gfflrry thfcrj uichonnd lilirhovnhulvu uhnj scrboronh mlrrmtanj conm nw cannotbi vpripjcd wt- out writlrn pijnnuxion from tho gpububerfnnjt mm the put f llther reserve tho right to reltosa 6rclafirirysi adrettikcmcbt crtxutfor 4vrtt8at ltati race tho encor ooujj4 letters policy the tribune welcomes your letters to the editor please keep letters to no more than 300 words note that letters may be edited for space libel spelling grammar while we endeavor to print as many letters as possible we regret that not all letters may be printed