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

McTeague urges boycott as.gas- hike protest, page NbMistry to soon- decide on. modified 4calendar plan page5 HO%*Mty le pages8,1 Wh-iby part of trail challenge mae vrm~ No vote for non Cathollcs in cou ncil elections Non-Cat0olc parents of stu- dents attending Durham seaaeschools will not b. aowed te run or even vote in community school (parent) coun- cil elecions. Durham separate board trus- W * tees voted unanimiously te adopt the policy, which is theé samie as its rules governing trustees, at a "~cal board meeting Thursday l>susion of the issue and the S. vote were both don. in, camera <non-public session). About 700 non-Catholic stu- dents attend separate board achools. «Wer'ietrymng te proteet oui Catholic ichools and our Catholi- city,' .says Whiithy trustee Mar AnMartin. S.~..Board chair Tom Olcia f . f1.,*- couldn'tbe reach.d for comment. n ~. ome parents uvetry, angry aud ver h -t.>the deciuionwhc ill)è "revieed in ýa year,,Mar- says -it was necessary,,tel "Yu oudhave someone come in:with a . hidden, agenda who really wants tedestroy ikA lot of people are sayingthegoen ment, really deep down, wants te get rid of the Catholie schools. "«You could have an atheist on f.*..*~ .*. ..* .~. 44... ~ '~' that committee... you could have /ltl a.Buddhist a Hindu -and then s. ath hlt-,lthe.next t&ng yuknow,, 'Our A. FIRMI1 Pbli Scool tudntssurrundMarus Aeruan ~ ~ ~ ~en atheie in takýn out- of thi.echool pnaorqp'PUlc COOýsco (or) our prayèrs aren't allowed, Kam _e taSockautoigrphsesion afterthë-,Gradeé., by20,00 tuerts woddldlIast Nvede.b averag' jugt as happened in the public StIlTt:was.theon yCnda oemepret~oe[ he tdn nwrd 0 h 5questionm$ rre Wàcool. fits what I want to FhoFrêe Pro" ME PAGE 20 Back to tho ýdrawing board Surpise decision rejeets budget . By Mark Reenor Durham public school board trustees surprised -just about everyone Monday night when they narrowly rejected. the pro- posed 1996 bu4et that, would mncreased education taxes by an average 2.74 per cent. The. board voted 8-7 against apprvingthe document despite havn votl-5to accPtt fat a bude committee five days No one was more taken aback by the. flip-flo p than staff, who had distrlbutedl dozens of copies of a budget booklet and a press release sumrnarizing ti hane at the. beginning of the meeting. After a break and somâe discuso- sion, the board voted to, table a motion by« Oshawa truste. Mike Nicholson to direct staff to put together a -budget -with an average 1.5 per, cent mil rate hike. That motion and other alterna- tives will b. discused at a spe- r ci ý Mrnîgh ; (Wed.ay, Jeq' î , boardroom. The. dramatic turnabout came after three board members - Nicholson, Whitby truste. Doug Ross andAj4ax trusteeheÉéilln Wilard - changed their mmnd abot sp ýthebudget.' ctig the speech pathoog*ets, and psychometrists (Who) help thesiecial ed kids.. "I think w. could have been a littie more creative; and the in- crease, 2.74, is -high.Theres more thinga we couldl have don. te cut it down. "I don'lt have the answers but after Wednesday night 1 went home &hikig. geez, I can't live with thsa "Even if I had yoted against it at budget (committëe), it wouldnt have made any dif- ference," noted Nicholson. "It stafled at bugt and didn't Soaywhr.I, tried motions and he,-ydidn't go anywhere.. the d~fnecu4 ûe ý7 ÇG, IM "I had planned this. Thaes why we have a two-tier system. W. have standing committe. so if you* vote yes or no, you can chane your mind at board.» Willard said she was inunda- ted' with calis from seniors say- ing they could not afford te. pay any more. "Itfs an oversight on m r that I didn't consider m ywhole constituency... I listenedte my parent councils and... (they) had ipv en me some permission te go beween zero and two per cent, hoping te get computers. aI had talcen that with liberty and extended.it te ail my consti- tuents.7 Afer s king te Ajax.polti- cians, Wi adsaid she decided I really can't support tliis budget» Board chair Audrey Maan alon¶<rith. feIlow Oshawa trus tee Ktheenî Hopper and Nancy :McLean, Uxbridge truste. Faith Neumann and Brock truste. BOi f f t ~ .4 il f ~ Ml