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FJ The joy of the festive season and of small children everywhere lit up the small face of three year old Melissa Meblerbacher as she played in a pile of confetti accumulated dur- ing the Christmas concert held Thursday afternoon at Prince Albert Public School. Melissa, who was watching her sister and A child's joy at Christmas brother perform in the concert, couldn't resist the confetti which was used in one of the many skits. Neither could ten or so other children who went home that day covered in the white stuff. For more photos from Christmas concerts throughout the township, see inside. CPA Pan A YA PC PA MA PA YA PAN PAN PA PAN PO PA PA YANK PAK YA PARK PAu PAu PA PAR YAK YAS WARK YAR Am An YAR am as a yan Tax position © slightly better 'Scugog Township treasurer is 'generally pleased' with" the municipality's financial status as 1984 comes to a close. Kathleen Harper told the Star last week that about $570,000 in proper- ty taxes still has not been paid, and that represents 8.4 per cent of the total '84 levy of $6,892,000. The outstanding taxes for 1984 is actually an im- provement over the previous year when 9.5 per cent of the total levy still had not been paid by the end of December. However, Mrs. Harper did say that the (tal receivables for all years owing the Township was $981,000 as of November 30, or about 14.2 per cent and she said she hopes that figure will be reduc- ed a few percentage points by the end of the Vol. 119 No.4 Monday, Dec. 24, 1984 36 pages year. "There isn't any real . cause for alarm, but naturally we are trying to encourage people to pay their property taxes on time," she stated. Scugog Township issues 7500 property tax bills each year, and the penalties for late payments are 1.25 per cent per month. If taxes on a property go unpaid (Turn to page 3) dl Region says yes to clean-up grant Despite strong opposition from several councillors and senior staff, the Durham Region council last week voted in favour of "a $250 grant to help homeowners in the event of a sewage back- up. The grant will pro- bably be available to several homeowners in Perry Glen Estates who experienced a sewage back-up last spring. And five homeowners in Bowmanville who had the same kind of mis- fortune will also be able to collect $250 from the Region. The decision to make this 'ex gratia' grant is a reversal of Regional policy and on more than one occasion the recommendation has been turned down over the past year or so. The grant will be retroactive to January 1, 1984, but any home- owner (or tenant) collecting the $250 will have to sign a waver that the Region is not liable for future damage claims. Both Scugog Mayor Jerry Taylor and Regional councillor Lawrence Malcolm supported the rec- ommendation for the one-time grant, with councillor Malcolm des- cribing it as a "com- passionate thing to do" for residents faced with a major sewage back-up in their basements. Mayor Taylor ac- knowledged that $250 won't go very far in helping a property own- er clean up sewage, and he wondered whether payment would leave the Region open to liability claims. The $250 will be paid to any homeowner or tenants when sewage flooding is caused by high flows in the main line or damaged house connections. As a further part of the policy, the Region will provide any home- owner with the names of qualified cleaning com- panies which can do a complete sanitization' of (Turn to page 2) Project on Scugog fish A five month project is underway to compile and analyse data on fish populations in Lake Scugog. The project, which started three weeks ag( is part of a joint federal provincial employment program, and will cost just over $36,000. Three people, a bio logist, a technician and a clerk will be reviewing creel census and other data gathered over the past 15 to 20 years on fish species in Lake Scugog and other lakes in the Kawarthas. They will also be carrying out a winter fisheries assessment on Lake Scugog by talking to ice fishermen and 'aking counts of the number of fish caught through the ice. The project is being carried out under the direction of the Ministry of Natural Resources District office in Lind- say, and MNR biologist Cheryl Lewis says the date analysis will attempt to pin-point trends in fish species (Turn to page 8)