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thursday feb 3 2005 serving the community of whitchurchstouffville 28 pages1 including gst sea summitview school students go extra mile for african children opinion 6 calendar 21 sports 22 classified 24 take a bow keith staff photosbill roberts some of the 1300 hockey fans jamming the stouffville game between a team of nhlers and retired players and commercial workers leukemia fund it also put stouffville arena sunday afternoon have fun during the game of our the stouffville spirit jr a squad raised more than 30000 on the hockey map for the day for more see photographs lives ii hosted by stouffvilles keith acton right the for markham stouffville hospital and the united food and on page 3 and jim masons column on page 7 1300 tax hike spooks horse industry by joan ransberry staff writer a tax increase of as much as 1300per cent on horse farms in ontario could mean the end of a york region equestrian business shirley hetherington owner of blue star farm in mount albert is letting finance minister gregory sorbara know the provinces decision to change property assessment of some of ontarios equine industry from agriculture to commercial could have a severe impact on her lifestyle and livelihood if mrs hetheringtons75acre 44horse farm is reassessed it will mean her annual 15000 tax bill could skyrocket to t she said either wed have to go under or wed charge back to the horse borders she said a lot of the pleasure riders couldnt afford an increase theyd have to sell their horses may give up horse markhams carrie mcfarlane is worried she might have to give up rascal the sevenyear old quarter horse is boarded on a farm in durham region if the farm is reassessed to commer cial my 250amonth boarding fee could climb to 800 ms mcfarlane said it would mean i cant afford him i saw rascal being born and bought him two days later ive raised him done all the personal training including breaking him in if the farm gets assessed to the com mercial category id have two options sell rascal or jump from farm to farm if i put him on another farm and it gets re assessed id have to move him out and find another moving rascal around would be very upsetting to him king equestrian club on vandorf road has been reassessed business owner jim henry said the 6000 property tax bill on his 10acre operation jumped to 13000 im rethinking how i operate mr henry said if they keep this up theres not going to be any horses left in york region following recent reassessments some equestrian facilities are seeing property taxes jump from the agricultural rate of 03 per cent to a commercial rate of 4 per cent said denis lebrun senior manager of farm properties for municipal property assessment corporation mpac yes some can see a 1300percent see tax page 16 sfifcrf houston ford ltd 1 578b main st stouffville 305b404541 www billhoustonf ord com o u s m o iva m t o v mmglllll iii t k k or mm k ib hb c k izx et e3 order mow for springdelivery i 05 mustang jy available for testdrive 6312 main st stouffville 905 6404646 emp tttttotmcxtoibiotottosi com