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The En Kwkk Ayr THE ERA Serving York County Since fenny BARRY WALLACE Phono Newmarket 89 Phone Aurora Battle for the board budget A battle over who controls the makeup of the York Comity school board budget surfaced briefly last weeks school board meeting It to light when board finance com mittee chairman Colin Barrett the trustee or Whitchurch Slouffvllle had the temerity to demand the right to oversee maketip of the budget ami threatened to resign from the committee if ho board made him a rubber stamp finance chairman lie immediately ran afoul of the boards chief mandarin education director Sum Chapman who lake kindly to the I suggestion that the finance committee should oversee finances Mr Chapman hits ttccn used to doling por tions of the budget out piecemeal to various standing committees of the board but never the whole budget to anyone at any time In Inst weeks debate over the Barrel requesting board backing for his stand some trustees appeared reluctant to see their finance committee cast in the role as budget overseer apparently fearing hat this would mean their own roles on the other committees would be diminished Inl1 IIUM lite budget coordinating function to elected hands rather than see it with Mr Chapman and his staff Mr Chapman argued it is not particularly efficient to have the finance committee examining the entire budget and the other standing committees examining their own areas of the budget too Where scrutiny by elected officials of spending of public funds is concerned efficiency cannot always lie a major consideration If it were surely most efficient process of all would to make the whole school board a rubber stamp and let the administration do the budget uninterrupted The establishment of spending priorities and lite preparation of a budget is a function of elected representatives working With the advice of their staff and not viceversa Schooling fishing changes concern public There two lliingsbotl not exactly earth shatteringthat Queens Park could do to en dear themselves to the residents of the province One concerns schooling and the other con cerns fishing First lets turn to fishing and to be specific the opening or Ihe pickerel season in Ontario tit previous years the pickerel season opening coincided with Victoria Day holiday il opened on the Thursday midnight Ik the lHlda Saturdn ami as the midnight I his anglers three days to the wily and tasty pickerel This year the pickerel miimm does not open Willi May M This is fine except Victoria Day is being celebrated on May a Monday as usual This means that pickerel fisherman will have only a twoday weekend less driving timeto participate in the annual pickerel opening It also means that hundreds of thousands of dollars will be and have been lost by resort operators who normally rely on a big Victoria Day weekend Its still not too late to change the opening of the pickerel season to coincide with the Victoria Day holiday weekend The annua winter school break was held at different times throughout the province this year There were three different weeks when school was out depending on the jurisdiction In this area York Region many families were faced with having high school students attending school In York being off while their brothers and sisters attending public and separate schools in Simcoe County at school This prevented a family holiday during the winter break and played hob with the scheduling of hockey tournaments as teams from different school jurisdictions were on holidays at different The government should arbitrarily set Ihe dates for ihe winler break and make it uniform across the province A stroke of pen at Queens Park would solve both Ihe schooling and fishing THE Readers ERA WJ- reserve Newmarkets heritage time ire I Foundation for legal aid ami legal research While serving as IlTtiiUi ami York County set up the Legal Ait pilot project and Hal April the 1 Society ordered I research educate in plat cable munis documents and photos as it can for ihe map itl if il eannol obtain originals it will early years appear satisfied with photocopies or at Die very fid hit early photos know leusl knowing documents exist and where are located Wo urge anyone Willi would be useful to a archives to j contact a member of Urn Historical paid only willing oi llu Hi tout tin uso of this a aiue Una Irv Pi ounce of tuning seven to eight pet cent I found willing and solicit accounts as aviug These a Hire per cent and the going rate replied This is only for July and August Hi by hob martin himself as Georgians ombudsman what could be done people contacted by telephone or on eel It rejected the concept of day care three agreed with the idea 10 had no and two in favor the concept but HilRiied it etfeeiivenesi in Among the mii questioned Mi Wade is the availability of interested mothers as well as the day care those who want such services should be to pay for them he argued it they thai then are sent t o main a to the private care thats fine he said Such a service is operated through the Witnesses in Sutton he noted look after the welfare of the welfare costs he said i role thats seen Chris Wade corgina council to fight the day the claim that he being the devils advocate keep my eyes open and my ears open Program able fur ihsev on the Heartiest together for a vii Pf York council m ml find way to end cold war with its staff By i Hi IE llisiliiliii ml i i I J iliiiii fflHnj HI Hiickl- nil iktxis in louirc if liKlo iinlliiluMJS il nut il In was lliullir council I 111 llic minutes II itiiic wliiriilnipii JII III- In ilni HI jil 1MlliH ynlp a i il mating r v I j pllll Iivc In In- ilililcil or ttiii In liv 1 lull I explained i In In Hie imnules Hie i Mil- Ill inn I I Hull ii ill In no I id routinely i we liiiiimliif rtiiHlloit hull mm loiimlllois and IhlnkiliM the staff was to iiim I Itll pull fftn Hun upon up in complain in open il In- ill j noil inn lit lil Ifwl It- 1 mi I tl who litem it was llu own lihuuh It they say the perfect squelch Staff didnt technically do anything wrong They were just aware of the attitude of some councillors and knew what to expect when the chips were down It was just one more little saga in the con tinuing hostilities between staff and council And its not all staffs fault by any means Staff just gets credit for the win in the most recent battle in the cold war The arrangement isnt supposed to work that way Staff is supposed to inform and com plement council carry out decisions mode by the politicians and provide the best possible in formation upon which those decisions will be made Im not suggesting that the staff at York doesnt carry out the duties But it doesnt take a great deal of intelligence to understand the difference in effort expended between a happy dedicated staff member and one who is openly hitler at the elected people under whom he The salary debates tins wasnt the first one Contribute to this The manner in which this area has been handled does not lend itself to goodwill 1 hope the committee setup approved at a But thats not the whole problem Council and department heads often clash in public meetings and the items under debate sometimes seem to be merely a catalyst for personal ven dettas between certain councillors and certain department heads The councillors by their positions have the last say and department heads have sometimes had to put on a face under some biting words from an elected person who allows a heavy personal bias to enter into debate Ive heard it said that some staffers expect large increases in salary only because they regard it as their due for putting up with what they term harassment from councillors who have a low opinion of the staff Im sure thats somewhat of an but it goes to the heart of the problem If York is to continue as the best- administered region which Wright says It is the sniping and infighting and the rest of the cold war tactics will have to stop Otherwise only the residents of York suffer