Please Contact Niagara-on-the-Lake Town Council
Dear SOS'er,
We are asking you to contact Niagara-on-the-Lake Town Council. Please read on...
The Ontario Municipal Board ("OMB") hearing between The Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake and the DSBN regarding the zoning of the Line 2 property is set for the week of April 12, 2010. The DSBN has, with great involvement with the community of Niagara-on-the-Lake, decided on a Line 2 property on which to construct a new combined Virgil/Col. John Butler elementary school.
Niagara-on-the-Lake’s own town planner believed that the Line 2 location was a good choice for the new elementary school and made the recommendation to the Town. Unfortunately Niagara-on-the-Lake Town council, in an unusual move, changed the zoning, preventing the possible construction of an elementary school.
The Town has provided limited explanations for rejecting the Planning Department’s recommendation. The argument that the 8 acre Line 2 property is better utilized for residential lots is dubious given that 3.75 acres are available through the sale of the Virgil property. Another 4.94 acres at Col. John Butler can be made available if the DSBN and Town work together petitioning the Province to have the property zoned residential.
The Town supports an elementary school on East West Line @ Hwy 55. Community members are the ones that have already made a choice where they want a new elementary school - within the urban boundary of Virgil. The DSBN agreed with the community and found the Line 2 property. The DSBN is just doing what we the majority has asked.
No one wanted to lose our only high school, but now the Town is negatively affecting elementary children by forcing the DSBN to the OMB to decide the fate of Line 2. With the OMB hearing looming near the Town is:
• Jeopardizing the start date of the new elementary school;
• Allowing Virgil students to attend a school that needs to be replaced;
• Wasting tens of thousands of dollars on an OMB hearing;
• Potentially creating triple split classes at Col John Butler through delaying the school merger.
Why?
Every student at Col. John Butler is in a double split class. While teachers are doing their best to provide extra-curricular activities for the students, they can only do so much. The students at Virgil are in an old school building that is showing its age and needs expensive repairs. Delaying the new school is not helping anyone.
OMB hearings are not cheap. The minimum cost estimates are $16,000 per day for this one week review of our Town tax dollars battling our Educational tax dollars. Should the hearing proceed, it has the real prospect of delaying the plans for opening the new elementary school for years depending on the outcome of the hearings. Niagara-on-the-Lake is now on the verge of a fight where the real losers are our children.
Town Council still has an opportunity to avoid this costly OMB hearing and positively affect the education of our children - by following the will of the majority, the recommendation of the town planner and the DSBN. Even if you have contacted Town Council in the past, do so again. Councilors can still re-zone Line 2 allowing for the construction of a new elementary school. The children of Virgil and Col. John Butler schools need and deserve their new school.
Remind them that this is an election year and we want leaders who act for their community. Tell them not to waste our tax dollars. Tell them to do what the majority of the community has asked again and again regarding the location of a new elementary school. Tell them to allow the Line 2 zoning changes.
Should the OMB hearing be avoided, construction can begin in June as originally intended and a new school built for our children.
SOS
Click here for a complete list of council members
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