milton issues

Hawthorne Village Ranks in the Top 25 in Canada

Mike Cluett
Yep, you heard it right. Hawthorne Village Public School has been ranked in the top 25 schools in Canada. That is an amazing achievement in itself, but for a school to be at that level in its 2nd year of operation is worth a second look. We are quite familiar with HVPS as its where Anthony has been going to school since senior kindergarten. Every expereince we’ve had with the school, the teachers, the volunteers and any events held there have been nothing short than outstanding.

This article appears in todays Milton Canadian Champion. HVPS is home to many great teachers (not that all teachers arent great!) including a teacher of the month Mrs Sheldrick.

Enjoy…and congratulations to Grant Clatworthy…the Principal of HVPS…GREAT JOB!

School ranks among top 25 in country
Melanie Hennessey

Published on Aug 17, 2007

When it comes to learning institutions in Canada, Hawthorne Village Public School gets an A.
The local school was ranked as one of the top 25 in the country in the recent edition of Today’s Parent magazine, placing in the ‘all-round cool schools’ category.

“It’s exciting,” said Hawthorne school principal Grant Clatworthy. “The most satisfying part is it indicates parents are satisfied with the school.”

The article says, “While it’s not technically an arts school, Hawthorne weaves the arts into traditional curriculum areas daily and co-curriculars are crammed into every possible time slot — whether it’s basketball at 8 a.m., Lego robotics at 10:55 a.m. or clay class at 3:30 p.m.”

It also goes on to note, “Many of the school’s language classes integrate drama or visual arts, helping kids to express their comprehension of material they’ve read.”

The story highlights the Arts Beats assemblies the school holds once a month. Clatworthy explained the assemblies give students a chance to present something they’ve been working on, such as poetry, a drama presentation or even a musical/dance number on recycling.

“It’s designed to provide an opportunity for kids to showcase the learning they’ve done through the arts,” he said. “And the kids have become really appreciative of each other’s presentations. They show a lot of respect.”

The magazine highlights the school’s “creative and industrious” teachers, “encouraging” principal and the estimated 200 parent volunteers that help make things happen.

Clatworthy emphasized that his staff works extremely hard from day to day.

“It’s really a big team effort,” he noted.

The school opened its doors in September 2005 on Bennett Boulevard with a vision of rejuvenating the arts in students’ lives. It made a point of bringing on staff members who have backgrounds in the arts.

Even the school’s design helped contribute to the arts focus, such as the specially designed music room with vaulted ceilings to allow sound to escape.

Burlington’s Alexander’s Public School also made the top 25 this year in the ‘overcoming a challenge’ category, since it had to deal with a construction delay by operating in three different schools.

Today’s Parent readers nominate the schools for consideration on the list.

Melanie Hennessey can be reached at mhennessey@miltoncanadianchampion.com.

Milton’s Ivory Tower

Mike Cluett
For those of you who havent seen the news, the Town of Milton is making it known we have some coveted land available for a post secondary institution…almost like a first come first serve.

The town has been talking about this for some time now. Its been in the works for months and they’re finally moving on the pitch. If Milton could scoop a university/college campus for the town it would be a major coup. Mississauga was/is trying for the same thing.

There is a shortage of spaces available at post secondary schools in Ontario and with getting rid of Grade 13, it only got worse with more students looking for a place to go. Its a huge piece of land and giving it away might sound like the wrong thing but the long term goals outweigh the short term.

Where its located, it can provide a huge boost…especially with young people…shopping in town. Its really close to downtown Milton which can only benefit from the additional people. Traffic of course would increase and we have to make sure the towns ready for it and plan in advance. We would have to look closely at locations in Oakville by Sheridan College and the traffic impacts there. The town would have to look at how commuters will be getting to the campus, for instance GO train or GO bus. If so, we would have to start now working on a deal with the province to provide sufficient GO bus/train service to Milton, well before the ground is broken on the campus.

You can also play devils advocate and say with bringing in more students you will increase the need for “affordable housing” IE apartments and it would also increase the demand for basement apartments. Its something I don’t think the town has an official by law on and it in turn would have to be looked at. Not everyone who would be attending this campus location would be from the area. With it getting harder and harder for students to get into high demand university programs, a good college system will be needed to catch the overflow and provide a high quality program to keep up with the needs of business and technology in the future.

And thats just the tip of the iceberg. Many questions need to be asked, studied and answered. When you make a decision like this you have to look at the long term impact…5, 10 and 15 years in the future. Its something the Town of Milton hasn’t done very well in the past and I hope that will change in the coming months/years to come.

I think, if its planned correctly, a college or university campus located in Milton can be a good thing. Only if they use common sense in making those plans. We can only hope.

Here’s the article.

Milton covets its own ivory tower TheStar.com – Education – Milton covets its own ivory tower

Fastest-growing town in Canada offers free land in bid to lure a university or college campus

August 01, 2007

Louise Brown
Education Reporter

Free to a good campus: A chunk of Canada’s new boom town.

Bustling Milton may have the fastest-growing population in the country and a business boom to match, but there’s one thing it hasn’t got that it wants very badly.

A wing of the ivory tower.

It’s offering a $3.5 million parcel of land by the main drag, just steps from the GO Train station, free to the first college or university to bite.

The timing couldn’t be better, after Toronto university presidents warned this week a surprise surge in enrolment could bring 40,000 more students to GTA colleges and universities in the next 15 years – sparking talk of a possible new GTA campus.

“The way we’re growing – and the way the GTA is growing – this could be the most sensible location for a new campus,” said Mario Belvedere, Milton’s chief administrative officer, who calls the two-hectare site of the old Pigment and Chemical paint factory “a dynamite, gorgeous location.”

“We want a post-secondary institution to balance out our residential and industrial growth – we’ve got a disproportionate number of kids here and in a few years they’ll need somewhere to go for higher education,” said Belvedere.

Milton topped the charts in the latest Census by roughly doubling the number of children under 14 in just five years, making it a young town that will put pressure on the school system, he said. It opened two more schools last year and has another two ready to open this fall.

These students will be part of the boom that puts pressure on all GTA universities, as well as community colleges such as George Brown College, which face the same space crunch as enrolments climb.

The U of T already has satellite campuses in Mississauga and Scarborough. McMaster University in Hamilton plans to open a campus in Burlington. Sheridan College in Oakville has a satellite campus in Brampton. The University of Guelph has a joint campus with Humber College in Etobicoke.

Still, Milton needs its own campus, says Belvedere.

“But we realized just wishing for a university or college to come here is not enough; we need to attract their attention.”

The town acquired the land through a partnership with the Royal Bank. Officials are contacting all Ontario colleges and universities to pitch the free land. The offer expires in December 2008.

It has even posted a sign that proclaims with confidence, if few details: Future Home of Post-Secondary Institution.

“Free land!” says Belvedere. “Is that amazing or what?”

Humber College plans to open a satellite campus in 2009 in Orangeville.

Are you gellin?

Mike Cluett

Team Chudlieghs is definitely gelling. Last Thursday was a big time game against Tim Horton’s Navy Blue team. The temperature was well over 30C without factoring in the humidity and it showed no sign of letting up.

Topping all of that both teams found themselves short staffed and looked like they’d be pulling an “iron man” style of soccer. Both myself and the coach of the other team agreed we would only play 20 minutes per half and LOTS of water breaks in between.

For the first half it was quite the defensive duel as both teams made it down to the oppositions end but came up short shooting on net. The heat was definitely a factor in this one. You could see it on both sides faces it was getting too warm but they wanted to keep playing.

I was running around the field most of the game with a big water bottle, giving as much water to both teams as possible because you dont want to have anyone pass out and hurt themselves. It got a kick out of the parents watching so…

After half time the teams looked a bit more enthusiastic and ready to go. Opening the second half kick off was Madison, who played a stellar game in net for the first half, launching the ball well into the other teams zone. Matthew raced up the side and with his quick feet, scored a very quick goal. Shortly after that…a second goal was scored.

Another big story of this weeks game was Nicholas. He has grown into a great defense player and he was showing it off early and often in the game. When the opposing team made it anywhere near where Nicholas was……bam! It was gone up the sides, textbook style and back into the possession of Chudleigh’s players. Ethan was also doing a great job passing the ball to open players such as Anthony, Matthew and Madison.

Anthony played goal for the second half and once again showed his risk taking skills off by making those much needed saves. Ethan was passing the ball again to Madison and Matthew which resulted in another Chudlieghs goal!

When it was all said and done Chudliegh’s pulled off another win 3-1. What I, along with many of the parents on the side, found was they were playing positions, calling out “IM OPEN” and doing the big kick and runs like at practice to perfection.

They have gone from a group of kids wanting to play soccer and have now gelled into a soccer team. These kids are an amazing group and it also reflects on their parents as well. For my first year coaching (and its not over yet) I think we’ve done a great job and I really dont want the season to end.

Look whats coming now

Mike Cluett

Town council was told recently by the budget department of Milton that an 8 per cent increase in taxes for 2008 and a further increase of 5 per cent in 2009 will be needed in order to sustain existing service levels.

8 %? Thats not a small increase now is it? Back in 2007 taxes only went up a minimal 2% but that was just before a municipal election. We are now close to a year into the term and this comes up for discussion.

This would mean an approximate increase of $55 for residential taxpayers and $ 46 for rural taxpayers based on $300,000 value of the home. Thats just to keep things where they are now.

The town of Milton recently spent over a million dollars on new transit buses for the town. The question is do we really need them now. The quick answer is yes, but not right now. We could have maintained our transit system with the current buses acquired from the Town of Oakville.
Transit in this town is quite the issue. Some believe we need it and some say, why bother. The only hard part of this is finding out how much its being used. If it is, then it can be justified. If not (and I’m leaning towards the latter) then we can take some time, analyze ridership numbers and make those decisions later. BUT, its a done deal. Now if we didnt buy those buses, could they have come back with a smaller increase in taxes? Quite possible. But we’ll never know.

Over the course of the next few months there will be some public meetings on budget matters, and thats where Milton residents can have their say. Now, we get to see if pre-election promises match post-election actions.

In a statement I found most shocking, Councillor Jan Mowbray of ward 3 stated it would be a waste of time to ask town staff do a report for a zero increase budget. Doing what we can to save taxpayers dollars is never a “waste of time.” Thankfully her motion was defeated and town staff will look at what they can to reduce the impact.

What’s required of us? Communication. It may be summer and at this point dealing with summer vacations, soccer practices, barbq’s, and preparing our kids for school next year might be in the forefront of our minds, but we need to let our elected representatives know what you’re thinking. Phone, fax or email your councillors to let them know what priorities they should have. If the tax increases go through, we have no one to blame but ourselves.

In all reality, the tax increase might not be as high as 8 % because the town staff always asks for more and then its negotiated down to a more reasonable level. Thats just negotiations. But still, one year after a tax increase we’re hit with the possibility of even more money coming out of our pockets is hard to take.

I dont know about you but Im tired of being told its “ONLY going to be another X amount of dollars.” It seems we’re told that every time theres an increase. My response is, it its ONLY going to be that amount, then find the savings or stop spending money. This council has prided itself on being a pay as you go council. We’ll soon see.

Here is the link to the Champion story by Stephanie Hounsell.

Town’s taxes could jump up 8% in 2008

Budget process begins

Stephanie Hounsell
Published on Jul 20, 2007

Residents can expect to pay anywhere up to eight per cent more in taxes next year, and will now play the waiting game as the Town’s 2008 budget process begins.

A budget call report — which outlines what the anticipated tax increase will be for the next year and sets directions for staff in preparing the budget — went before council Monday night.

Town director of corporate services and treasurer Linda Leeds told council a 9.36 per cent tax hike would be necessary next year to maintain existing service levels as well as a five per cent increase in 2009.

But council directed staff to prepare packages showing what the operating budget would look like at a maximum of an eight per cent increase ($55.67 more for urban residents and $45.97 more for rural based on a $300,000 assessment), as well as with no tax increase, a three per cent tax hike ($20.88 more for urban residents and $17.24 more for rural) and a five per cent increase (urban, $34.79 and rural, $28.73).

To get down to a zero per cent increase, staff would have to look at reductions in various services, Leeds told council.

Amongst the items driving up the 2008 operating budget are staff wages, new debt payments, the cost of inflation and a decrease in funding from provincial grants.

Ward 3 councillor Jan Mowbray said it’s a waste of Town staff’s time to have to crunch the numbers for a zero per cent increase.

“It seems like it’s a ridiculous exercise to put staff through,” Mowbray said.

She put forward a motion to that effect, but it failed.

Council also approved a recommendation that the $738,000 funding received from the Region of Halton for 2007 GTA Pooling be included as a funding source in preparing the capital budget.

At this point, it’s expected budget packages will go out to the budget committee by November 26, and the committee will meet for deliberations December 11.

Final council approval of the budget could be given December 17.

Stephanie Hounsell can be reached at sthiessen@miltoncanadianchampion.com.

Team Chudlieghs Pull Off a Victory

Mike Cluett

As the dark clouds loomed overhead and the threat of more rain was seen on the horizon our team prepared for its game against Milton Chrysler at Kinsmen park.

Last weeks game was called off due to lightning and it looked like we might suffer the same result but the clouds began to break as the game started. Madison took to the net for one of her first times in goal and looked ready to go.

The game played on and as I was running up and down the field with our team barking out commands, I noticed our team was ready. Matthew was highlighting his skills making sure he kept the ball in the field and running quickly up the field. Nicholas and Ethan were great on defense and as the other team tried to make it towards our net, they quickly kicked the ball away and gave our team another chance.

Sunju showed grit as he made amazing improvements with running the ball and making sure he stayed open in front of the net. The goalie for Milton Chrysler (I didnt get her name off the game sheet) did an amazing job stopping hard shots from Katie, Nathan, Matthew and Sunju.

At half time we were only down by one goal and Madison made her way from the net up to the front. Anthony showed risk taking abilities in the second half by diving out into the crowd to get the ball. A few of his saves made some of the parents (including myself) gasp in the hope he didnt get hurt, but he made the key saves when they were needed.

Jordan and Madison did another great job on defense and kept our team in the game. Matthew scored a couple of quick goals on key passes from Ethan and Nicholas that was the deciding factor.

Both teams played a very spirited game and each time I called out and asked if they were having fun, both Milton Chrysler and Team Chudleighs screamed out “YAAAAAAAAA!”

As a coach, Im quite proud of the team. Not for the win, although it was a good game, but for the fact theyve learned and are now applying the things both Gary and I have taught them about positioning and passing the ball. They improve with every game and I feel guilty that Im probably having more fun then they are.

Milton Search

Mike Cluett

For those who are new to Milton, it can be a confusing place. There is a lot of construction going on, roads are closed at times and theres so much to learn about the town, you dont know where to begin. That’s all changed.

Back in June, at the 150th Anniversary Street Party in fact, there was a new website launched called http://www.miltonsearch.com/

If you need to find out something about the town, events that are happening soon, places to eat and things to do…its all here.

You can find pictures of events past, a listing of restaurants near you and fun things to do with the kids for the summer. Some of you are finding my blog through http://www.miltonsearch.com/ and I thank you for coming back.

I recommend you take a stroll through the website, send in some feedback and bookmark it as one of your favourites. Its a great source of information on Milton and news that affects us as well.