It's our money

Dec 13, 2007

The Near North District School Board is $187,000 richer this week after the Village of South River completed the purchase of the former-East Parry Sound District School Board’s head office.

This is good news for a school board that spends an awful lot of time searching through its balance sheets for efficiencies and ways to make their dollars go farther.

And while there may be a bit of rejoicing by trustees about the windfall after years of listing the property with no success, locals should be wondering where is the good news locally?

The trend in politics of apologizing and making right for past wrongs is something Near North trustees should also be thinking about as they take this cheque to the bank.

The building they have just disposed of should actually be the heart of its operation rather than the derelict school at the far end of North Bay that now houses administration.

The former-East Parry Sound office was purpose-built, in a central location, in good repair and more than adequate for the amalgamated board.

But, when the debate happened nearly a decade ago, North Bay city-centric heads prevailed and took the jobs to where they never belonged.

But there’s no use crying over spilled milk, just making sure the mess gets cleaned up and the milk is replaced.

So here’s a little reminder to the Near North trustees. That cheque you’re cashing belongs to us, East Parry Sound.

Our tax dollars built that office and our tax dollars bought that office. Our tax dollars should be used on us and not sucked up into the general revenues account in North Bay.

When that office was built, local property taxes were still the primary funding for school boards in this province, and the municipality that just purchased it gets most of its cash the same way.

It’s local money that should be spent locally.

Just a block away from the former board office is a public school that is currently being neglected by the school board. The board’s own numbers say that South River Public School has gone so long without repairs that it is approaching the stage where building a new school would be cheaper than fixing the existing one.

Or there is the new school that will serve all of the students in the jurisdiction of East Parry Sound. The $187,000 could easily be dropped into an investment to earn interest until construction on the school starts. Then it could be used for any number of things administrators say are on their wish list for the new high school but can’t afford.

But, if the money is dropped into the Near North’s general revenues and sucked up by the faulty provincial funding formula’s vacuum, there will be only one to describe it – misappropriation.

This is East Parry Sound’s cash, not the Near North’s. Spend it wisely. Spend it here.

R.L.