Town Buys MS-B Lands from Halton District School Board

Ten years ago there was a recommendation by the Halton District School Board to sell off 2 acres of land at the amalgamated McKenzie Smith Bennett School in Acton. There was a ground swell of opposition from the the Town of Acton. One of the main reasons was back in the 1950's the old Town of Acton bought two farm properties to build the school and add additional play fields. This was forward thinking. This remained into the Town's hand until the 1970 when the school boards became Halton County School board and later with Regional Government in 1974 in became Halton District School Board. The rallying cry 10 years ago was " we paid for once why would we buy it again." There were over 2500 names on a petition and three school buses pleaded to the board to change the vote. Board Chair Ethel Gardner was terrific and fought to keep this land out of developers hands.

Now 10 years later the board bureaucrats once again decided to deem 2.62 acres of land surplus. This again struck another raw nerve to the citizens of Acton. I was part of the first fight as a Regional Councillor and now I am Mayor. Myself, Regional councillor Clark Somerville and Board staffer Gerry Cullen are the only ones left from the fight of 10 years ago.

The board hid behind the Minister of Education Kathleen Wynne saying she forced them to sell. BS. I spoke to the Minister myself and she assured me there was no directive to sell this land. Melissa Secord and many parents rallied and collected an unbelievable 5000 names on a petition to oppose the public sale of these lands. Why is it so important. You see Acton is green belted so there is no expansion of the Acton urban boundary there fore if we lose the lands we will not be able to replace the three soccer fields and the baseball diamond. We were in a fix.

I can honestly say the trustees from south of Halton Hills were not of any help. I made a delegation with Melissa Secord of the MS-B parent council and Ian Watson of the Acton Villa Soccer association to present various community arguments why these lands should not be sold. It fell on deaf ears. The board was hell bent on selling these lands even though the lands will not see any servicing for years to come. Unfortunately a developer would only be too pleased to purchase the land and sit on it for five years or so and when service come on board they will build houses on it.

This past Monday night, Town of Halton Hills Council, approved purchasing the land plus licensed 5 additional acres of land for 21 years to make sure that the board doesn't come back in 5 years to sell off another portion of the land.

The cost of this land acquisition is $1,308,000. plus an additional $15,000. for maintenance on the additional licensed lands. That is over a million dollars that we didn't budget for and we really can't afford. However, we couldn't afford to see house built on our playgrounds knowing we can never get them back.

Our Town council came through. This is most unfortunate, however, that the School Board put the Town in a position where it had to spend money it really did not have in order to save the School board from themselves.

Council Jon Hurst said "We feel betrayed by the Halton Board. We had no choice but to buy it back as developers would have purchased the land and turned our kids soccer fields into houses." Councillor Mike O'Leary stated, "This should have never been necessary. This is shameful" and Regional Councillor Clark Somerville commented "While I am also disappointed in the actions of the School Board declaring this land surplus I am happy the Town readjusted it's priorities to allow for the Town to purchase these lands.....It is embarrassing that the Board hid behind the skirt of then Education Minister Wynne to help justify what they did."

The Halton District School Board indeed failed the people of Acton, a small, Town of 10,000 people within Halton Hills.

There are now 5 trustees wanting to be elected to Halton Region. There is now a new Superintendent of the School board. Maybe after the election we can see better relations developing. Ethel Gardner unfortunately passed away about 4 years ago. I knew her personally and I know she to would have been very disappointed with this school board. Let's hope the new school board will not be deeming any more land surplus whether in Georgetown or anywhere else within Halton Hills. I can assure you if this land was in Georgetown the Town would have purchased it as well as we cannot afford to lose soccer and play fields. Even though the Town has purchased these lands one has to remember there is only one tax payer.