The time is now for voters to pay attention and ask questions
By: DANIEL MEYER - WIN Columnist
It’s time to take notice.
If you’re a resident, particularly a taxpayer who owns a home in the Southtowns, you have an obligation to pay attention to what is happening with the proposed budgets for the Hamburg, Frontier, Eden, Lake Shore and North Collins school districts.
By pay attention we mean educate yourself on what will be on the ballot, who is running for seats on the school board and how the district’s overall approach to their day-to-day finances impacts your bottom line as a property owner.
In less than two weeks voters will be heading to the polls to vote on the proposed spending plans for the upcoming school year and also elect individuals to represent them as members of their district’s board of education.
Please take the time to educate yourself on what will be on the ballot. Pay attention. Ask questions.
In addition, read news articles, editorials and letters to the editor printed in The Sun, The Buffalo News and other publications. Glance at the information related to the budget in your district’s monthly newsletter and find out what was stated at the public hearing on your district’s proposed budget.
Find out who is running for the school board, how many people will be elected and what each of the candidates stances are on the issues that will directly impact our children and the educational experience that is provided to them 180 days a year.
Pay attention. Ask questions. Form opinions. Know the important issues. Be informed.
• Town of Hamburg/Erie County Water Authority agreement — Representatives from Hamburg Town Hall and the ECWA inked a deal late last month that will allow the Water Authority to take over the town’s water system,
Plenty of credit deserves to be passed around for ensuring the pact was signed. Town Supervisor Steven Walters, his colleagues on the Town Board and employees from the town’s Engineering Department worked closely with the ECWA to hammer out the details, with Erie County Legislators Dan Kozub and Bob Reynolds also providing assistance with fine tuning a deal that will see the town’s water system and all of the responsibilities that come with any type of future infrastructure improvements be turned over to the ECWA.
We’re pleased Hamburg made talk of consolidation become reality. We are hopeful the Water Authority’s eventual management of the water system in the Town of Evans and their increased involvement with the Town of Eden comes to fruition.
The end result will be cooperative and cost-efficent actions that taxpayers can ultimately benefit from.
• Potential privatization of public properties in Hamburg — While we always support any type of discussion of ways to improve the way services are offered to the public, we do caution those handling the nitty gritty details of preliminary talks involving recreation facilities in the Town of Hamburg to proceed very carefully.
More information will soon be made public, but talk of changes at the town’s ice arena based in the former “Nike Base” on Lakeview Road and very informal discussions about the possibile privatization of the town’s 18-hole golf course on Boston State Road is circulating inside the walls of Hamburg Town Hall. A proposal to provide more recreational opportunities to figure skaters, hockey players and other lovers of ice skating sounds intriguing but everyone involved must remember that once a public entity becomes private there is no turning back.
Same goes with the golf course. Recent talk of the cost effectiveness of municipal golf courses throughout Western New York has some wondering in Hamburg if we, as taxpayers, are getting the most “bang for our buck.”
Financial figures shared at a recent Town Board meeting seem to show the golf course is doing well, with a record for revenues collected during the month of April.
We encourage the dialogue to continue and hope no personal political agendas influence decisions.
(Respond to this editorial. Send an e-mail to: meyerdan@thesunnews.net or call 649-4040, ext. 255.)
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