Island Dispatch, 1998-03-06

              Island Dispatch  Marcf? 6, 7998 20 Pages ■jbT aAs the voice of Girand  650 Monday- Nite Madness LARGE CHEESE PIZZA J. 05 Official Newspaper for the Town of Grand Island & the Grand Island School District (716) 773-7676 Vol. 54•N0. 46 HAVING A BALL - These members of the Grand Island Ambush youth soccer team (above) and their parents are shown enjoying the Blizzard game despite the home team's poor showing. Island youth players (right) in uniform got to march on the field in front of a crowd of more than 10,000 fans at Marine Midland Arena before the game as part of this year's Salute to Soccer. The Blizzard dropped a 21-11 decision to Harrisburg. Story on page 15. (by Gregg Schnitzer) Town OKs rezoning for Fujisawa expansion by Christopher Caile On Monday night the Grand Island town board unanimously approved rezoning of three parcels of land to allow Fujisawa to expand its operations on Staley Road. Included is 12.8 acres of land adjacent to Fujisawa's present location that would be rezoned from residential Rl-A to M-l light industrial as well as rezoning another area back to residential. A wooded and wetlands buffer would also be created at the back of the property. Approval allows Fujisawa to build an administration building on the site. The town board approved use of a temporary trailer on the site during construction of the building. A new manufacturing building is also a possible additional expansion. But, Fujisawa's Director of Operations Scott Aladeen said previously that currently their building plans are limited to only an administration building. After the town board vote Councilman Mike Heftka said he had voted for the rezoning only after Fujisawa had agreed to build a buffer between its property and property to the east, to undertake an acoustical study as well as to try to minimize noise and to cooperate with the town to develop a plan to deal with traffic problems on Staley Road. They also said they would abide by wetland mitigation. Earlier the Planning Board had recommended the rezoning to the town board with similar conditions with the extra proviso that the 1994 Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Map be amended to allow rezoning. Legal council, however, later informed the town that amendment of the Comprehensive plan was not needed. However, at the end of the meeting Planning Board Chairman Tom Nowak told the board that in the past the Planning Board recommendations had always been read to the public during town meetings which had not been done and that it had been the board's recommendation that the Comprehensive Plan be amended before rezoning was approved. The town board also referred to the Planning Board a request from American Pharmaceuticals Partners (APP) to exempt them from the formal subdivision approval process in order to acquire land on the north side of Fujisawa and land on the south side of Staley from Life Technologies. APP is currently negotiating purchase of a Fujisawa production business and related buildings. If sold they would remain producing the same products and have the same employees. In similar fashion before Fujisawa, its plant and business had previously been owned by Lyphomed, and before that Invenix. Americans for Fair Taxation Launch Buffalo Chapter A non-partisan, grassroots organization called Americans For Fair Taxation (AFT) is proposing to eliminate the current federal income tax system. In its place, AFT proposes The Fair Tax, a national sales tax on all goods and services collected only once at the point of final purchase. AFT spokesman Jerry Reiter, Grand Island resident and insurance representative said on Thursday at a press conference in Buffalo that The Fair Tax will eliminate the federal income tax on both individuals and corporations. It will also eliminate the capital gains tax, the estate tax, the gift tax, as well as all federal payroll taxes. The government would still be fully funded at its current level, thus making the proposal revenue neutral. The Fair Tax will eliminate all taxes on the production of American workers. Under The Fair Tax, individuals and not the government would decide when and how much to pay in federal taxes by deciding which and how much to spend on consumption. The Fair Tax was not designed by politicians; it was designed by the American taxpayer. Two yeas and $4 million of extensive market and economic research have gone into this effort. The Fair Tax will: repeal the federal income tax, repeal all payroll taxes including Social Security and Medicare taxes; repeal corporate and self-employment taxes; repeal all estate, gift and capital gains taxes; repeal the 16th amendment to the Constitution, so that taxation of income will become unconstitutional; provide a universal rebate equal to the sales tax paid on essential goods and services to ensure that no American pays taxes on necessities; impose a 23 percent tax inclusive rate on the purchase of new goods and services in the U.S.; dramatically lower tax rates for low and middle-income Americans and allow families to save more for home-ownership, education and retirement "With the passage of The Fan- Tax, every individual in America can forget about filing tax returns, audits and the whole IRS mess! And, the poor will not pay one dime in federal taxes," says Reiter. Also present at the conference were spokespeople Andrew Reiter, Niagara Falls music publisher, and Mary Lou Voss, RN from Tonawanda. The Fair Tax will help lift the poor out of poverty and will help low and middle income Americans move up the income scale. Wage earners will keep their whole \ paychecks and bccatise of the I generous rebate system built into the Fair Tax, no American will pay taxes on the purchase of necessities. For more information, call 1 (888) STOP-1040 or 1 (800) FAIRTAX. The website address is www.fairtax.org. EXTRA, EXTRA - This Fairview Court resident is shown helping to raise money for Children's Hospital last Tuesday morning by hawking the "Kids Day" edition of the Buffalo News at the corner of Whitehaven and Baseline.