EDITORIAL   Stop subsidizing On April 23, we reported that Hudson's Treehouse Childhood Centre, with a three to four-year waiting list, was petitioning the town for free land on which to build a second daycare. The town's response was to ask the daycare's administrators to table statistics on the number of Hudson kids attending. Council's argument: Hudson taxpayers are already subsidizing the daycare as a non-profit organization on leased land, so let's see to what degree Hudson benefits. The numbers are out and they're liable to trigger a storm of protest: Fewer than half the kids enrolled at Treehouse are from Hudson, 48 percent to be exact. 32 percent are from St. Lazare, while the remaining 20 percent are from Vaudreuil-Dorion and Rigaud (10 percent each.) Hudson and St. Lazare families each represent 39 percent of the waiting list, with the remainder from the surrounding municipalities. Mayor Elizabeth Corker didn't mince words at Monday's May council meeting, suggesting that families on the waiting list approach the Town of St. Lazare with a request to donate land to a not-for-profit daycare. Some of the people we've spoken to said Hudson's attitude is unfair. They don't feel it should matter where the families are from if they need $7-a-day daycare. They point out that enrolment changes constantly, and they're right ­ just a year ago, more than half of the kids at Treehouse were from Hudson. We disagree. The Town of Hudson shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing daycare for residents of other municipalities, any more than Hudson ratepayers should be subsidizing shuttlebus service for St. Lazare residents. If St. Lazare residents seek subsidized daycare, let them petition their council for the free land. There's plenty available next to the Sportsplex and Forest Hill. Ditto for the residents of Rigaud and Vaudreuil-Dorion. A final shot: there's no law against a private for-profit daycare locating in Hudson, or anywhere else, for those who can afford it. The fastest way to solve the shortage of $7-a-day spaces is to scrap the current first-come-first-served system in favour of a needs-and-means test with preference given to residents.   Web transparency What does a town website require to be a valuable resource? Don't give us user-friendly, a tired cliché that means absolutely nothing. Spare us the sanctimonious bilge about making the process of municipal government more transparent if the site doesn't do precisely that. The pretty pictures and warm words of welcome are nice, but that's not why people consult a municipal website. Sure, ratepayers want to know basic information, such as when and how to water, which way to turn their garbage bins and when town hall is open and closed. But they also want to know what the noise and nuisance bylaws say so they can determine whether they have grounds to pick up the phone to complain. They want to be able to consult architectural, planning and zoning bylaws ­ especially those that might threaten their acquired rights. They want access to the minutes of past council meetings and the deliberations of consultative bodies such as the Town Planning Advisory Committee, Environmental Committee and any other organism that meets behind closed doors to discuss public business. Municipal government is far from transparent, even for those who attend the monthly council meetings. Bylaw tablings, zoning changes and planning revisions are hostile territory to most residents; in our view, it's the responsibility of our cities and towns to make the process as transparent as humanly possible by posting the information people want, when they want it. We don't need bells and whistles on our municipal websites; we need the straight goods.