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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2016-01-14, Page 1INSIDE THIS WEEK: SPORTS - Pg. 8 Brussels in the hunt for Hockeyville nomination BABIES - Pg. 10 The Citizen' celebrates new faces in 2015 Youm - Pg. 19 Walton youth nominated for Rural Youth award Publications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON NOG 1H0 4Citiz Volume 32 No. 2 n $1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, January 14, 2016 Blyth serves as stage for FauxPop project s,,504 4 unliw, 14 job gelb. id 044 e • s •uSimp; By Denny Scott The Citizen A commercial being filmed on Queen Street closed down the main thoroughfare in Blyth last Thursday, however the reasoning behind it may have been erroneously reported to North Huron Council. The commercial was shot by FauxPop Media of Goderich and starred L'Oreal, a cow from the farm of Glen and Sheila Burgess south of Formosa. In a story in last week's issue of The Citizen, it was reported that the closure was due to a commercial being shot that was for and with the blessing of main street businesses, however it turns out that information was not accurate. Local businesses hadn't been contacted until they had been made aware of the commercial through local media outlets. Barricades were set up at Westmoreland and King streets on Queen Street that blocked all through -traffic, though local traffic was permitted to pass. An e-mail from FauxPop Media, the production company responsible for the commercial, explained that only parts of the road would be completely closed off, and from approximately 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Queen Street between Dinsley and Drummond Streets was closed for filming During the BIA Jan. 6 meeting, Chair Rick Elliott explained that he was surprised by the announcement because he hadn't anticipated the closure would happen. Elliott had been called by Randall Lobb of FauxPop Media on New Years Day and asked what was required for the closure. Elliott said he was called due to his his Not working for peanuts L'Oreal, the bovine star of a commercial shot on Blyth's main street last Thursday, put in some long hours making sure that her essence was captured just so by Goderich-based production company FauxPop Media. The cow, owned and handled by Glen Burgess, right, was shot on Queen Street between Dinsley and Drummond Streets from approximately 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Randall Lobb of FauxPop Media is shown giving the star some tips on her walk down main street. (Denny Scott photo) experience with events such as the Blyth Arts and Cultural Initiative 14/19 Inc.'s Fare on 4 dinner and the BIA's annual Streetfest event, both of which required street closures. "I would have thought it wouldn't have happened in the time period that was presented," he said at the meeting. Councillor Bill Knott, North Huron's representative on the BIA, explained that township staff had wanted to contact the BIA regarding the closure, however by the time the Jan. 4 meeting during which the closure was approved was finished, there wasn't enough time prior to the closure being announced by media outlets on Jan. 5. Elliott reported the production company FauxPop Media wanted businesses to remain open, wanted cars in the street and wanted people in the street for the commercial, however they wanted to control the amount of traffic, requiring the closure. Knott said the situation is indicative of why North Huron Council is in the process of creating policies and procedures to deal with issues such as road closures so that there are instructions for people to be contacted prior to closures like this happening again. Despite some concerns aired at North Huron Township's Jan. 4 meeting regarding how the closure would affect local businesses, the closure did happen, and helped FauxPop Media get the commercial footage shot successfully. "The ad couldn't have gone any better," Lobb said in an e-mail to The Citizen. "L'Oreal was a super star. She performed at a level that blew us away" County OMPF timeline debated ahead of research By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Huron County is busy working on the optimal timeline to state its case against the reduction in Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund (OMPF) provincial funding. After years of drastic cuts numbering in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for both the county and many of its lower -tier municipalities, council has directed staff to engage an expert in the field to make the case that rural municipalities, on the whole, are not better off now than they were prior to amalgamation in 2001. This comes after a statement was made by the Minister of Finance that between uploading and downloading and OMPF funding, lower -tier municipalities and rural counties are now receiving more funding from the province than they were before amalgamation. Representatives from several lower -tier municipalities, as well as from the county, have refuted that statement and, at the county level, an expert has been hired to prepare a detailed comparison proving their case. The plan, according to Huron County Treasurer Michael Blumhagen at Huron County Council's Jan. 6 meeting, was to complete the study within a couple of months and to present the findings to the Minister at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) and Ontario Good Roads Association (OGRA) conference, which is scheduled for late February in Toronto. A number of factors, Blumhagen says, have complicated this timeline. First, the expert hired doesn't think the kind of in-depth analysis necessary will be completed by then and second, Blumhagen doesn't feel that one 15 -minute delegation window will give the county enough time to present the findings and make its case, while keeping enough time for a question -and -answer period as well. Blumhagen suggested that the county, therefore, pull its request for a delegation at the ROMA/OGRA conference and instead schedule the delegation for the Associated Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference, scheduled for August in in Windsor. While that timeline was more appealing for research and study purposes, several councillors felt that the issue had surpassed the "delegation" level and warranted a sit-down discussion with the Minister away from the delegation setting, which, as many Huron County staff members stated, can be Continued on page 15 Businesses lobby for road fix By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen A number of businesses that occupy the Brussels Industrial Park have significant concerns over the future of George Street and Industrial Road near the park. A petition signed by representatives of 10 businesses was presented to Huron East Council at its Jan. 5 meeting, outlining a number of concerns. "We, the undersigned businesses of the Brussels Industrial Park, have a great concern over the future of George Street and Industrial Road in the Village of Brussels," the petition begins. "It continually falls into many, many ruts and potholes and at times only gets graded after verbal requests from any of us. Please make this a priority budget item for 2016 to go ahead with a thick, hard surface." The petition is signed by businesses such as Huron Feeding Systems, Kurtis Smith Excavating, Kraemer Concrete, the Brussels Agromart, the Hensall District Co- operative, Radar Auto Parts, Pennington Heating and Cooling, among others. Council received the correspondence and referred the request to the municipality's budget deliberations, which are set to begin later this year with a number of projects on the table.