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Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, January 14, 2016
Blyth serves as stage for FauxPop project
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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.