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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, January 3, 2013
Volume 29 No. 1
SOCCER - Pg. 17Soccer association looksto council for help GRANT - Pg. 20 Morris-Turnberry Councilhopeful for Bluevale grantYEAR IN REVIEW - Pg. 6‘The Citizen’ looks back on the year that wasPublications Mail Agreement No. 4005014 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Huron East Council is concerned
about the cut the municipality will
be taking as a result of reductions in
government funding over the next
four years.
Funding being handed out to the
municipality from the Ontario
Municipal Partnership Fund
(OMPF) is being cut by 5.5 per cent
in 2013, and that’s a trend that will
continue.
Clerk-Administrator Brad Knight
says the provincial government’s
goal is to reduce the amount of
funding by 20 per cent over the next
four years, so council can expect
similar decreases in 2014, 2015 and
2016.
MacLellan told councillors that
they will have to sit down and
hammer out a long-term plan on how
to offset the losses from the OMPF
funding.
MacLellan called it an
uncomfortable decision to make, but
he said council is going to have to
face some harsh realities in the
coming years.
“Either we raise taxes and keep
our current service levels, or we
make changes to service levels,”
MacLellan said. “Neither is a
comfortable suggestion.”
Knight says that he and Treasurer
Paula Michiels have already been
meeting with the municipality’s
department heads about making
“real changes” but he said the cut in
funding has really made things
difficult and that it’s only going to
get worse.
Councillor David Blaney said that
while the OMPF situation is
concerning, the discussion lends
itself to something much more
serious: the fact that Huron East
doesn’t plan far enough ahead.
“We do almost no forward
planning,” he said. “We need to be
looking five years down the road.
“We need to go through and bite
the bullet and decide where we want
to be five years from now. If not,
we’re going to be in deep, deep
trouble.”
Councillor Bob Fisher said he
wanted to make sure that the
residents of Huron East know that
funding being cut is out of the
municipality’s hands and that Huron
East, and a lot of other
municipalities, are between a rock
and a hard place on this issue.
“If we’re going to be losing
$130,000 a year for the next four
years, we need to be straight up with
[ratepayers],” he said.
MacLellan suggested that
Michiels return to council with a
report. He said she and Knight
should come up with some ideas as
to where the municipality can create
Councils for the Township of
North Huron and the Municipality
Morris-Turnberry are preparing to
meet in neutral territory in an
attempt to meet eye-to-eye on what
has proven to be an often
contentious fire-service agreement.
At Morris-Turnberry’s Dec. 18
session, clerk-administrator Nancy
Michie said her North Huron
counterpart, Gary Long, said North
Huron Council is ready to meet to
discuss a number of unresolved
matters, though the operation of the
Emergency Services Training Centre
is not on the table.
Deputy-Mayor Jason
Breckenridge was among the first to
suggest North Huron’s olive branch
did not extend quite far enough.
He also asked Michie to allow
councillors to review the meeting
agenda and its terms of reference in
advance of Morris-Turnberry’s next
council meeting on Jan. 8. While
North Huron did pitch two possible
meeting dates, Morris-Turnberry
Council agreed a Jan. 10 meeting
date seemed reasonable. Council
also agreed to meet at the Belgrave
Community Centre, and after some
discussion, to appointing a third
party facilitator to ensure order is
maintained.
Mayor Paul Gowing
acknowledged having some
misgivings about the necessity of
having an outside mediator on site.
“If it takes a third party chairperson,
great,” said Councillor Neil
Warwick, who says it will finally
give Morris-Turnberry Council a
chance to get all of the answers it
has been seeking.
As a result of ongoing conflicts
between the two municipalities, at
least a few councillors expressed
reluctance at cutting a $58,290.16
cheque to North Huron to cover the
operating costs of what is called
North Huron Recreation, including
the Blyth arena and Wescast centre.
Councillor Warwick was the first to
suggest council should first ask to
review North Huron’s figures for
recreation costs.
“I’d like to see solid figures,” he
said, recommending a denial of the
request pending further information,
and placing the requested amount
into reserves.
While the clerk-administrator
reported the amount requested was
already included in Morris-
Turnberry’s 2012 budget and
Library grant awarded
OMPF cuts concern Huron East Council
Councils
to meet
over fire
agreement
Representing their colour
Students at Hullett Central Public School were on their game on Thursday, Dec. 20 for the school’s annual Christmas concert.
Colour was the name of the game in the school’s younger classes, which applied what they had learned about colours to their
Christmas concert performance. Here, representing the red section are, from left, Mikayla Ansley, Hayden Lee and Jordan
Rutledge. (Shawn Loughlin photo)
By Cheryl Heath
Special to The Citizen
Continued on page 6
Late last year Huron East Council
got word that the Brussels Library
project was approved for a grant of
nearly $150,000 from the
Government of Canada.
In a letter to Clerk-Administrator
Brad Knight, Minister of State Gary
Goodyear informed Knight that the
project was approved for a grant of
$147,167 under the Community
Infrastructure Improvement Fund
(CIIF).
The municipality received word
on Dec. 7 and Knight presented
council with the good news at its
Dec. 18 meeting.
The library project was just
recently re-tendered and Knight said
a lot of interest was being shown in
the project.
He hopes the project will begin
this spring.
For more information on the CIIF
program, visit the government’s
website at http://www.
feddevontario.gc.ca.CIIF
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 18