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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, October 24, 2013
Volume 29 No. 42
SPECIAL - Pg. 13A fall home improvementguide from ‘The Citizen’MUNRO - Pg. 34 Central Huron to honourNobel Prize winnerSPORTS- Pg. 8Wingham Ironmen win apair on the road
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INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Huron East non-committal with coalition
A murder of clowns
Is there anything scarier in this world or the next than clowns?
These volunteers of the 11th annual Blyth Witches Walk
certainly didn’t think so. They joined monsters, werewolves,
vampires, skeletons, ghouls, goblins and other things
that go bump in the night for the annual event which raises
money for community betterment. ‘Attractions’ at the
Witches Walk included this group of clowns, a grizzly butcher
shop, an old witch and her werewolf and a haunted graveyard,
all followed by comparatively un-scary hot dogs at the end
of the walk. For a gallery of pictures from the walk, featuring a
number of different attractions, visit The Citizen’s website at
www.northhuron.on.ca (Denny Scott photo)
Animal
bylaw
rejected
Huron East Council is listening,
but not quite ready to commit to the
Municipal Coalition on Noise
Regulation.
After hearing a compelling case
for potential regulations that might
halt the erection of wind turbines in
rural areas from Warren Howard, a
councillor from North Perth, at an
earlier meeting, several Huron East
councillors asked Howard to speak
in Seaforth at their Oct. 15 meeting.
Howard confessed that he was not
an expert, but having attended a
number of wind turbine meetings, he
told councillors that he felt he had a
handle on the topic.
Before his presentation, Howard
said he was happy to return to Huron
East. Though he is a councillor in
North Perth, he told councillors he
was born in Brussels and felt a
connection to the municipality.
Howard prefaced his presentation
by telling councillors that the words
wind turbines rarely, if ever, appear
in his presentation. He said that it is
important not to focus on wind
turbines when attempting to create
bylaws. Specifically naming wind
turbines, he said, would contravene
the province’s Green Energy Act.
He first told council that the
Ministry of the Environment
supposes that a decibel level
between 41 and 51 is expected for
rural areas as a base level. He said
that wind turbines are expected to fit
within that sound landscape. A
regular night in a rural area,
however, is closer to 20 or 25
decibels, he said.
“The municipalities do have
power,” Howard told councillors,
“but we can’t do some things.”
He said some areas the
municipality is allowed to govern
are the health and safety of its
residents and public nuisance. If a
bylaw is arrived at in good faith, he
said, then it can be useful to the
municipality.
The aim of the group, Howard
said, was to create a “quiet nights”
noise level for rural areas of the
municipality. The bylaw could be
Morris-Turnberry Council
decided, after more than a year of
work, to go back to the drawing
board with its animal control bylaw.
The bylaw, which has been hotly
contested both at regular council
meetings over the last year and at a
special public meeting held last
week in Bluevale, would replace an
existing bylaw that didn’t address
the issues of exotic animals. The old
bylaw also used an outdated fee
structure that staff felt council
should update.
Council, however, voted down the
bylaw not once, but three times in
different iterations.
As per discussion at the public
meeting held in Bluevale, councillor
Jamie McCallum suggested two
additional dogs be allowed in both
urban and rural homes (bringing the
totals to four and five dogs,
respectively) solely for the purpose
of foster and rescue animals.
Jennifer Wick, a Bluevale
resident, spoke to council prior to
the vote on the issue and requested
one additional animal per
household, but McCallum decided
to go with four.
Unfortunately for Wick, council
didn’t see that as a logical
conclusion and eventually voted it
down.
Deputy-Reeve Jason Brecken-
ridge suggested a similar
amendment, but with one dog, and
council began debating how foster
animals would be handled.
Despite the fact that Wick
informed councillors any animal
would have to be registered by the
rescue organization to ensure they
could get the animal back if there
was ever any problems at the
house, they eventually decided
to try and pass a bylaw that
would see foster pet owners have to
register the animal in their own
name.
Council had a problem with
“ Every project that can bring people together,
and better the community is worth the effort
needed for success. That’s what this campaign
is all about, and why it is so important to get
involved. Honour our past, plan for our future.”
DAVID KELLY
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 9 Continued on page 7
By Denny Scott
The Citizen