HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2012-09-27, Page 11THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012. PAGE 11. Central Huron supports reduction in council sizeAfter refusing to provide an
answer on the composition of Huron
County Council until after the Sept.
5 public meeting, Central Huron
Council has decided to support the
recommended stance, and a
reduction to 15 councillors.
In a recorded vote, every member
of Central Huron Council voted in
favour of the county
recommendation except for
Councillor Brian Barnim, who had
been outspoken against it at the Sept.
5 meeting. The recommendation
would reduce council’s current
composition of 16 members it to 15,
with Bluewater losing a
representative at the time of the 2014
election.
Barnim, who made a presentation
to Huron County Council at the
Sept. 5 meeting, told Central Huron
councillors at their Sept. 10 meeting
that he supported a 15-member
council at the county level, but he
disagreed with how the county
suggested that representatives be
elected.
“I do not have an issue with the
15,” Barnim said. “I still think the
second representative should be
elected at large.”
Barnim stated that he felt every
municipality should be obligated to
send its mayor (or reeve) to HuronCounty Council. Beyond that,however, he said municipalitiesallowed a second representative, of
which there are six, should have that
second representative elected at
large.
The second representative
wouldn’t be a member of the
municipality’s lower-tier council,
Barnim said, in order to bring a
different point of view than council’s
to the Huron County table.
Barnim told councillors that there
were no presentations made to
Huron County Council at the Sept. 5
meeting in favour of the change, but
five presentations against the change
and supporting his concept.
Barnim told his fellow Central
Huron councillors that they should
vote the way “the people” want them
to vote.
“Should we do the will of what we
want or what the public spoke to?”
Barnim questioned.
Barnim said the “change”
proposed by the county is not
enough of a change, which Mayor
Jim Ginn agreed with.
“I’m not sure the appetite is quite
there for change,” Ginn said. He
added that he wasn’t sure what the
correct amount of councillors was,
but that he felt the move from 16 to
15 was the right one.
Barnim said he was frustrated after
his presentation to Huron CountyCouncil, saying they didn’t listen tohis presentation and that there wasno debate on it after the fact.
Both of Central Huron’s
representatives at Huron County
Council, Ginn and Deputy-Mayor
Dave Jewitt disagreed, saying they
felt council listened to what Barnim
had to say.
“Just because they don’t agree
with you doesn’t mean they’re notlistening,” Jewitt told Barnim. “Theydid listen, they just made a differentdecision.”
Jewitt also disagreed with Barnim
over the number of people who were
against the change, saying that the
presentations council received were
largely from people who felt
“disenfranchised” from the entire
political system, not necessarily the
recommendation that was up fordebate.The vote then passed with Barnimvoting against it and Ginn, Jewitt
and the remaining five councillors
voting in favour of it. Central
Huron’s decision will now be passed
along to Huron County where it will
be considered as part of the potential
triple majority.
By Shawn LoughlinThe Citizen
Burgers and dogs
At the grand opening of Huron Country Hardware in Brussels on Sept. 22, the task of feeding
shoppers at the new store fell to 4-H volunteers like, from left, Allison Stevenson, Holly
Holyoake and Alycia Coultes. (Denny Scott photo)
ATV crash takes life
On Monday at approximately 4:30
p.m. Huron County OPP officers,
Huron County paramedics and
Seaforth Fire Department members
responded to an all terrain vehicle
(ATV) collision on Hannah Line
between Centennial Road and Tile
Road.
Initial investigation revealed the
driver of an Arctic Cat ATV was
travelling north on Hannah Line
when the machine left the roadway
and overturned in the deep ditch on
the east side.
The driver, Matthew Carnochan,
25, of Huron East was pronounced
dead at the scene.
Members from the OPP Technical
Traffic Collision Investigation team
attended the scene to assist with the
investigation. At this point the
investigation is in its early stages
and the cause is undetermined. A
post-mortem examination will be
completed.
Any person with information
regarding this collision should
immediately contact the Huron
OPP at 1-888-310-1122 or 519-524-
8314.
ACW debates agricultural inclusion in burn bylaw
A potential burning bylaw was
met with some skepticism from
councillors at Ashfield-Colborne-
Wawanosh Township Council
meeting on Sept. 18.
The bylaw, which has been crafted
by bylaw enforcement officer Kris
Brockelbank and council, as well as
concerned citizens, is now in the
hands of councillors to edit as they
felt that it wasn’t fair or a good use
of Brockelbank’s time to continue
modifying it.
“It’s really unfair for council to
put you through this,” Councillor
Roger Watt said to Brockelbank.
“We should take control of this and
hammer it out ourselves.”
Reeve Ben Van Diepenbeek
responded to councillors who felt
the bylaw was overly wordy and
possibly problematic in the
agriculturally-dominant
municipality by stating that the
bylaw needs to exist if burning is to
be controlled.
“If you want people to have all the
freedoms of burning what they want
when they want, we need to forget
about the bylaw,” he said. “However,
if you want our bylaw officer to
enforce rules about burning, he
needs an enforceable bylaw. It’s
whatever council wishes, but it can’t
go both ways.”
Councillors were concerned with
the fact that the bylaw could tie the
hands of farmers and agricultural
landowners, but Brockelbank said he
wouldn’t change the bylaw to the
point where it would cause unsafe
situations. He said that, by not
having a bylaw, the municipality
could be held liable in emergency
circumstances.
Agricultural properties are held to
all the same standards as urban
properties in the bylaw, except they
can burn yard-waste and non-
hazardous materials on their
property. The purpose of the bylaw
was originally to prevent people in
villages and hamlets in the
municipality from burning leaves on
their property.
Beyond that, agriculture lands and
urban ones follow the same rules
regarding burning things like tires
and controlled substances.
“Basically, you can burn things
without notification on a farm,” he
said. “You just can’t do it beside a
building, under electrical wires or
beside a bush. I would hope that
farmers wouldn’t do that anyway.”
Many of the rules, like burning
plastic and other recyclables, fell
under the same hope; that farmers
wouldn’t burn things that they could
have hauled away for free or
accepted a the landfill for
free like tires, baler twine and
plastics.
“I doubt farmers would burn
things like that but, if we don’t have
a regulation saying they can’t do it,
if it does happen, I won’t be able to
stop them,” Brockelbank said.
The bylaw was deferred to a later
date, but, by the end of the
discussion, it was mentioned that
there isn’t really any issue with the
bylaw because, once implemented, it
can always be changed. Brockelbank
also stated that the bylaw isn’t going
to change how he handles his job.
“I’m not typically here, driving
around the sideroads looking for
people breaking the rules,” he said.
“I only respond to complaints for the
bylaws. It’s going to be a neighbour
seeing something or someone
driving by. It’s not like we’re making
the bylaw so I can try and catch
people, it’s still complaint-driven.”
Van Diepenbeek compared the
issue to people having campfires on
the beach, stating that the Ministry
of Natural Resources doesn’t allow
or doesn’t want to see them, but they
don’t actively police it unless they
are called in to act on the issue.
The bylaw will be brought back
after modifications by council to the
next meeting on Oct. 2.
Continued from page 1
grounds as well as she could have if
she wasn’t with child, but that’s
where the dedicated group of
volunteers came in.
“It was a great two days,” she
said. “The volunteers all just make
my job so much easier. It’s
so great to have such a
good group of volunteers behind
me.”
She said that fair wouldn’t be able
to survive without their hard work
and enthusiasm and they’re already
looking ahead to next year’s 152nd
annual fair.
Building on this year’s “Home
Grown” theme, next year’s theme
will be “Corn, Wheat and Beans:
Headed into the Teens”.
Volunteers helped to
make fall fair a success
Firefighter’s breakfast
North Woods Elementary School, Ethel, held a firefighters’
breakfast on Sunday, Sept. 23 with the help of the Grey Fire
Department. (Denny Scott photo)