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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, April 14, 2011
Volume 27 No. 15
ELECTION - Pg. 23Federation of Agricultureholds all-candidates meeting FESTIVAL - Pg. 31 Festival acknowledges its volunteersCARCARE- Pg. 13Ready your set of wheelsfor the spring and summerPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Breakfast to benefit
firefighters’ families
The referendum on REACH
County levy rises
by 2.74 per cent
I can’t hear you!
Mrs. Middleton’s, left, Grade 3/4 class from Blyth Public School was one of several local
classes who enjoyed the Knights of Valour jousting tournament and medieval show put on at
the Regional Equine and Agricultural Centre of Huron (REACH) on Friday, April 8. Pictured,
from left, are Lucas Townsend, Michael Haskins and Ben Kolkman, all shouting themselves
hoarse to cheer on the warrior for their section: Sir Kenneth. The Knights of Valour company
put on three shows, one for students earlier and two nearly-sold out shows, one in the
afternoon and one in the evening. (Denny Scott photo)
A firefighters’ breakfast has been
organized for April 16 at the Old 86
Farmers’ Market just west of
Molesworth on Hwy. 86.
Breakfast will be served upon
donation, with donations being
collected for the families of Kenneth
Rea and Raymond Walter, the two
Listowel firefighters who died in a
fire late last month.
The breakfast will run from 7 a.m.
to 1 p.m. at the market and it will be
held rain or shine.
Firefighters from the Brussels and
Grey Fire Departments will be
donating their time to cook at the
breakfast. To raise additional funds
for the families, a prize table will be
included that will be filled with
items donated by local supporters.
Draws for the prizes will take place
later that afternoon and winners will
be subsequently contacted.
For more information on the
breakfast, to donate, or to donate an
item for the prize table, call
organizers Dave and Karen Smith at
home at 519-440-8124 or at the Old
86 Farmers’ Market at 519-291-
4643.
Prizes, items, services or time
have been donated by the Brussels
Fire Department, the Grey Fire
Department, Green’s Meat Market,
Burke’s Tent Rentals, Glenn Farms,
Grey Ridge Eggs, Hortons Dairy,
CKNX Wingham, The Wingham
Advance-Times, C&P Portables and
the Old 86 Farmers’ Market.
Raymond Walter, 30 and Kenneth
Rea, 56, died when the roof of a
Listowel business collapsed on
them. The two firefighters were part
of a three-man team sent into the
burning building to search for
victims.
After word had circulated that
several Central Huron residents
planned to protest the municipality’s
continued funding of the Regional
Equine and Agricultural Centre of
Huron (REACH), the centre’s
supporters were out in full force at
the April 6 budget meeting.
The meeting, which was held at
REACH, was meant to be a special
council meeting to present the draft
2011 budget to the public for the
first time. By the time the meeting
began at 7 p.m., however, it was
clear that the meeting was a
referendum on REACH and its place
in the Central Huron community.
While no changes were made to
the draft budget, further discussion
took place prior to the budget being
officially adopted on April 11.
The actual amount to be donated
to REACH this year by council had
yet to be determined, as Reeve Jim
Ginn said, that subsequent to the
budget being passed, further
discussion with the REACH board
of directors would take place.
After contributing over $580,000
in 2010, the 2011 donation was
being considered at a much lower
amount. Discussion of lowering the
amount (which has yet to be
finalized) even further in order to
reappropriate $120,000 to the
Telephone Road paving project had
been discussed at length by council,
as councillors were having a tough
time finding where else those funds
could come from. At the March 31
Committee of the Whole meeting,
the Telephone Road project was
included as a contingency, meaning
that while dollars in the budget
weren’t officially allocated to the
project, should funds become
available, it would be documented
that they would go towards the
Telephone Road project.
After word had circulated that
dozens of residents were planning
on protesting the contribution to
REACH in 2011, some supporters
got the notion that REACH was
being considered for closure,
something that several councillors
put to rest early in the meeting.
“I don’t think closing down
REACH is an option that anyone is
looking at seriously,” said Ginn. “We
didn’t open it to close it two years
later.”
Councillor Brian Barnim
seconded Ginn’s comments, saying
that closing REACH hadn’t crossed
his mind, but that, to be fair, there
were some things that concerned
him, including the discrepancies
between where REACH currently
stands and the original business plan
council was presented with several
years ago.
Barnim said that plan and the
current reality of the REACH
situation didn’t match, so council
has just been looking for answers
and a way to keep the centre open
while remaining fiscally responsible
to all of Central Huron’s ratepayers.
“I don’t want to close REACH,”
Barnim said. “We need to figure out
how to pay for it and keep it going.”
Prior to welcoming public input,
Councillor Burk Metzger presented
some numbers that he had broken
down. As a council representative on
the REACH board of directors,
Metzger said his breakdown was a
sober and realistic presentation of
After an unexpected revenue of
over $350,000, Huron County
Council reduced its proposed tax
levy increase just over one per cent
to sit at a 2.74 per cent tax increase
for the 2011 budget.
The budget was approved at the
April 6 meeting of council at a total
tax levy of $33,885,545, but not
without some discussion by
councillors who wanted to see the
tax increase dip even lower.
The initial tax rate increase that
was proposed was just over 3.8 per
cent, but was reduced due to
unexpected revenue of $154,300 in
Ontario Municipal Partnership Fund
(OMPF) money from 2009 and
$202,464 for additional EMS
funding. These funds were placed
into the budget as general revenue in
order to drive the tax rate down.
Despite the decrease, some
councillors felt the increase was still
too high, including several members
of Goderich Town Council and Paul
Klopp of Bluewater.
A letter from Goderich Council,
which was spoken to by Deputy-
Mayor John Grace (as Mayor Deb
Shewfelt was chairing the meeting
due to the absence of Warden Neil
Vincent), stated that lower-tier
councils work exceptionally hard to
drive their tax rates down, only to be
faced with an increase at the Huron
County level.
Grace said that Goderich
councillors worked diligently to
present ratepayers with no tax
increase this year, only to be
presented with a nearly-four-per-
cent increase at the county level. The
rate was reduced by the new
funding, but Grace said that he felt
part of the 2010 surplus ($350,000
that was placed in the Levy
Stabilization Fund) should be put
back into general revenue in order to
bring the tax rate under two per cent.
Grace said a tax rate increase of
two per cent would be acceptable
and that if there was a surplus of
taxpayer dollars that the benefits of
that surplus should be passed back
to the very taxpayers it came from in
the first place.
Bluewater Councillor Tyler Hessel
echoed Grace’s statements, saying
that at the municipal level, if a
ratepayer was to give him $10 and
there was change, he wouldn’t
pocket the change. He admitted that
the analogy was simple, but that if
there was $350,000 of taxpayer
surplus, that money should be given
back to the taxpayers in the form of
general revenue to drive the 2011 tax
rate increase down.
There were concerns from several
councillors in reducing the tax levy
any further because of the long-term
repercussions that could happen.
Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh
Reeve Ben Van Diepenbeek said that
a small increase looks good on
paper, but that long-term, it could be
even worse for the county.
Van Diepenbeek cited examples
from the 1990s where Huron
County Council didn’t raise the
taxes for five straight years. It was
then, however, that the county was
faced with high double-digit tax
increases for three straight years due
to excessive downloading of
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 12By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 12