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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-06-30, Page 6PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2011. Reader questions school’s name change Group takes on wind turbine opponents Flower project accepting donations THE EDITOR, Once again our Avon Maitland District School Board has come up with another absurd idea; change still being the name of the game. This one is to rename Grey Central Public School. Yes, you did vote to save our school from closure and we are grateful for that good decision, but why would you rename a school that continues to serve the same population it was created for in the first place nearly 50 years ago? Grey Central is a learning establishment that has served well the children and families of Grey Township (which by the way still exists as part of the Municipality of Huron East) and will continue to do so in the future. Some of the children coming from the Brussels area in the future live in the Grey area as well. The school has also established a well-known reputation for its extensive environmental “Learning Grounds” and is situated in the heart of Grey. A name change would undoubtedly create a lot of unnecessary administrative work as well as confusion, definitely showing a lack of respect for the residents of Grey and to what end? It seems these days the large bureaucracy tends to forget and sometimes ignore the grassroots people who actually live and learn in each individual area. We still would like to be recognized and not completely forgotten in this day and age when everything is going bigger but not necessarily better. The school board taking our Grade 7 and 8 students from us is also very disconcerting and unnecessary as well. (By the way, the Waterloo Board of Education is rethinking the whole idea of the Kindergarten to Grade 6 and Grades 7 and 8 segregation configuration which it has been practising in some of its schools in the past years. In its new proposals, it is going back to the Kindergarten to Grade 8 scenario). In this new era of the school board, it seems to think that dividing families in three directions and creating long bus rides is a good idea. Grade 8 students would be graduating from a school that is not really “their school” but merely a stopover between elementary and secondary schools. While it still has time, possibly it could take a glance into the future and not make this mistake as well. Note to the school board - please stand back and take a good, long, hard look at what you are doing to the communities you are supposed to be representing and serving. Maybe a little more communication with the “grassroots” would help? Joan Bateman. THE EDITOR, Stop and think! Wind turbines could create a tax revenue of nearly $3,500 per turbine, per year. There are 100 turbines sited for the combined projects of Summerhill and Twenty Two Degrees, meaning there will be $350,000 per year coming into our municipality from these turbines, not including fees for building permits. Also consider the amount that each farmer will receive individually. Everyone knows that if you give a farmer a dollar, he’ll spend two, putting more money into our local community. In this area we have experienced large industries closing down and moving away (such as Volvo and Wescast). People are left without jobs, striving to find ways to make ends meet to keep their home or family farm, to pay their bills and to keep their ever-rising taxes paid on time. Meanwhile these ever-rising taxes are supporting new fire halls, a new arena and the Regional Equine and Agricultural Centre of Huron (REACH) driving taxes through the roof. Some councillors are fighting a solution to their tax burden and depriving local residents of a much- needed source of income: wind turbines! Industry has developed in our area from the wind turbines and the turbines aren’t even in our local area yet. There is a company in Goderich called Composotech Structures which builds and repairs wind turbine blades. There will also be one preventative maintenance person per six turbines and in the winter there will be people employed to remove snow from the laneways for this preventative maintenance. Crane operators will be employed to remove and replace parts on wind turbines and the preventative maintenance vehicles will need service and repairs regularly. The benefits to the local economy just keep snowballing. What about while they are being constructed? There will be gravel truck drivers, hyhoe operators, cement truck companies, bulldozer operators and other local Ontario construction trades employed. We could make a list a page long. We need the jobs in our community. We need the tax dollars in our area. We need to stop driving wind turbine companies away. We need to support the development of wind farming in our area. Another common misconception is that wind power costs 80 cents per kilowatt, the same as solar. This is not true. Wind energy costs 13.5 cents per kilowatt and rooftop solar costs 80 cents per kilowatt. At prime peak time, we pay 9.9 cents per kilowatt. It seems funny that some of our municipal councillors are complaining about wind power prices at 13.5 cents per kilowatt while those same councillors have solar panels and are being paid 80 cents per kilowatt. How can they complain when they are profiting from the higher amount Makes you think, doesn’t it? Bob Watkins, Paul Gibbings, Kevin Wright, Members of S.A.C. [Summerhill Against Chat (Central Huron Against Turbines)]. THE EDITOR, To those who wanted to know about the flower boxes throughout Brussels, your contributions helped make a successful project back a few years ago. Some of us have loved ones whose memories we want treasured. If you would like to contribute by cheque to some additional boxes for our streetscape, please contact Hank Ten Pas or Debbie Seili. We won’t promise to build for this year, but we will be ready for next spring planting. Hank and Debbie. If you sit in the coffee shop these days it won’t be long before you are reliably informed that ‘green’ energy is the reason that electricity rates are higher now than they used to be. “We didn’t have all this wind and solar stuff in (insert any date from last year to 1900) and electricity was cheap. Maybe we should just go back to using gas, oil and coal,” someone will say. The argument is interesting because it implies that the increase in electricity bills can be attributed solely to renewable energy generation and that increased use of fossil fuels would cause the prices to fall. The history of electricity in Ontario is simply ignored. The reality is that electricity in Ontario has, until relatively recently, been priced below the real costs associated with its generation. This was the deliberate policy of provincial governments of all stripes and was a hidden subsidy through Ontario Hydro to the manufacturing sector. It worked too, as Ontario became a manufacturing powerhouse. Unfortunately it also meant that when the real costs were no longer hidden in our taxes and actually showed up on our bill a new political football was born, and as with so many political footballs, facts weren’t allowed to get in the way of a good argument. Right up front let’s admit that renewable energy initiatives have added to the electricity bill. One’s ideological bent probably determines whether you think the costs are worth the benefits, but that is another argument. Let’s see where the bulk of the cost really occurs on your bill. My energy usage is probably about average. Only about 55 per cent of the last bill was actually purchasing electricity. About 32 per cent went to paying for delivery, which is a polite way of saying paying for the line losses caused by the critically antiquated transmission system in the province while frantically trying to provide the upgrades that should have been done in the 1960s all the way up to the 1990s. Then, of course, there is the five per cent that goes to paying off the 14, or so, billion dollars of debt that we got stuck with from Ontario Hydro’s unsupervised love affair with nuclear. A further regulatory charge of five per cent goes to administering the wholesale system and to pay for conservation and renewable energy programs. Last and least taxes take up three per cent after a residential customer gets their 10 per cent Ontario Clean Energy Benefit. Regardless of how you want to spin the figures the extra costs associated with encouraging renewable energy are not significant. Even if you attribute half the regulatory charge and 5 per cent of the cost of the electricity (both of which are high by the way) you struggle to get to 5 per cent overall including the cost of the taxes. There’s one other thing that Huron County residents should consider – who’s getting the extra? The money from those solar installations is going into the pockets of locals. The people selling and installing the equipment are friends and neighbours. The profits aren’t flowing to Alberta or the United States. If we go back to complete reliance on fossil fuels that certainly won’t be the case. The bottom line is the subsidy to renewables has been a significant economic benefit to southwestern Ontario. To put it a tad more crudely – rural Ontario is finally getting to screw Toronto. HURON OPTOMETRIC CENTRES: PROVIDING EYE CARE TO HURON COUNTY FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS. HOC WINGHAM BOX 278, 238D JOSEPHINE ST, WINGHAM, ON, N0G 2W0 WE ARE A PROUD PARTICIPANT IN THE DIG OUR DOWNTOWN CAMPAIGN! we have a back entrance and parking (of t worry about the Josephine Street construction; Don’ f NoNo w O entrance and parking (offf bout the Josephine Street f of John Street)! OpOppenen!n! t construct PESO JD 278, 238XOB H DIVORP: SERTNECCIRTEMOTPONORUH we have a back entrance and parking (of ToTo bobooook aan oor vvisissiit G0N, ON, MAHGNIW, TSENIH MAHGNIWOCH VOROFYTNUOCNORU HOTERACEYEGNI fentrance and parking (offf n appppooiintnttmemeentnt ccaalll 222626-6- t usus oonlliinne aat wwwwww.w..hhuuroro 2W0 SRAEYYTXISRE f of John Street)! --424222-2-2-220202020 oonnooc.c..cca REPRINTS OF PHOTOS taken by Citizen photographers are available to purchase. 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