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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, October 20, 2011
Volume 27 No. 41
HOMES - Pg. 13Fall Home Improvementguide GALLERY - Pg. 30 Festival Art Galleryseeks new artistsSPORTS- Pg. 8Wingham Ironmen splitweekend gamesPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Council rejects regulations
Blyth arena roof
could be replaced
Long recovery for
Blyth man after
August tornado
Meeting the Challenge
Co-chair of Grey Central School Council Armand Roth, centre, joined students like Berachah
Brak, left, and Cole Lindsay during the IWALK Challenge at Grey Central Public School. The
challenge calls for students and teachers to use active transportation to get to school, like
bicycles, rollerblades, skateboards or walking. Since many of Grey Central’s students travel
from a distance that makes active transportation less than feasible, the school encouraged
students to walk around the nature grounds on Oct. 12. (Denny Scott photo)
The Blyth Community Centre’s
remaining un-replaced roof may be
replaced, nearly 40 years after being
installed.
Facilities Director Pat Newson
approached North Huron
Councilwith a plan to replace the
roof through a Trillium grant at the
Oct. 11 Committee of the Whole
Meeting.
The roof was slated to be worked
on this year, however, the roof at the
Wingham Daycare Centre was found
to be more damaged than originally
anticipated and $15,000 needed to
be taken from the original $38,000
budgeted for the community centre
roof to cover the cost of the daycare
Councillor Alex Westerhout
wanted people to take responsibility
for their own actions and to put an
end to the “nanny state” in Ontario
with a motion he drafted on Oct.
11.
Westerhout, with the support of
Central Huron Council, passed a
motion stating that shed and barn
parties are a part of rural life that are
often held in farm buildings and that
the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office
should essentially stay out of such
affairs.
After a presentation from Central
Huron Fire Chief Steve Cooke at
the September Committee of the
Whole meeting, councillors felt
that responsibility for the liability
of such parties should not be
that of Cooke and the municipality,
but of the property owners hosting
the gathering.
Cooke told council, at the Sept. 29
meeting, that parties being held in
farm buildings such as barns and
sheds should be broken up by him if
he catches wind of them. The
reasoning behind it, Cooke said, is
that the buildings aren’t equipped in
the event of a fire and therefore
shouldn’t be allowed to hold that
many people.
Cooke said the instructions came
down from the Ontario Fire
Marshal’s office, saying that if a
party was taking place in such a
building with his knowledge, he was
to try and end the party.
“This is infringing on people’s
rights,” Westerhout said about the
parties he called “a part of rural life
and culture.”
Westerhout also called on the
motion to be forwarded to the
Ontario Fire Marshal, all of
Ontario’s MPPs and all Ontario
municipalities.
There were also concerns from
several councillors on how far such a
regulation can go.
Councillor Brian Barnim asked if
these regulations could be applied to
a building in a trailer park and
Mayor Jim Ginn wondered aloud if a
tent, erected for something like a
wedding reception, would apply to
these rules as well.
Westerhout said he was
“disgusted” by the regulations that
have apparently been in place for
years Cooke said, the Fire Marshal is
only now attempting to increase
their enforcement.
“This is an infringement of rights
and a nanny state,” Westerhout said.
“They’re going into the shed by
choice. Period.”
The motion was carried and Ginn
brought it to Huron County Council
the next day for support throughout
the county.
After a routine shopping trip to
Goderich for new socks and
underwear was interrupted by a
tornado, Blyth’s Jim Johnston is now
back home and on the road to
recovery.
Johnston says his right foot still
ails him from time to time, but that
on the whole, pain from his
multitude of injuries has subsided.
Johnston had a run-in with a fish and
chip trailer on Aug. 21 when he was
on the shores of Lake Huron picking
up some dinner when the now-
infamous tornado started on its path
through Goderich.
Before being cleared to return to
his Blyth home, Johnston spent a
week at University Hospital in
London and two more weeks at
Clinton Public Hospital. He still has
a nurse come in once a day to change
the dressing on his foot.
At home now, Johnston spends his
days watching television, reading
newspapers and chatting with
friends on the phone. He says he has
no intention of attempting to put
weight on his foot until he is cleared
by his doctor, but finds the time on
his back “big time boring” especially
since he’ll most likely be laid up
until spring of 2012.
“I’m used to going all the time,”
says the self-employed carpenter.
“I’m trying not to put too much
weight on it, I don’t want to screw it
up.”
Johnston says he’s typically up
early as his wife works from 6 a.m.
to 2 p.m. daily, so he often wakes up
with her at 4 a.m. each day, but lately
he has been sneaking back to bed for
a few more hours of sleep.
The way he looks at it, now that he
can sleep comfortably, he’s making
up for lost time.
During his time in the hospital,
Johnston says he wasn’t sleeping
well. Because of his injuries (a
broken left clavicle, bruised ribs, a
fractured pelvis and every bone
broken in his right foot) he was
forced to sleep on his back,
something he couldn’t find
comfortable.
“I just couldn’t do it,” he said,
adding that he would often get
between two and four hours of sleep
per night.
His sleeping routine is slowly
getting back to normal now as his
left collarbone is healing (Johnston
preferred to sleep on his left side
before sustaining his injuries).
Johnston says after he went
shopping on that Sunday afternoon,
he went to get some fish and chips
down by Lake Huron. He had heard
good things about the fish and chip
trailer down by the lake and his wife
Cheryl McClure had taken on an
additional half-shift that night and
wouldn’t be home for dinner, so
Johnston knew he’d be fending for
himself.
Johnston said there were three or
four people in line ahead of him and
he waited for about 20 minutes until
he was to be served. However, by the
time the tornado hit, Johnston said
there were just him and the
restaurant’s two young employees
left.
Preoccupied with a boat unloading
its cargo, Johnston paid little
attention to the rapidly changing
weather and intense winds.
“It started to get a bit windy and
the kids were asking me to pass
some stuff into them,” Johnston said.
“The winds got so bad that I thought
of going into the trailer with them,
but it was so bad they couldn’t open
the door and the next thing I knew I
was on the ground.”
Johnston says he never lost
consciousness, but remembers
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 32
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 28
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen