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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-12-08, Page 1CitizenTh e $1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, December 8, 2011 Volume 27 No. 48CALENDAR- Pg. 20Local family featured inagricultural calendar THEATRE - Pg. 27 Project raises over$100,000 for GoderichCOUNTY- Pg. 13Composition debated hotlyat final council meetingPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK: Festival looks back on 2011 Minister dismisses patchwork approach Central Huron launches appeal Play it loud Bands from Central Huron Secondary School (CHSS) visited Blyth Public School on Monday, Dec. 5 to give students an idea of the things they can get involved in when they graduate and get to high school. Students were entertained by several different groups playing together and the combined skills of all the musicians, like Jessica Kaastra, left, and Daniel Kuiper had the public school’s gymnasium alive with music. (Denny Scott photo) Central Huron has decided to launch an official appeal of Justice Gorman’s decision to uphold a bylaw from 1999, therefore reducing the size of Huron County Council by four representatives. The motion passed with all votes in favour of taking the legal action with just Councillor Alison Lobb voting against it at the Dec. 5 meeting. It also states that Central Huron won’t be going it alone. The motion states that Central Huron will launch the appeal on the consideration that at least one other municipality participates in the appeal process with Central Huron. Councillor Brian Barnim brought the motion forward with a little help from municipal solicitor Greg Stewart who aided in the wording of the motion. Stewart said the appeal needs to be launched 30 days after the decision has been made, meaning that the opposing party has to be served a notice of appeal by Dec. 18, at which time those participating in the appeal must be named. The race is now on to garner support, both moral and financial, from the other three municipalities that lost representatives as a result of the decision: South Huron, Huron East and North Huron. Support, however, may not be as widespread as Central Huron may think. When bringing the motion forward, Barnim said he would sign it stating that it would go forward with the support of one other municipality, but not on the condition that two more municipalities would support it. Barnim came to the Dec. 5 meeting with a legal opinion he obtained with his own funds saying that in his lawyer’s opinion, Superior Court Justice Gorman, upon rendering her decision, did not consider all factors in play. Stewart, who was in attendance on Monday night, agreed to a certain extent, saying he didn’t disagree with anything Barnim said, although he hadn’t officially read the legal opinion to which Barnim was referring. “It is appealable,” Stewart said. “The decision could be subject to a successful appeal.” Stewart admitted that the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) numbers being provided to establish a list of eligible voters are always “behind” by design. He said the list is always changing and finding a current list will be next to impossible. The elector system for Huron County Council, however, doesn’t necessarily have to be decided by MPAC, he said. There are other options, such as providing seats based on property assessment or even going forward with a fixed number of seats that would never change. “County council might want to look at that at some point,” Stewart said about the other elector options. Barnim said the legal opinion he received stated that to put the case in front of an appeal judge would cost between $2,000 and $4,000 and to see the appeal through to the end of the process it would cost between $15,000 and $20,000. Because the process would easily General Manager of the Blyth Festival Deb Sholdice and Communications Director John Bezaire recently briefed North Huron Council on the 2011 season The duo presented results from the 2011 season and plans for the 2012 season and beyond during North Huron Council’s regular meeting on Dec. 5. They explained that, despite their main stage performance attendance being down eight per cent, they brought in the same amount of traffic to Blyth through their additional shows in the year, including the Young Company’s remounting of Alligator Tears on the Memorial Hall stage at the Festival and the Phillips Studio Series featuring plays that Southwestern Ontario residents may not have had the opportunity to see. “We found out [through contact with other theatres] that groups similar to us are seeing a drop of anywhere from five to 25 per cent in attendance this year,” Sholdice explained. “Being able to maintain the same traffic puts us among the better-faring theatres this year.” Sholdice also stated that the festival’s continuing success this year was due to the critical acclaim their four primary shows received, especially Vimy. “We received critical acclaim across the board from both local newspapers and national press,” Sholdice said. “We had a particularly strong response to Vimy.To have a play like it playing in Memorial Hall, which is a World War 1 cenotaph, made it a very popular play.” SUCCESSES AT THE THEATRE Sholdice explained that, while main stage ticket sales were down, that was the only area in which the Blyth Festival didn’t meet its financial goals. “All revenue targets were met or exceeded except for the main stage sales,” she said. She explained that in-program advertising sales had doubled, souvenir sales were up 27 per cent, concession and bar sales were up 17 per cent, individual donations had risen 23 per cent, corporate donations were up 18 per cent and fundraising income had increased by 10 per cent. Other successes at the theatre included the festival being named a finalist for the Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts and some promising numbers from ticket sales. “We saw a slight increase in audience attendance from 40 minutes away or greater,” Sholdice said. “We also saw 30 per cent of our ticket purchasers were either new or had not purchased their own tickets before. That’s promising.” Sholdice said that the Festival’s new point-of-sale software has allowed them to track ticket sales and discover when they were made and that information will help them better target their advertising around the times when people are buying. “We can now know if people are buying the week before a show, the day of a show or months before,” she said. “It will help us adjust our advertising accordingly.” Bezaire explained that the Festival’s annual brochure remains their best tool in reaching their ticket Just one day before a private members’ bill to re-establish municipal control over renewable energy was defeated, Ontario Energy Minister Chris Bentley sat down with reporters from news outlets all across Ontario. At a news conference organized by the Ontario Community Newspaper Association, Bentley fielded questions from several reporters on Dec. 1 on everything from wind turbines to the new nuclear power plant in Darlington. Bentley told reporters that he would be voting against the bill saying that provincial control is one of the most important aspects of green energy in Ontario. Bentley said that he and the Liberal government are “very committed” to a province-wide approach to green energy and all a “patchwork” approach would do would be to stifle production and economic development. Since the Green Energy Act was brought into effect, Bentley said, over 20,000 direct and indirect jobs have been created, not to mention billions of dollars being invested throughout Ontario. In response to reporters’ questions, as well as the private members’ bill tabled by Prince Edward-Hastings MPP Todd Smith on Dec. 2 and By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen By Denny Scott The Citizen Continued on page 23 By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen Continued on page 16Continued on page 23