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The Citizen, 2010-06-03, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 3, 2010.Editorials Opinions Publisher: Keith Roulston Acting Editor: Shawn Loughlin • Reporter: Denny ScottAdvertising Sales: Ken Warwick & Lori Patterson The CitizenP.O. Box 429,BLYTH, Ont. N0M 1H0 Phone 523-4792 FAX 523-9140 P.O. Box 152,BRUSSELS, Ont. N0G 1H0 Phone 887-9114 E-mail norhuron@scsinternet.com Website www.northhuron.on.ca Looking Back Through the Years CCNA Member Member of the Ontario Press Council The Citizen is published 50 times a year in Brussels,Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $34.00/year ($32.38 + $1.62 G.S.T.) in Canada; $105.00/year in U.S.A.and $175/year in other foreign countries.Advertising is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error,only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 40050141 PAP REGISTRATION NO. 09244 RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO CIRCULATION DEPT. PO BOX 152 BRUSSELS ON N0G 1H0 email: norhuron@scsinternet.com June 9, 1948 John Hanna of Wingham was proclaimed the winner of the Huron- Bruce riding with a reduced majority from his previous term in office, while Tom Pryde was proclaimed the winner of the Huron riding, both from the Progressive Conservative party. Because of all the election coverage, a small headline on the front page of The Blyth Standard read the sports news had been “Crowded out” of the issue. Local veteran Stewart Ament returned from World War II and married Mildred Carter. It was said that lilacs, tulips and snowballs formed the perfect setting for the wedding at the home of Carter’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. William Carter. The Trinity Church of Blyth marked its 70th anniversary, holding services in the morning, as well as the evening. Hullett-area parents met with Hullett Council with a signed petition to have the area’s roads re- surfaced in preparation for the high school area bus to take their children to school every day. The petition was held over until a future date for consideration. June 6, 1968 The Brussels mill rate, which was set at 90 for residential and 100 for commercial had increased by a rate of 14 mills because of a hike in the educational tax rates. Little of the hike was due to any local expenses with the exception of Brussels Public School and other area schools, like the Wingham high school and the Huron County Conservation Authority, reported The Brussels Post. Ross Yuill, of RR5 Brussels, was one of the first graduates in Fanshawe College history, graduating as an electrical technician. The Duff’s United Church Women held their annual bazaar and bake sale. Donald Dunbar of Ethel was elected president of the Huron and Perth Counties District Division of the Ontario Public School Men Teachers’ Federation. The election was held at the federation’s annual meeting, which was held in Clinton. June 6, 1990 The squabble between Brussels Village Council and the Brussels Recreation Board continued while the question of who was actually in charge of the community centre raged on. Bob Rae, leader of the official opposition at Queen’s Park was scheduled to be in Huron and Bruce Counties over the weekend, attending a meeting at Lucknow- area farmers’ Tony and Fran McQuail’s farm and then travelling to Owen Sound for the evening. Blyth residents’ tax bills were set to rise over eight per cent. Village council’s increase was set at six per cent, but when the Huron County portion, as well as the education tax, were added, that number jumped to over eight per cent. Blyth was going to play host to a CBC Radio broadcast during its annual Rutabaga Festival. The program Blyth was to be featured on was called Ontario Morning and the broadcast was set to take place between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Greg McClinchey (who would later go on to become a North Huron councillor and Huron-Bruce Liberal federal candidate) received the Chief Scout’s Award, which is the top award in Ontario scouting. McClinchey had spent eight years participating in scouting and also served as a patrol leader. It took him three years to work his way up and qualify for the top award. The live action film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was playing at The Park Theatre, held over for a second week, along with Mel Gibson and Goldie Hawn in Bird On A Wire. June 5, 2008 The Huron County Health Unit was concerned with the presence of Whooping Cough (Pertussis) in Huron County. In the past few months, there had been five cases confirmed in Goderich. The Blyth Legion and the Blyth Legion Ladies Auxiliary installed their new executives. In addition to the elections, the Legion Ladies Auxiliary donated $2,000 to the Legion and in return, the Legion donated a plaque to the Legion Ladies Auxiliary, honouring its 60th year. Feedback had been sent to the Ontario Ministry of Education regarding the latest version of the province’s school closure guidelines. The third annual Huron Community Matters conference was held in Brussels, which squeezed days of information on community improvement into less than 12 hours, which began with a presentation from Robin Cardozo from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, which included an update from the Huron Highlights program. Ontario Provincial Police Inspector Dan Grant visited North Huron Council in order to clarify some comments. Moe Hodgson had attended an earlier meeting to discuss a feasibility policing study and the goal of the study was to determine if North Huron could benefit from the Wingham Police Force looking after policing for all of the township. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Publications Assistance Program (PAP) toward our mailing costs. We are not responsible for unsolicited newsscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright A misused community asset To whom do schools belong? Our current system says they belong to the board of education but the parents advocacy group People for Education released a report this week that said they should be returned to the larger community. “Schools have to be about something more than education,” said Annie Kidder, executive director for People for Education, saying that schools must be community centres. As Toronto Star columnist Christopher Hume pointed out this week, the barrier to this is governance. “Locked into their single-interest mindset, education officials have difficulty seeing beyond the funding formulae and the square-footage-per-student rations that dominate their thinking. The provincial education ministry doesn’t talk to the health minister. Health doesn’t talk to culture. Neither do school board officials have much to do with (municipal) planners. Each inhabits his own separate universe, his own individual silo.” Certainly that’s the situation facing rural communities in Huron County like Brussels, Blyth, Belgrave and Ethel. The schools those communities built no longer belong to them. They are assets transferred to the Avon Maitland District School Board, the mandate of which is to provide education under the funding formulae designed by the provincial government. Nowhere in that mandate is there anything about economic development (or the detrimental effect on the community – including students’ parents’ jobs and property values) or the services the school offers as a community centre. And so school board officials treat the education of the community’s youth as another service to be provided by a regional shopping centre, closing schools that mean something to the community in favour of distant, faceless education factories. We’re going in the opposite direction to what seemed to be the government’s aim when Premier Dalton McGuinty talked about community-based education. We’re certainly a long way from People for Education’s model of a school as being a community hub – how can it be a hub if it’s not even in the community? While it may be local school trustees who determine the future of local community schools, they’re doing it on the basis of rules laid down by the province. Premier McGuinty must fix those rules before schools have no connection to their community whatsoever. — KR Sanity, at last Congratulations to the councillors of Central Huron and North Huron who reached a tentative agreement, Monday night, to allow residents of northern Hullett to receive prompt fire service from the nearest fire department in Blyth. But credit should also go to the concerned and active Hullett and Auburn residents who “encouraged” their councillors to seek an agreement, first by a large meeting in Londesborough, May 10, and then this past Monday morning with a demonstration on the steps of the Central Huron municipal office. That second demonstration, by about 100 Hullett and Auburn residents, led directly to councillor Brian Barnim promising to try to set up an emergency meeting of the Central Huron and North Huron councils that night – the meeting that led to the tentative agreement. It’s hard to imagine this agreement would have been reached without the vociferous public reaction to Central Huron’s plan to provide fire service to all of Hullett from its Clinton station in order to avoid what it felt was North Huron’s unreasonable price for service from Blyth. For a council situated in Clinton, the solution made perfect sense. After all as Central Huron CAO Kevin McLlwain told a radio audience Monday, Huron East provides fire coverage from its Seaforth station nearly to Walton. It took public reaction to budge the two councils from their entrenched positions. This is what an involved public can do. As municipal elections approach this fall, let’s hope people stay engaged. — KR & Letters Policy The Citizen welcomes letters to the editor. Letters must be signed and should include a daytime telephone number for the purpose of verification only. Letters that are not signed will not be printed. Submissions may be edited for length, clarity and content, using fair comment as our guideline. The Citizen reserves the right to refuse any letter on the basis of unfair bias, prejudice or inaccurate information. As well, letters can only be printed as space allows. Please keep your letters brief and concise.