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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, July 1, 2010
Volume 26 No. 26APPEALS- Pg. 17New site an option as OMBappeals hold up new school REVIEW - Pg. 19 ‘A Killing Snow’opensthis year’s Blyth FestivalDECISION- Pg. 16Community reacts to schoolclosure decisionPublications Mail Agreement No. 4005014 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
The Bluewater Kennel Club’s All
Breed Dog Show and Obedience
Trials will be held in Blyth on July 6
through 8, bringing the best of the
best in the world of canine
competition to the village for the
weekend.
Featuring handlers and breeders
from across the continent, and dogs
from around the world, the event
showcases canines as paragons of
their breed, as champions of agility
and obedience, and as models in
their group, according to Bluewater
Kennel Club President Joe Lobb.
The event, which is the only
Canadian Kennel Club-sanctioned
purebred competition in the area,
provides an opportunity for tourists
and residents of Huron County to get
a glimpse of the world of dog
breeding, handling and training that
they may have to travel outside of
South-Western Ontario to see.
Dogs can compete through several
different programs, including agility
trials, obedience trials, and breed
judgings.
New to the show this year will be
a national speciality show for the
kuvasz breed (July 7), an all-breed
puppy sweepstakes (July 6), and a
best bred by exhibitor contest (July
7), which Lobb says really displays
the skill of breeders.
“Dog shows used to be about
breeders showing their dogs, but it’s
not as common as it used to be,” he
said. “Most dogs are shown by
handlers, this contest will only be
for people to show dogs they have
bred themselves.”
The speciality show will feature
the rare kuvasz breed, part of the
working dog group. Lobb says that
several breeders can be found in the
Huron County area, which is
probably why this particular dog
show was chosen for the event.
The all-breed puppy sweepstakes
Early in the meeting on Tuesday,
June 22, there was applause from
both trustees and members of the
audience for veteran Stratford
representative Meg Westley, in
response to a spirited defense of the
responsibilities and expectations of
Avon Maitland District School
Board trustees.
The response was quite different,
however, an hour later when Westley
was among the leading trustees in
supporting a motion to close
Brussels Public School and send its
Kindergarten-to-Grade 6 students to
Grey Central Public School in Ethel,
effective September, 2012.
Grade 7 and 8 students from both
schools will be sent to either Elma
Township Public School in Newry or
the yet-to-be-implemented senior
elementary wing of F.E. Madill
Secondary School in Wingham.
Following a divided 6-3 vote in
favour of the proposal – the third of
three school consolidation measures
to be debated in the meeting – many
of the remaining audience members
rose from their chairs and stormed
out of the meeting space in the
gymnasium at Seaforth Public
School. Huron East mayor Joe Seili
first approached trustees, shouting,
before turning and walking out the
door mid-sentence.
Discussions began with two
trustees – North Huron’s Colleen
Schenk and Huron East/Central
Huron representative Willie Laurie –
making it known they would support
a motion to keep both Brussels and
Grey Central open. This came in
contrast to a recommendation from
administrative staff, first delivered to
trustees on April 13 following a
community-based, board-mandated
accommodation review process that
began in September, 2009, to close
Grey Central and maintain Brussels
as a K-6 facility.
“I have to believe that changes are
made in the best interest of the
students [which], at the present
moment, I believe will happen
through maintaining the status quo,”
Schenk told her counterparts.
However, when the one-time
board chair introduced a motion to
that effect, only Laurie voted in
favour.
That left the door open for a
motion from Westley, maintaining
the spirit of the April 13 staff
recommendation – decreasing the
area’s school total from two to one,
and congregating Grades 7 and 8s in
greater numbers – but turned it on its
head by suggesting Brussels close
and Grey Central remain open.
“I think that Grey Central is a
unique property,” she explained,
referring largely to the school’s
Environmental Learning Grounds, a
large green space adjacent to the
school that features wildlife habitat,
an outdoor amphitheatre, natural
areas and hiking trails. “Who knows
what education is going to look like
in 25 years . . . If we give up the
property, it’s gone and we can’t get it
back.”
“I know there are lots of wonderful
rural schools, but [Grey Central] has
features that we don’t have anywhere
else.”
Between April 13 and lastCentral Huron and North Huron
Councils once again have a tentative
fire protection agreement to vote
on.
The two major concerns that held
up the initial agreement: Section 5.2
regarding costs that are above what
normal firefighting incurs, and Fee
Schedule F’s wording regarding
budgeting for Medical First
Response were essentially negated
through minor changes made by
three representatives of each council
and staff from both townships on
Friday afternoon.
Representatives from Central
Huron stated that their addition to
Fee Schedule F regarding Medical
First Response could be removed as
they agreed that providing prices on
a service that has yet to have any
historical data to base it on would be
inaccurate.
Representatives from Central
Huron stated that they wanted
information in order to plan area
rating for the cost of Medical First
Response, but were unaware that
they were not being charged for the
cost of training for the program.
The Medical First Response
training was considered part of
another budget, and not charged to
Central Huron. All members of the
North Huron Fire Department were
required to have this training as none
were certified, though the entirety of
Blyth Fire Hall volunteers had been
trained in it in the past.
Central Huron will be receiving a
complete breakdown in costs as
part of another section of the
agreement, but those costs can’t be
delivered until they are incurred,
meaning council will need to wait a
year prior to receiving the
information.
Working together, the two
councils negotiated terms under
which North Huron’s Fire Chief,
currently John Black, could call in
assistance for firefighting above and
beyond the capabilities of the North
Huron fire department if it was
deemed necessary.
Both councils claimed that the
importance of working out the
clause rested on their need to be
responsible for their councils and
their ratepayers, Central Huron’s
CAO Kevin McLlwain stating that
leaving the clause as it was
originally stated would be allowing
North Huron’s fire chief to “run
around with an open chequebook,”
and North Huron’s Reeve Neil
Vincent stating that it would be
irresponsible of him to leave North
Huron ratepayers “on the hook for
potentially hundreds of thousands of
dollars.”
The new clause states that the
responding fire chief can call in any
necessary equipment under the cost
of $1,500 as he sees fit. If
more expensive assistance is
necessary, a representative of
Central Huron’s fire chief must be
contacted first.
The representatives agreed that
this would address the needs of both
councils, providing North Huron’s
fire chief with the ability to call
in necessary equipment to stop a
fire up until that $1,500, and
having a minor delay in anything
above that cost being called in that is
necessary.
Both councils need to ratify
the agreement before it can be
adopted.
Both Reeves stated that they were
optimistic that the councils would
agree to this iteration of the
agreement.
“I think that council will agree
with this,” Reeve Bert Dykstra of
Central Huron stated.
The current interim agreement
will remain in effect until the
councils have come to an
agreement.
Brussels to close
after trustee vote
Lining it up
There was plenty of time and plenty of room for every age of golfer at Sunday’s Ainsleigh
Bontaine Memorial Golf Tournament at Woodlands Links just east of Clinton. It was Kailey
Hallahan, left, and Landyn Hallahan who were out working the practise putting green. (Vicky
Bremner photo)
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 3
Continued on page 6
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Reeves confident in agreement
Blyth back to the dogs
By Stew Slater
Special to The Citizen