HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-03-12, Page 1Proud family
Jacob McGavin, 13, an Ontario Junior Citizen of the Year, and his family, mom and dad Jeff
and Shannon and sisters, Teegan, front, and Mackenzie, made the trip to Queen’s Park for the
annual presentation. See Jacob’s story on page 6. (Keith Roulston photo)
Morris-Turnberry will ask Huron
County roads department to reduce
the speed limit through Belgrave to
50 km per hour.
The motion passed at the March 3
meeting came following receipt of
an e-mail from Dave Laurie, the
county’s acting director of public
works reconsidering his promise at
the Feb. 17 meeting of council to
support a request to county council
for a traffic study of Belgrave.
Laurie said he could not
recommend the county pay a third
of the cost of a traffic study (with
Morris-Turnberry and North Huron
to pay the other two-thirds) because
he was sure that the study would
only confirm that Belgrave was not
eligible for a pedestrian crosswalk,
as requested by Morris Turnberry, or
a signal at the corner of County
Roads 20 and 4.
“I feel that if the county paid for
one-third of the cost it would just be
spinning our wheels and would only
serve to tell us what we already
know and have confirmed,” Laurie
wrote.
“With all this in mind, I
recommended that the full cost of
the traffic study should be borne by
the two municipalities who
requested the crosswalk.”
He went on to write: “As I
mentioned at your council meeting, I
feel a motion to lower the speed to
50 km/h might represent time and
money better spent.”
Somewhat exasperated, councillor
Mark Beaven said he was under the
impression from Laurie’s
presentation at the Feb. 17 meeting
that the traffic study was needed to
show the need for lowering the
speed limit.
Part of Laurie’s argument against
the need for a crosswalk (besides a
lower pedestrian use than normally
required) was that the 60 km speed
limit would make it dangerous for
people trying to cross the road at a
crosswalk and because of this
crosswalks were generally only
installed where the speed limit is 50
km per hour or less.
Given Laurie’s new position,
Beaven made a motion to request the
lowered speed limit. “It’ll be easier
to get the flippin’crosswalk,” he said
of the lower speed limit.
Both Beaven and councillor Paul
Gowing said they’d had nothing but
positive comments from Belgrave
residents since a story about
council’s request for a crosswalk
appeared in the paper.
Classroom doors will swing open
prior to Labour Day next September,
as school boards across the province
deal with a combination of quirks in
the 2009 and 2010 calendars, last
year’s creation of a new statutory
holiday in February, and
requirements of 194 instructional
days under Ontario’s Education
Act.
Friday, March 6, administrators of
the Huron-Perth Catholic and Avon
Maitland District school boards met
to finalize their recommendation for
a jointly-approved 2009-10 school
calendar.
The committee proposing the
document — which isn’t official
until approved by trustees — also
includes representatives from
teachers’ unions and trustees.
“Because Labour Day is so late,
they have to start before the
holiday,” reported Avon Maitland
chair Jenny Versteeg.
Traditionally, school begins on the
Tuesday following Labour Day. But
with Labour Day, 2009 falling on
Monday, Sept. 7, that would have
meant classes wouldn’t start until
Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Counting forward 194 days from
that date, taking into account all
statutory holidays and three weeks
of down-time split between
Christmas and March Break, and the
schedule would have extended into
July, 2010.
The Education Act decrees that all
instructional days must fall between
Sept. 1 and June 30.
According to Versteeg, the joint
committee decided to send kids to
school for three straight days
beginning Sept. 1, then named
Friday, Sept. 4 as a holiday. This will
allow for a four-day weekend when
combined with the Labour Day
Monday.
“The goal is for people to have
time with their family,” Versteeg
said.
Ironically, it was the creation of an
entirely different “family-oriented”
holiday, by an entirely different level
of government, that partially created
the circumstances behind the unique
school calendar.
Versteeg admitted that, without
the early February Family Day
statutory day off — devised as a
campaign promise by the
ruling provincial Liberals — school
boards might have come closer to
squeezing in 194 instructional days
without skipping ahead of Labour
Day.
Still, according to Huron-Perth
Catholic education superintendent
Dan Parr, school boards still would
have faced the same challenge.
“Family Day compounded the
problem, but it wasn’t the sole
reason,” Parr explained. “The main
reason (for the unorthodox school
calendar) is the fact that Labour Day
is so late.”
The end of the 2009-10 school
calendar might also be a
disappointment to some students and
parents. Under the committee’s
proposal, the final instructional day
is Monday, June 28 — meaning
families will feel compelled to stick
around home for an extra weekend
to ensure top-level grades for
attendance.
Back to school comes earlier
With the warmer temperatures last
week and significant rainfall over
the weekend, the Maitland Valley
Conservation Authority (MVCA)
issued a flood safety bulletin on
Friday, which remained in effect on
Monday.
The MVCA’s Jayne Thompson
said Blyth received just over 30
millimetres of rain over the
weekend, but that flooding is not a
very serious concern at this time.
The watershed’s average rainfall,
however, was about five millimetres
higher at 36. Ethel received slightly
over 30 millimetres of rain over the
weekend with estimates in the
Brussels area being just under 31
millimetres throughout the
weekend. There is, however, no
automatic gauging station in
Brussels because of the dam, which
would cloud the data.
With the bulk of the rain coming
throughout Saturday and then with
some on Sunday night, she said the
water had significant time to work
its way through the watershed
without creating too many flood
concerns.
Thompson says many of the area’s
waterways are running at “bank
full” right now and that they are
unsafe to approach.
“In a situation like this, there are
always safety issues,” Thompson
said. “The water is running through
our waterways very quickly right
now and it’s also very cold. It’s
important to stay away from these
watercourses.”
The current conditions have come
from a combination of the warm
temperatures and the significant
rainfall and would have been a
bigger problem if Huron County
hadn’t already seen conditions like
this earlier in the year.
“There is no significant flooding
right now, which has a lot to do with
us losing a lot of our snowpack in
February,” Thompson said. “Any
snowpack that melted over the last
few days would have been in our
woodlands.”
The MVCA, however, is not
letting down its guard as the
watershed is expecting significant
rainfalls on Tuesday and throughout
the week. Again, Thompson says
that with the time spread out
between rainfalls, this should allow
the water sufficient time to work its
way through the area waterways and
not succumb to flooding.
Thompson says the MVCA has
been in contact with its
municipalities and has told them to
be on watch with their known
vulnerable areas.
CitizenTh
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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, March 12, 2009
Volume 25 No. 10SPORTS- Pg. 10Local broomball teambrings home the gold EDUCATION - Pg. 11 Dairy educator bringsinfo to East Wawanosh PSNEWS- Pg. 7Couple, township struggle tofind solution to water woesPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 PAP Registration No. 09244 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Waterways fill as
rain keeps falling
M-T to ask county
for speed limit drop
By Stew Slater
Special to The Citizen
By Keith Roulston
The Citizen