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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1986-03-12, Page 1Bly th firm gets $190,000museum contract BY BOB MURPHY Approval was given by county council Thursday to a recommend­ ation that the Blyth architectural firm of Christopher Borgal be engaged as architects for the design of the Huron County Pioneer Museum project. The recommendation was made by the museum committee during its report to council in the court house at Goderich. The Blyth firm was among six which made presentations to the committee at a meeting Feb. 27, Coun. Dave Johnston (Bayfield Reeve) told council. Johnston, museum committee chairman, said that the Borgal firm’s bid - based on an estimated building cost of $2.8 million - would cost $190,000 maximum. Other architects interviewed and their proposed costs were: • Paul Dawson, Architect, costs of $129,060 based on $1.9 million building program; costs of $190,000 on $2.8 million building program. •Snider, Reichard and March, costs of $210,000 based on $2.8 million building program. • Moffat, Kinoshita Associates New minister comina for local Anqlicans Bishop Derwyn Jones, Bishop of the Diocese of Huron has announc­ ed the appointment of the Rev. Patricia Ann Nunn as priest in charge of St. Mark’s Auburn, Trinity Blyth, and St. John’s Brussels. Rev. Nunn starts her ministry in this parish on April 15. Auburn store re-opens today After being without a store for two months, Auburn will regain onewhen J J’s General Store opens today (Wednesday) on main street. The store in the former Village Market (still known to many as Robinson’s) will be operated by Jetrid Rueger, better known in the Blyth areawhere she grew up as Jetty Cartwright, and Jacques Lapierre. The couple has been working on the store in preparation for open­ ing for three weeks. They hope eventually to expand the business. Mr. Lapierre also does carpentry work. Inc., costs of $282,000 based on $2.8 million building program. • Stevens, Kroetsch Architects and Sears and Russell Architects, costs of $190,000 to $200,000 based on $2.25 million building program; costs of $266,000 to $282,500 based on $2.8 million building program. VOL. 2- NO. 11 Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12, 1986.40 CENTS Two Brussels dance teams came home with championships from the interclub figure skating competition at Mitchell, March 2. Peter MacDonald and Kerrie Shepherd of Blyth took first place in the senior dance competition and Lisa Pennington and Scott Johnston were first in the novice dance category. - photo by Pat Langlois. Storm closes down Huron county The most vicious storm of the winter closed down the northern part of Huron County Friday. As temperatures piummetted from above freezing on Thursday to some of the coldest tempera­ tures of the winter on Friday, vicious winds swept snow squalls • C. A. Ventin, Architects, costs of $260,400 based on $2.8 million building program. In reply to a question of why the committee chose the Blyth firm when the bid of the Paul Dawson firm was also in the amount of $190,000, Johnston said that the over the area closing virtually all roads. Highway4 wasclosedfor the first time all winter. Among the hardest hit people were those whofound banks closed in both Brussels and Blyth on Friday so cashing pay cheques and getting enough cash for the weekend was impossible. Borgal bid was firm in its $190,000 maximum. With the other firm, he said, if the program exceeded $2.8 million the architect’s fees would also be higher. Another factor, Johnston said, was the assurance that the commit- More than a dozen transport trucks were marooned in Blyth when both Highway 4 and County Road 25 were closed. The Novice Hockey Tournament planned by the Blyth Lions Club on Saturday was postponed because if was early Saturday before most roads were opened. tee was getting “someone who possesses a fairly substantial background in museums and museum design.” Price, he said, ‘‘was important to the committee ... but of equal concern, were experience and qualifications.” Board wants speech pathologist BY RHEA HAMILTON SEEGER Lackof speech pathology ser­ vices in the county has caused considerable concern especially for school age children. The Huron County Board of Education March 3 supported a briefbeingsenttoHon. Murray Elston, MPP, Minister of Health, asking that the situation be reviewed and be given urgent priority. The brief will be brought before the following groups for their support: Goderich Alexandra Mar­ ine and General Hospital, Clinton Public Hospital, Seaforth Com­ munity Hospital, South Huron Hospital, Wingham and District Hospital and Huron County Board of Health. In a summary of the speech pathology services in the county the board of education employs five full-time speech correctionists for a caseload of 200 pupils. The hospital network continues to have difficulty recruiting staff. The summary reported that Goderich and Clinton Hospitals deny access to school-aged children and Sea­ forth, Exeter and Wingham cannot seem to acquire or retain staff. The Home care program has hired a full-time pathologist to cover a back-log of 35 serious needs. The brief to the Minister of Health calls attention to the shortage of speech therapists in the province and the limited number of university seats avail­ able for future therapists. County councillors ask hard questions over library BY BOB MURPHY Huron County council learned Thursday that for the fourth consecutive year the county library had exceeded its budget. And, in most instances, the overspending fell within the one area - that of book purchasing. Council spent a good deal of its morning session Thursday in discussion of the overspending which came to light during presen­ tation of the board’s report to council. Board chairman, Coun. Tom Cunningham (Hullett Reeve), in­ dicated to council that the 1985 budget had been overspent by more than $52,000 and the major share of that was tor books which were received in November and December although invoices for those books were not forwarded to the board until 1986. The invoices, according toCunn- ingham in his report, totalled $42,890.95 and would be deducted from the 1986 budget allocation for book purchases. Last year’s board chairman Coun. Grant Stirling, (Goderich Township Reeve) demanded an explanation for the purchase. ‘‘As early as October the board warned the chief librarian that he was not to take delivery of any books, ’ ’ Stirling said, “yet this item is before us today... did he not understand that he was not to receive any books.” ChiefLibrarian William Part­ ridge told council that in November “remedial” steps had been under­ taken by the library “to enable the budget to be on target.” Some of the measures, he said, included sending letters to all book suppliers indicating that the lib­ rary would not accept orders or invoices until 1986. Because of these steps, Part­ ridge said, no book orders were placed with the library services between Nov. 1 and Dec. 31, 1985. The result of this curtailment “has meant a substantial drop of new books placed in our branch libraries, which has led to unfavor­ able comments from our library patrons,” he said. In respect to the more than $42,000 worth of invoices, Part­ ridge said most of the suppliers had complied with the library’s notice that it would not receive any new shipments. One, however, had approached him to indicate that it had no space in which to store the books which had been ordered earlier by Partridge, the chief librarian said. He agreed to accept delivery of the books on the understanding that there would be no invoices issued until 1986, Partridge said. Coun. Dave Johnston (Bayfield Reeve) suggested that Partridge had not “really answered the question of why he had accepted the books although he took three minutes to state a bunch of facts.” Johnston said he wanted to know if steps had been taken “to curtail the spending of the chief librarian who, for the fourth consecutive year has run over budget.” Cunningham assured council that “the mechanism to monitor the purchasing will be in effect as soon as possible.” He said the board is taking steps sothatitwill be aware of how many books are outstanding at all times. “It does seem that the book budget is the problem,” Cunning­ ham said, “and we are taking steps to solve that problem.” As board chairman, Cunning­ ham said, his concern was “that the chief librarian did not have close enough tabs on his book purchasing. “My other concern was that those orders were already in,” he added. The orders to which he referred, Cunningham said, were for $42,000 worth of books that he (Partridge) was not authorized to purchase.” Cunningham told council the $42,890.95 will be absorbed in the $178,227 which the board has budgeted in 1986 for book pur­ chases. “That means there will be $42,890.95 less to spend on new books this year,’’ Cunningham said.