HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1987-02-18, Page 1Bly th seeks new councillor
Blyth village council will fill the
seat left vacant by the resignation
of Councillor Tom Cronin at the
March meeting of council.
Council, in a session late last
Tuesday night, declared the posi
tion of the former councillor vacant
and voted to accept applications for
the open council seat until 4:30
p.m. on Friday, February 27. Each
nomination for the open position
must be accompanied by a letter of
“consent to stand’’ by the nomi
nee.
Council will consider the appli
cations at its March 10 meeting.
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Londesborough, Waltcn and surrounding townships.
VOL. 3 NO. 7 WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1987.40 CENTS
Blyth questions CP Rail
statistics over line closure
Blyth village council voted last
week to ask Canadian Pacific Rail
for more clarification of its claims
that the Goderich to Guelph line is
losing money and the railway
should be allowed to close it.
Councillors had some questions
about the railway’s claim that in
the intermediate points between
Goderich and Guelph there were
fewer than 10 carloads of traffic
each month for the last two years.
Councillor Bill Howson (who had
first declared a possible conflict of
interest on the subject but had
been told by other councillors they
could n't see a conflict involved)
said he wasn’t sure how many
carloads Howson and Howson Ltd.
wasresponsibleforbuthe knew
that they had three cars sitting on
their siding at that moment.
Helen Grubb, clerk-treasurer,
had informed council that Gary
Standfieldfromthe railway had
visited her office on January 21 to
deliver the letter. He had explain
ed the process under which the
railway applies for abandonment
and if the Canadian Transport
Commission, after a
decided that the line should be
maintained, the railway would get
a government subsidy.
Councillor Bill Manning said he
had read railway history and “I
really look down on them the way
they made promises to run the
railways in perpetuity’’ and now
want to close lines. He said the
railway made a lot of money on the
sale of lands granted to them by the
government, especially in the
West, but now they don’t want to
keep their part of the bargain.
Councillor Manning said he felt
the village should take action to try
to stop the closure because if not, it
would support the railway’s claim
that the line wasn’t important. “If
you don’t complain about this
they’ll just close the line. If you do,
they’ll get a subsidy.’’
Reeve Albert Wasson wondered
how much subsidy could be poured
into keeping a line open if the line is
losing money. Ten years from now
the railway might be needed if the
price of gas goes up and the taxes
on trucks continue to increase but
“right now it’s a trucking world.’’
“Let’s look at how much the
trucking industry is subsidized’’,
Councillor Manning said. If the
trucking companies had to pay to
maintain their own roads like the
railways do, maybe they’d be
asking for a subsidy too, he said.
“But how low does the use have
to get to be on a line before it’s
impractical’’ Reeve Wasson won
dered and Councillor Manning
agreed that that could be a
problem.
After Councillor Howson ex
pressed his doubts about the
figures, council decided its first
course of action would be to ask for
the clarification then look at
whether or not to take further
action.
Teacher talks continue
in news blackout
The news blackout imposed on
contract talks between the Huron
public hearing (County Board of Education, its 350
'• elementary school teachers and a
provincial mediator was still in
effect at press time.
Personnel Relations Admini
strator Gino Giannandrea said
Tuesday that the three parties met
in Stratford on February 4, but that
no date had been set for a further
meeting.
Wages are only one of the items
on the bargaining table in the
ongoing dispute. The teachers are
seeking a salary grid increase of six
per cent, which would bring the top
salary for an elementary teacher in
Huron County to $48,124, while the
Board is offering a two-year
package which would bring the top
salary to $47,436 by the end of the
year.
Exuberance was the name of the game at Grey Central Public School
near Ethel last week, as the kids celebrated the annual Winter Carnival
under sunny skies and sub-zero temperatures. The sack race was one
of the liveliest events, and one guaranteed to keep the racers warm.
After months of reading hundreds of submitted scripts Katherine
Kaszas, Blyth Festival Artistic Director has chosen the four plays that
will be premiered at the Festival this summer. In addition the Festival
will bring back “Another Season's Promise”.
Musical kicks off '87 Festival
Four completely new plays and
the return of a hit drama premiered
last summer will make up the Blyth
Festival Theatre’s 1987 season, a
season which Artistic Director
Katherine Kaszas calls “the most
exciting season ever.’’
The season will open on Friday,
June 19, and run through until
Saturday, September 12, with two
“season previews’’ on Wednesday
and Thursday, June 17 and 18.
The opening production, on
June 19, will be “Girls in the
Gang,’’ by Raymond Storey and
John Roby. Commissioned by the
Blyth Festival Theatre and work
shopped in Blyth last December,
Ms. Kaszas says “Girls” is a
“very, very funny cops-and-
robbers story, from a romantic
point of view.”
“Girls in the Gang” is based on
the story of Canada’s infamous
Boyd gang, notorious bank robbers
whose exploits excited the Cana
dian press and public alike. The
gang lived a high life until a
dramatic shoot-out turned them
intopublic enemy number one.
Mr. Storey’s fast-moving script,
focussing on the gang’s women, is
punctuated by the hot jazz, mellow
swing and sweet harmonies of
John (Country Hearts) Roby’s
score, and is a fast and lively
musical that captures the excite
ment and glamour of the 40’s and
50’s in Canada.
The following Tuesday, on June
23, “Bordertown Cafe,” by Kelly
Rebar, will open. Another play
commissioned by the Festival
Theatre, this is the story of a loving
but eccentric family living in a
small cafe on the border between
Alberta and Montana, and about a
young man’s coming of age in the
1980’s. Is he Canadian or Ameri
can? He is pulled in all directions -
by his fiesty, patriotic American
grandmother; his Canadian grand
father, who has given him a deep
love of the land; his harried mother
who can’t communicate with him;
and his estranged, truck-driving
father, who wants him to move to
the States. Canada’s national
obsession with our neighbours to
the south is examined in this fresh,
vibrant comedy.
“Miss Balmoral of the Bay
view,” by Colleen Curran, author
of “Cake-Walk” and “Moose
County,” will open on July 14.
Described as a ‘side-splitting
comedy,’ this play follows the
adventurous Beatrix Balmoral as
she leaves her job at an exclusive
girls’ school (under less than
happy circumstances) and begins a
new career in hotel management.
The Bayview Inn, once a thriving
resort, is now run-down and
decrepit, and peopled by a wild
assortment of zany characters.
The fourth play of the season is
“Bush Fire,” by Laurie Fyfe.
Based on a true incident that
occurred in Lanark County in 1928;
‘ * Bush Fire” is a spinechiliing tale
of passion and destruction, “a
really horrendous, scary story we
hope will keep people on the edge
of their seats,” says Ms. Kaszas.
After a fire claims the lives of
Ann Easby and four of her
children, a neighbour takes in the
surviving boy. But his disturbing,
incoherent ramblings prompt her
to place a far more sinister
interpretation of the events on the
night of the fire, and the suspense
builds as the true horror is
revealed, a horror which would
have been much better left buried.
These four plays will run in
repertory through until August 22,
with the exception of “Miss
Balmoral.” which closes one week
later, on August 29.
The final production of 1987,
“Another Season’s Promise,” by
Anne Chislett and Keith Roulston,
Continued on page 27