HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-01-25, Page 1VOL. 5 NO. 4 WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1989. 45 CENTS
All the students in Grades 2 to 8 at East Wawanosh Public School became
“Armchair Travellers’’ for two days last week during a special enrichment
program designed to allow everyone involved to “visit” four “countries” of
their choice over the course of the project. Above, students [from left] Janette
Ward, Kristi Procter, Danielle Taggart, Erin Forrest, Jennifer Cook and
Amanda Young scramble to dip their Poffertjes, a Dutch confectionary, in
powdered sugar during their “visit to Holland. Other countries represented
included Japan, Russia, China, Scotland, France and Germany.
Blyth council split over procedures
After only a month in office a
split has developed on Blyth coun
cil that was taken to the Ontario
Ministry of Municipal Affairs last
week for resolution.
The split developed during the
continuation of the regular meeting
of council to a special meeting
January 17 which in turn was
continued on January 18. Both
meetings were short meetings held
prior to committee meetings.
The issue came to a head after
Councillor Dave Medd presented a
motion to change the village’s
procedural by-law at the Tuesday
session asking that minutes of
regular and special meetings be
delivered to councillors within one
week of the meeting. The old
by-law had provided only that the
minutes be delivered at least 48
hours prior to the next regular
council meeting.
Councillor Medd arrived at the
meeting with the motions already
prepared documenting the sections
and subsections of the 1985 by-law
he wanted amended. He placed the
Mediator appointed in school dispute
The talks between the Huron
County Board of Education and its
390 elementary school teachers in
an attempt to reach a collective
agreement may soon be back on
track, with the appointment Mon
day of David Whitehead of St.
Catharines as mediator in the
long-standing dispute.
The board and its teachers have
been negotiating since early last
March, anticipating the expiry of
motions on the table needing only
the mover’s and seconder’s names
on it. The motion was quickly
seconded and passed, despite pro
test from a surprised Clerk-trea
surer Helen Grubb.
Mrs. Grubb protested that there
their previous agreement on Au
gust 31, 1988. Two earlier attempts
at mediation were held last May
and a fact-finding hearing was held
in September, with the last bar
gaining meeting held on Septem
ber 22.
But the talks broke down as the
two sides in the dispute were
unable to find a way through the
tangle of such unresolved issues as
salary and benefits, preparation
were times when the deadline of
one week would be hard to meet.
She used the example of the
previous week when there was
much to be done at the village
office including preparing for night
Continued on page 20
time and staffing, among others.
In an action unprecedented in
Huron County, more than 300
elementary teachers staged a de
monstration at the board office in
Clinton on November 28 in an effort
to draw media and public attention
to their plight and to try to pressure
the board back to the bargaining
table.
However, the board refused to
Continued on page 8
Fewer, larger
disposal sites
forecast
Although the Huron County
Waste Management Master Plan is
still at its Stage One, collection of
data phase, indications at the first
public meeting about the plan held
in Blyth Thursday night are that
one of the recommendations will be
moving to at most two or three
waste disposal sites in the county.
“It is not going to make econo
mic sense over the long term to
maintain 17 sites,’’ Les MacMillan
of Gore and Storrie Limited, the
consulting firm that is preparing
the study on how Huron county
should handle the growing problem
of waste disposal. The county’s
decision to commission the quarter
million dollar study was brought
about by the rapid depletion of the
17 municipally owned waste dis
posal sites in the county.
Mr. MacMillan told the 70
persons who attended the Memor
ial Hall meeting that his group can
foresee joint use of one, two or
three facilities whether administer
ed at the county level or through a
board of management. However,
be told the group made up largely
of municipal politicians, “generally
you will want to use your existing
facilities until it is used up.”
The life expectancy of those
current facilities was one of the
pieces of information outlined for
those at the meeting. Current
facilities are expected to last from
one year for the Turnberry Town
ship site to 20 years for the
Blyth-Hullett site. A conservative
estimate of the time it takes to get a
new site in operation, Mr. MacMil
lan said, is five years, with the
complicated testing of soil and
water conditions and the environ
mental assessment process that
must be undertaken. It is this
expensive and time consuming
approval process for a new waste
disposal site that would push
forward fewer, larger facilities,
Dennis Merrall Huron County
Engineer said. The cost of environ
mental assessment hearings and
testing for one big site is less than
for 17 new smaller ones, he said.
For waste disposal sites the cost of
land is a much smaller part of
start-up costs than the cost of the
approval process.
Mr. Merrall also deal with the
role recycling can have in the
reduction of waste and the prolong
ing of the life of the waste facilities.
There are particular disadvantages
for small municipalities in inaugur
ating recycling programs, he said.
The small population and the low
volumes of recycling product make
the economics of recycling less
inviting than those in large centres.
That’s why municipalities in Huron
and Perth are exploring group
marketing and processing of recy
clable materials and shared costs of
the purchase and sharing of equip
ment, through the Huron-Perth
Recycling Board, he said.
A curb-side “blue box” recy
cling program could reduce house
hold waste by 15 per cent and
overall garbage volume by 10 per
cent, he said. He said the indivi
dual efforts to reduce waste are an
important part of a waste reduction
program. Home composting and
the decision to reduce waste
through purchasing sensible pack
aging will show the best economic
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