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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1991-03-13, Page 1r County mill rate to increase 8.3% in new budget After combing department bud­ gets for nearly four hours Huron County Councillors Thursday left intact a county budget that will see VOL. 7 NO. 10 Serving Brussels, Blyth, Auburn, Belgrave, Ethel, Londesborough, Walton and surrounding townships. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13, 1991.60 CENTS Blyth Library opens Tuesday Blyth’s branch of the Huron County Library will close from Thursday, March 13 to Monday, March 18 while library staff move books to the new location. Starting next Tuesday, March 19 the library will reopen in its new, larger location in the north wing of Blyth Memorial Hull. The new library branch is the result of co-operation between the Village of Blyth, Huron County Library and the Blyth Centre for the Arts which erected the north wing of Memorial Hall in 1980 and had used the space as a box office and art gallery until last summer when the new south wing of the hall was built. Meanwhile the Huron County Library last week received a cheque for $5,000 from the Ontario Mini­ stry of Culture and Communica­ tions to assist with purchase of equipment and furniture for the new library. The grant is from a program that assists libraries to improve the equity of access for library users. The new branch qualifies because it is accessible to handicapped and will include a handicapped wash­ room. The county has also set aside $8,000 which, together with the grant, will purchase shelving and furniture for the new library. The new shelving will be of maple with adjustable shelves and provide four times the capacity of the old library. Included in the new branch will be a children’s area which will include child-sized furniture and shelving. The reference area will provide a study table and seating for six people. The Public Access Catalogue computer will be located in this area and will also have a printer attached for easy prepara­ tion of bibliographies and accurate interloan request forms. In the reading area there will be comfortable upholstered seating and a newspaper rack will be the focus of the area. Display towers will hold paperbacks, videos and future audio-visual material. All of the extra features are available due to the trippling of space available in the new location. The new space had 900 square feet of space compared to 250 in the present location in the municipal office. the mill rate for county purposes increase 8.3 per cent. Councillors spent hours attack­ ing relatively minor details in the Brussels on camera Kevin Lund, host of TVO’s Ontario Lottery Live watches a camera crew film action at the Brussels Optimist Atom Tournament Friday night. The crew spent the day in the village filming a segment on Brussels to be broadcast Sat., April 6 at 10:30 p.m. Brussels Livestock change official Brussels Livestock changed hands officially on March 5 and this new division of Gamble and Rogers held its first sale on March 12, following a special ribbon cutting ceremony. Local dignitaries were on hand for the event and CKNX farm editor Murray Gaunt was the department budgets, items that, if deleted would have saved money but had little effect on the bill to county taxpayers. master of ceremonies. Leonard Gamble, owner of Gam­ ble and Rogers said that there have been some changes made in sale dates. Fat sales will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays, followed by cows. The reason for this change, he says, is that buyers want to buy “1 sense a degree of frustration at not being able to do much (to cut the mill rate)” Nigel Bellchamber, county clerk-administrator said. early in the week in time for slaughter. Stockers sales will be held onFriday at 1 p.m. and there will be a special sale of lambs on March 23. Mr. Gamble said they are also working on the possibility of a veal sale if they can find a day for it. Part of the reason was the thorough budgeting procedure of the county under which staff set a preliminary budget, the budget is whittled down by each committee then passed on to the executive commit­ tee which tries to find more cuts. By the time the budget gets to county council most possible cuts have already been made. ‘‘There’s very little fat in the budget. You can cut $100 here and $100 there or you can make significant service cuts but there’s not a lot to cut.” The main cause of the 8.3 per cent increase, aside from normal inflationary costs, is an increase in the amount of money set aside for the building of the two new Huronview homes, one south of Brussels and one at the present site at Clinton. Last year the county set aside $1 million for this project and this year has increased that to $1.5 million. That and other increases bring the total county budget to $9,668,355. That increase in the reserve fund for Huronview was one major area that cuts were suggested. Exeter Reeve Bill Mickle made a motion to reduce the allocation for the Huron­ view reserve fund to $1.25 million instead of $1.5 million. He sugges­ ted the county could phase in the reserve for capital needs, increas­ ing it by another $250,000 next year, so the jump in taxes wouldn’t be so sharp. It would mean a budget increase of only 4.6 per cent this year, he said. The measure would have meant the county could have to borrow more money than projected to complete Huronview until it raised the rest of the money and the provincial government money becomes available. The motion was opposed by Turnberry Reeve Brian McBurney, saying he wasn’t for higher taxes but he was for sticking with the reserve increase. ‘‘As unusual as it may be for me to say it, I don’t think 8.3 per cent is too high with what we’ve taken on,” he said. “It would be nice to have a five per cent increase but we are doing it for Continued on page 21 County welfare budget soars 65 °/o With the economy in trouble Huron County’s welfare budget has increased 65 per cent for 1991 over the 1990 budget. The county’s share of the Huron Social Servics budget will be $486,767 compared to the budget of $294,255 last year. The total bud­ get will be $2,204,742 with the province paying $1,705,126. Although the increase is huge over last year’s budget, the in­ crease over what was actually spent last year was not as large. The worsening economy sent costs into a spiral late last year that saw the county’s share increase to $335,457 a 35 per cent overrun. County clerk-administrator Nigel Bellchamber pointed to the in­ crease as one of those things that is beyond the power of county coun­ cillors to control. “January 1991 was the highest (number of people drawing wel­ fare) we’ve ever had in our history” John MacKinnon, admini- Continued on page 23