HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1992-02-12, Page 1News______■_____Special g Sports_____J Entertainment
1991 salaries
listed for
county councillors
See page30
Bridal tips
for planning
your big day
See page 13
Bulls begin
playoff series
with win
See page 21
Blyth Festival
hosts student
workshop
See page31
The North Huron
County council faces
tough budget year
Vol. 8 No. 6 Wednesday. February 12, 1992 60 cents
It will be a tough struggle for
Huron County Councillors to keep
the increase in county taxes at five
per cent or lower, it was revealed at
the Feb. 6 session of council.
Two areas, waste management
and welfare, are driving up costs
and cuts will have to be made else
where in order to meet the target of
The Way it wasn't
The first meeting of the council for the new County of
Huron on Feb. 8, 1842 was re-enacted in Blyth Memorial
Hall Saturday night, exactly 150 years later. John Ramirez
of Blyth (standing right) playing Dr. William Chalk
representative of Tuckersmith and Hullett makes a point to
Jason Cameron as Dr. William ’Tiger" Dunlop, chairman of
the meeting (left) while Erica Clark of Blyth (centre) listens
on as James Hodgins, of Biddulph township. Ironically,
Blyth wasn’t in existence when the original meeting took
place and Huron only came as far north as what is now
County Rd. 25.
five per cent or less, a report from
the executive committee said. As
the county gets closer to picking a
new landfill site, costs for the
Waste Management Master Plan
will increase from $89,000 in 1991
to $177,000 in 1992.
When initial budget projections
were compiled earlier in the year, it
looked like increased social ser
vices costs would mean a 2.5 per
cent tax increase by themselves.
Since then welfare costs have con
tinued to soar and it now appears a
five to six per cent tax increase
would be needed just to cover the
additional social services costs.
"We have to look at ways to reduce
the overall increase to five per
cent," Nigel Bellchamber, county
clerk administrator told council. It
will be hard to know what the exact
financial position of the county is
until exact 1991 year-end figures
are available.
Council approved a motion that
called on department heads to
report back to the executive com
mittee with proposals to bring in an
overall county tax increase of
approximately five per cent but
Exeter Reeve Bill Mickle was con
cerned. "I would hope that this
motion does not presume that we
won't do belter (than holding costs
to a five per cent increase) if we
can," he said. If there was any time
when pencils had to be sharpened
to reduce taxes it's now, he said. "I
hope we can find ways to get back
down the to 2.5 per cent we had
targetted last fall. There are a lot of
people we can help by reducing the
call for money (by the county)."
The motion called for the county
to use a guideline of two per cent
for salary increases for county
employees. But, Mr. Bellchamber
explained, because last year's salary
increase is still working its way
through the salary grid system,
even if the two per cent increase is
achieved, the cost to the taxpayer
will be three per cent in total salary
increase.
Murray Elston a close second in leadership race
Nobody will ever come much
closer to being elected leader of his
party and not make it than Murray
Elston did on Saturday...or Sunday,
to be more exact.
The Morris Township native led
balloting to become the leader of
the Liberal Party of Ontario and
therefore leader of the official
opposition, on the first ballot, then
fell behind, and finally rallied on
the fifth ballot by only nine votes.
It was like running a marathon,
then losing out by the length of
your nose.
It was the early hours of Sunday
morning before the 2400 Liberals
at the Copps Coliseum finally
elected Lyn McLeod as their new
leader by a count of 1,162 to 1,153.
Balloting had started more than 12
hours earlier. Voting delays meant
hours went by before the first ballot
results were announced and David
Ramsay, the sixth-place finisher,
was dropped from the next ballot.
Next it was Steve Mahoney who
dropped by the wayside, and then
Charles Beer. As each released his
delegates, the majority went to the
McLeod camp instead of to Elston.
Finally third place finisher Greg
Sorbara dropped off the ballot with
Mr. Elston by now 70 votes behind
instead of the 70 votes ahead he
had been after the first ballot.
When the votes were finally count
ed, Mr. Elston finished nine votes
behind and cheerfully greeted Mrs.
McLeod as the winner, pledging his
support.
In the end, some observers spec
ulated it may have been resentment
on the part of some Liberals to Mr.
Elston's late entry into the race that
proved the decisive factor. Mr.
Elston had originally decided not to
run and accepted the position as
interim party leader. He said he
didn't want the stress on his family.
But by late last year he was being
pushed by party members to recon
sider and he finally agreed, resign
ing as interim party leader. Some
people seemed to feel that because
he had the support of long-time
party financier Don Smith, he rep
resented the "old guard", even
though he was the youngest of the
candidates at only 42. In the end, it
required only five people to vote
for Mrs. McLeod over Mr. Elston
to tum the vote around. Mr. Elston
told Canadian Press Sunday that
losing by such a narrow margin
probably makes the loss more diffi
cult. "You wonder whether or not
there was somebody here, some
body there" who could have given
him the few extra votes he needed
to win. But, he said, "I don't feel
like I lost much in this. We've got
our new leader just like we set out 8ot our w°rk cut out for ourselves
to do a long time ago. And we've to win the next election.
Citizen appoints neiv editor
Keith Roulston, Publisher of 7 he
Citizen, has announced the appoint
ment of Bonnie Gropp as editor of
The Citizen, effective Feb. 6.
Bonnie has been with The Citizen
for three years and has been in
BONNIE GROPP
charge of photography, coverage of
educational affairs and a wide
range of general reporting activi
ties. For the past year she has been
assistant editor of the paper.
A resident of Brussels with her
husband Mark and children Jason,
Nicki, Ashley and Josh, she has
taken part in activities such as the
Brussels Basket welcoming com
mittee.
"It's great to be able to promote
people from within our organiza
tion to top posts," Mr. Roulston
said. "Bonnie has a real, long-term
commitment to the community and
we feel that's essential for the edi
tor of a community newspaper."
Bonnie replaces Keith Roulston
who will become editor of the Citi
zen's sister publication The Rural
Voice, effective March 2.