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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.