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The Citizen, 1994-06-08, Page 1Milestone ■ History ■ News______B Entertainment Blyth Legions honours its veterans See page 3 Student shares thoughts on war and D-Day See page 6 Area girls perform in dance recital at Guelph See page 20 Rehearsals begin for Blyth’s Glengarry See page 23 Lavis, MTO answer residents’ questions Reconstruction of Blyth's main street is designed to be completed as quickly and with as little disrup­ tion as possible, officials of the Ministry of Transportation and the prime contractor, Lavis Contracting assured residents of the village June 1. Several dozen people attended the informal open house to view plans of the construction. Ken Eagleson, foreman of the project for Lavis Contracting, explained that the road will be kept open for two-way traffic at nearly all times. This will sacrifice parking on main street during the worst of the con­ struction but will have the least dis­ ruption on traffic. A detour is being built to the west of the Blyth Brook bridge in the northern part of the village which will allow traffic flow to continue while the bridge is demolished and rebuilt. Thrfee crews will simultaneously be working on the street recon­ struction itself. Two crews from Kerr Construction will be tearing up the old paving and installing the new storm sewer, one working each way from the bridge. A Lavis crew will begin working at the junction of Highway 4 and County Road 25, then work its way north. Paul Driscoll, project supervisor County rd. budget hit by prov. cuts Huron County residents are going to have to get used to a reduced level of service on their county highways following provin­ cial government cutbacks, Denis Merrall, county engineer told coun­ ty council Thursday. Since setting its budget to meet the March 31 deadline set by the province, the county has learned it will get $699,500 less provincial road subsidy than in 1993, a reduc­ tion of 14.3 per cent. It means the county's subsidy for roads has dropped by $1.4 million since 1991, and is now below the level the county received in 1987. "I think council should look at the bottom line," Mr. Merrall told councillors. "The bottom line is a loss of service." The real impact of the cuts won't be noted until 1996, Mr. Merrall said. This year the road department Council in cat fight over dog license fees Several Brussels residents arc not taking kindly to having to pay a late fee for not buying their dog licences . . in fact some arc not happy having to buy a dog licence at all. Two residents, upset with the dog licence, spoke before council Mon­ day night saying they were with­ holding their payment in protest of other conditions. Brian Rutledge told council he had withheld payment in protest over the condition of a neighbour­ ing yard. The yard has been in an unsightly and dangerous stale for for MTO, said the junction of the two highways will be completely redesigned. Gone will be the cur­ rent merge lane from Highway 4 heading west on County Rd. 25. Instead the comer of the two high­ ways will be enlarged and improved to allow a smoother traf­ fic flow in all directions. Mr. Eagleson explained that it will be October before the project is finished, mostly because of the time necessary to complete the bridge building. Most of the chaos on the rest of the street should be finished long before then, although the final layer of asphalt will await the completion of the bridge. He estimated the removal of old pave­ ment and the installation of the new storm sewer would be done within a couple of weeks. The old sidewalks will be left in until it is time to install the new curbs, he said. Then the sidewalks will be tom out, the new curb will be laid, a gravel walk put in and, as soon as possible, the new sidewalk will be installed. He estimated that from removal to installation of the new sidewalk would be a week. During that time access to stores will still be available through use of planks across the construction. Crews will not work in the area of the Blyth Festival during perfor­ mances. has been able to use a surplus car­ ried over from 1993 to lessen the cuts. In 1995 the infrastructure pro­ gram will help offset the damage of the Ministry of Transportation grants. But in 1996, he said, the crunch will really hit. "The challenge for council is to get people to realize that there has to be a reduction in service with a $1.5 million reduction in funding." For this year some savings have come through lower than expected tender prices for repaving of Coun­ ty Road 12 north of Brussels, a large reduction in the county's con­ tribution to the infrastructure pro­ gram for the reconstruction of county Road 7 in Howick Town­ ship which will defer work until 1995 and small reductions have been made in the budget for bridge and culvert maintenance, roadside maintenance and land purchase. years, he said. Councillor Dave Hastings said he had visited the owner many limes over the years and had always been promised that something would be done, but sat­ isfactory action was never taken. He explained to Mr. Rutledge that council had taken legal action sev­ eral years ago but still hadn't been able to get improvements and just cost the taxpayers thousands of dol­ lars. "I think a lol of people think we don't do anything about it," said Reeve Gordon Workman. "We've Continued on page 2 Vol. IONo.23 Wednesday, June 8, 1994 6O0GSTincluded Nothing yet Kristy Hansford, 5 of Wingham was one of many people out to enjoy a day of relaxation, while patiently waiting for that big catch at the second annual Spring Fish Out at Cook's Pond near Belgrave, Sunday. Sunny skies and balmy temperatures prevailed for the event, which was held to raise money for Big Brothers. Groups come to Ark to learn By Bonnie Gropp Parents and teens from Vanaslra and Goderich visited The Ark in Brussels on Wednesday night, June 1, to gather input on how to start a youth drop-in centre in their com­ munities. The meeting, which was attended by about 40 people, including Brussels Ark adult volunteers and area teens, was facilitated by Man­ ager Sallianne Patch. The people were divided into groups for purposes of discussion. They dealt with issues and con­ cerns which might be consistent when starling up a youth centre. Teens were encouraged to provide their views on the Brussels centre and on how they fell such a facility would work in their communities. Both places have held meetings to determine interest and Goderich has distributed a survey to find out what the teens expect from a drop- in centre. Continued on page 7