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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1995-01-25, Page 4Re-covered Photo by Janice Becker Letters THE EDITOR, This letter is to let the residents of Hullett Township know that on Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the council chambers, the new council will be discussing the building of a new township office and council chambers facility. Please understand that no decision has been made as of yet and your input can make a difference. Our tax dollars have gone into both the infrastructure money and municipal taxes to cover the construction and furnishing costs related to this building. The latest dollar figure is $300,000 for a building on the new lot. This meeting should let us know what was discussed with the Huron County Board of Education on Jan. 10. Some of our options are: 1. build with the school and save building costs as well as have a "buy back" clause whereas if we go to Regional Municipal Government we would not have the upkeep of an unnecessary building. 2. build on the new lot and incur all expenses and future upkeep of the building. 3. renovate the present office and chambers in the township building. 4. send the money back and do nothing in regard to a new building. Council has already stated that they do not intend to have a public meeting on this matter so this could be your only chance to discuss a-As matter. The more people who THE EDITOR, For the record, why do we need a reeve and four acclaimed councillors, when having attended some meetings, it appears to me that one councillor runs the show and seems to make all decisions. Are the remaining four lost for words? Have they been advised to only raise a hand, "Aye" or "Nay", on cue? When a meeting seems to resemble an on-stage performance (A Comedy of Errors) would you expect it to be played in council chambers? Or the coffee shop? Why was the Pay Equity Program scrapped by the present council? Can taxpayers' money be used in this manner, without THE EDITOR, On behalf of the corn farmers of Huron County, I would like to express our sincere appreciation to Paul Steckle, MP for Huron, for the major effort on his part which resulted in the major federal announcement of Dec. 21 concerning fuel ethanol. The announcement was of a contingency loan guarantee attend this meeting the better council can make a decision based on public opinion. Kittle MacGregor. question? Why was a capable committee disbanded? Why select another inexperienced committee? Why start over? Are there viable, acceptable reasons? Is it a make work effort, a scheme, not to be questioned? Why, and for what reason, the dismissal of a valued village administrator? I feel the timing was inappropriate. Anyone who has been fired; without cause, knows that justice is not being served when the decree is not deserved. I don't believe this behaviour should be tolerated in a just society. It is an indication of something; it spells TROUBLE for our village. Verne Dakin. program which will come into effect only if an excise tax is imposed on fuel ethanol made from corn and other biological materials by a future government prior to the year 2005. This guarantee is expected to result in the construction of new, world-scale ethanol plants at Chatham and Cornwall in the near future. Continued on page 6 Writer urges public to attend meeting Blyth problems trouble resident Corn Prod. recognize MP' work PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1995. Citizen emNA• The North Huron eNA P.O. Box 429, P.O. Box 152, BLYTH, OnL BRUSSELS, Ont. NOM I HO NOG I HO Phone 523.4792 Phone 887-9114 FAX 523-9140 FAX 887.9021 Publisher, Keith Roulston Editor, Bonnie Gropp Sales Representatives, Jeannette McNeil and Julie Mitchell The Citizen Is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable in advance at a rate of $23.00/year ($21.50 plus $1.50 G.S.T.) for local; $3 3.00/year ($30.85 plus $2.15 G.S.T.) for local letter carrier in Goderich, Hanover, Listowel, etc. and out-of-area (40 miles from Brussels); $62.00/year for U.S.A. and Foreign. Advertising Is accepted on the condition that in the event of a typographical error, only that portion of the advertisement will be credited. Advertising Deadlines: Monday, 2 p.m. - Brussels; Monday, 4 p.m. - Blyth. We are not responsible for unsolicited newscrlpts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright. Publications Mali Registration No. 6968 Spare that tree? The controversy brewing over Huron County's plan to harvest hardwood trees from a county forest near Goderich highlights again the problem of urban versus rural views of the earth. The issue came to a head after Joe Gibson, now retired as Huron County Tree Com- missioner, suggested there should be more harvesting done in some of the county forests which are administered by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Ministry officials, after investigation, felt the only forest that could yield profitable timber at this point is the Morris Tract near Goderich. The officials noted that the area was sensitive environmentally so suggested less-damaging techniques such as horses be used for log hauling and pointed out there is a high degree of tourism. That high degree of tourism became evident when a public meeting was held to discuss the possibility of harvesting the more mature trees in the tract. Members of groups such as the Maitland Trail Association, Menesetung Bridge Association, Huron Fringe Naturalists and Colborne Snowmobile Club condemned the idea outright. They scoffed at Mr. Gibson's concerns about the safety to hikers from mature trees that might fall. The forest must be left alone, they argued. Logging would endanger the fragile ecological balance and rare plants. But the critics are illogical. If protecting the forest from the dangers of humans is so important, why allow hiking at all? Shouldn't we erect a 20-foot high fence around the entire tract to prevent thoughtless hikers and snowmobilers from doing damage? What the hikers and snowmobilers really want is for the forest to be left for their use. The trouble is they want the taxpayers of the rest of the county to pay for their recreational land. As part of its management agreement with the MNR, the county will owe the province $175,000 when the agreement ends in 2000. A selective harvest would yield from $140,000 to $400,000 at today's high timber prices. But it's more than money. The county originally took over the county forests to create valuable forests from poor farmland. Hikers were encouraged to use the land for recreational purposes. But now the hikers feel that they own the land and the original purpose is not as important as theirs. Ironically, hikers may be shooting themselves in the foot. Some people, for instance, hope for the day when old railway rights-of-way can be turned into hiking trails. Farmers bordering such rail lines have resisted, fearing that if hikers are given access to the lines, neighbours will be threatened. Those fears, which may have seemed groundless in the past, are supported by the Morris Tract situation. Farmers can now rightly fear that letting the hikers use the rail lines will soon lead to demands that farmers change their farming practices because the trail users are more important than the farmers. Surely there is a compromise in the Morris Tract issue. The county, through its MNR recommendations, seems sensitive to the potential problems of the area. But there seems to be this idea these days that all logging is like the clear-cut logging of the west coast. Careful, selective logging of a hardwood forest is like pruning plants in a garden: it actually promotes long-term growth rather than damages the forest. Young trees must be given the light to grow. Proper care should be taken to make sure the environment is protected and hikers trails are kept as pleasant as possible but simply saying no to any kind of harvest of mature timber at all would be short- sighted. — KR Equity or insanity? In all the turmoil that surrounds Blyth village council these days it's easy to have an opinion, but hard to have an informed opinion unless you are on the inside of the issues. One thing that stood out in last week's report on the dispute over whether or not to keep the old Pay Equity committee in place, hoWever, was the cost. Former councillors claimed the decision to abandon the old committee would mean spending "another $5,000 to $6,000" to bring in a pay equity report. You mean it cost $5,000 to $6,000 already? And for how many employees? Six? Give us a break! The provincial government's pay equity system must be the biggest boondoggle since the British convinced the Indians to give up North America. While the cause is just, the process is downright stupid and unwieldy. It has cost thousands to implement, not even counting the extra salaries that resulted. (and don't blame this on the NDP, it dates back to the Liberals.) Surely a village with six employees shouldn't have to fork out thousands to find out if they're being paid fairly. — KR E ditorial