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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1996-01-10, Page 4Covered trail Letters THE EDITOR, Town and Country Homemakers provides homemaking and community support services throughout Huron County. The organization is a not-for-profit, community-based agency run by a volunteer board of directors. Working along with community groups and organizations allows Town and Country Homemakers to enhance current services to meet the needs of seniors and adults with physical challenges. Town and Country Homemakers is always concerned that community support services meet these needs. One way this can be determined is to circulate a survey. A community support survey is being mailed to each household in the Blyth area the second week of January. We are encouraging people to participate in filling out this survey to enable us to identify current services and to determine _needs in the area. A collection box will be located in the lobby of the Blyth Post Office until Jan. 26. Completed surveys can be dropped off at the collection box or can be mailed to: Town and Country Homemakers P.O. Box 969 92 Victoria Street E. Wingham, Ontario NOG 2W0 Sincerely, Tara Ferguson Community Support Co-ordinator THE EDITOR, The Wheels Away Board is pleased to announce that both Wingham and Morris municipal councils have accepted the new payment proposal for their specialized transit service provided in north Huron and south Bruce counties. The proposed plan calls for a per capita payment of 25 cents per municipal resident plus a $2 per ride charge to the municipalities. This will better allow each municipality to budget at the beginning of the fiscal year for their share of Wheels Away operating costs. The new payment proposal will be presented to all municipal councils in the Wheels Away service area as soon as possible. Wheels Away is currently recruiting new office staff as Co- ordinator John Mann has decided not to renew his contract which expires on Feb. 28. Vicky Piluke Chairperson. THE EDITOR, As I reflect.back on the 1995 local Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) project, it is evident that this community is very generous toward providing food to needy countries around the world. The 1995 local project has had a very successful year. The dollar value has exceeded last year's total by $4,000. This year's total dollar value is $19,500. With the four to one match by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) it brings our contribution to $97,500. This year the wheat and corn were sent overseas to countries requiring aid while the crops from the test plots were sold. With the CIDA match our local project would provide approximately 900 tonne of foodgrains, which in turn, if used for payment for work, would provide 1.5 years of work for 1,000 people. An example of a food for work project is the Wilding of a 50 foot wall, 10 feet high on a hill or mountainside. This wall would act as a dam to hold back water from a natural spring. The reservoir would supply water for irrigation and Continued on page 6 PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 10, 1996 C The North Huron itizen BLUE RIBBON AWARD 1995 P.O. Box 429, P.O. Box 152, Publisher, Keith Roulston BLYTH, Ont. BRUSSELS, Ont. Editor, Bonnie Gropp NOM 1HO NOG IHO Phone 523-4792 Phone 887-9114 Advertising Manager, FAX 523-9140 FAX 887-9021 Jeannette McNeil The Citizen is published weekly in Brussels, Ontario by North Huron Publishing Company Inc. Subscriptions are payable In advance at a rate of $25.00/year ($23.37 • $1.63 G.S.T.) for local; $33.00/year ($30.85 + $2.15 G.S.T.) for local letter carrier In Goderich, Hanover, Llstowel, 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 newscripts or photographs. Contents of The Citizen are © Copyright. Publications Mail Registration No. 6968 Time for community action With Huron County council's decision last week to close libraries in Auburn, Walton, Cranbrook and Bluevale, perhaps it is time for people who care about books and having a library in their community to step forward and take action to make sure the libraries we have left in Blyth and Brussels aren't next on the chopping block. The county library board is caught .in a dilemma. On one hand it must deal with a huge retroactive pay equity settlement left over from the former government while it also deals with a 20 per cent cut in funding from the current provincial government. At the same time county council has vowed there will be no tax increase for the third straight year. Something has to give. Today it is the libraries in the hamlets and small villages. Tomorrow it may be libraries in the villages and even some towns. Reeves of the municipalities hit by the most recent closures demanded that the pain be spread across the county. There should be layoffs and reduced hours at larger branch libraries as well, suggested Bob Hallam of West Wawanosh. It's perhaps a fair proposal, but it only speeds the snowballing action of making our libraries a part of history instead of being a part of the community. The fewer hours our libraries are open, the fewer people use them, the less justification there is for them to be open at all. If the hours were cut in Blyth and Brussels, for instance, then circulation of books is likely to decline and the first thing you know these branches will be under the same pressure as Auburn or Walton to close because they aren't being used enough. The county library system has had many advantages for library users over the past decades since it took over the running of libraries from local library boards. One of the disadvantages, however, is that it took the sense of ownership and the sense of responsibility for that ownership, from the local communities. With the distant county government agency in Goderich (now Clinton) operating the libraries, people took them for granted. That may be a luxury communities can no longer afford. Could interested citizens work with the library board to make the remaining libraries more vital parts of the community? Some centres have "friends of the library" groups which help raise money and provide additional services in libraries in their communities. Perhaps it's time more communities took that route. Perhaps it's time the library board encouraged such action by calling meetings of libraries in each community to ask for their help. It can't hurt and it might be the chance to keep libraries alive in this "information age". — KR Merrall's loss a blow At a time when governments are being asked to do more with less, Huron County has lost a civil servant who has been doing that for years. Denis Merrall's final report as Huron County engineer showed just how much he and his innovative staff have been able to accomplish with less money in the last few years. There are only 34 km of gravel county road left, down from 144 when Merrall started. New roads have been built, like the extension of County Road 15 from Benmiller to Londesboro and the new "Ball's Bridge". Most people would agree the county road system is far superior to the provincial road system in -Huron. Yet in 1995, the money the road department received from the province and from the county road subsidy (county taxpayers) was $1.4 million less than in 1991. Staff levels are down nearly one third. Imagine if that kind of improvement could be extended to all branches of government? It's impossible to accomplish, of course. Changes in technology (ever notice how few people it takes to run a snowplow now compared to 20 years ago?) have a greater impact in "hard" service areas like highways than in departments where the costs go mainly to salaries, but the kind of innovative thinking that road department employees must have put into gaining these efficiencies, would be welcome in all areas of the county operation. There are ways of rewarding employees, even in government operations, for cost-saving and innovation. Managers who can grasp the concept of making less tax money go farther are to be guarded jealously. In Merrall's case, Middlesex County's gain is Huron County's loss. Hopefully his spirit of innovation can continue. — KR E ditorial