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Home My WebLink AboutThe Citizen, 1997-04-02, Page 24PAGE 24. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1997 At day’s dawn A stalwart congregation from Blyth United Church braved the early morning chill on Sunday to welcome Easter at sunrise. The service, led by Rev. Stephen Huntley was held at the home of Ernie and Emily Phillips. County Council briefs Change may cost plenty County okays in principle PUC/Hydro amalgamation Not only residents, but urbanites as well, could be paying extra because the Farm Tax Rebate has been replaced with a new 25 per cent assessment rate on farmland, Huron County councillors were told at their March 27 meeting. Previously, farmers paid 100 per cent of their taxes on land and buildings and then received a 75 per cent rebate of taxes on the land only. That meant the townships and the county had their share of the money and the province made up the difference. Now, with the farmer just not paying the tax, the full brunt of the tax reduction falls on the municipalities. Hullett Reeve Tom Cunningham pointed out that 48.6 per cent of the . assessment base in his township would be affected by the new rate. That would reduce the amount of money available for county purpos es as well as township purposes, he said. County Treasurer Ken Nix con firmed that the change in the farm tax rebate will cost the county, as a whole, $3.16 million; $1.8 million to the municipalities and $1.4 to the county. At a meeting in Clinton, March 22, Huron MPP Helen Johns said there was a pool of provincial money to help offset the effects of the cancellation of program but would not indicate whether there might be strings attached to getting access to the money — such as restructuring to amalgamate with other municipalities. *** Huron County residents have a new Medical Officer of Health. Dr. Susan Tamblyn officially became the MOH for Huron on April 1 as the merger of the Huron and Perth County Health Units con tinues. *•* It's unlikely Huron County resi dents could be collecting welfare while they were in jail as happened in Toronto, John McKinnon, administrator of social services told councillors. With a lighter caseload in a smaller community, "we hear fairly quickly if people are in jail," he said. Newspapers reports and con tacts in the community keep the caseworkers in touch, he said. Meanwhile McKinnon said there are misconceptions about the Ontario Works program and that it involves just the highly-publicized community works projects. There are 44 people involved in 17 such programs, he said, but others are involved in other facets of the pro gram. About 30 people are taking short-term training. Sixteen have been placed with agencies which will be paid if they find jobs for the clients. About 50 social services clients have full time jobs but have their incomes topped up because they cannot support their families at the wages they earn and another 50 have part-time jobs.♦♦♦ With provincial government cuts to the four conservation authorities that serve parts of the county, there will be no more free advice on planning matters, the Planning and Development Committee learned. The conservation authorities will be willing to enter an agreement to provide the service but so far no agreement has been made. In the meantime, it will be up to the developer to pay for such services, either through the conservation authority or a private consultant.*** A committee will meet, probably in the fall, to investigate if a the new bylaw is working that requir ing Nutrient Management Plans (NMP) for livestock barns with over 150 animal units. Senior planner Wayne Caldwell told council there are two or three NMPs in the process now. By fall it will be more possible to see how the program is working. NMPs are a response to concerns over the dangers of large amounts of liquid manure produced by a new, larger generation of livestock bams. An NMP requires farmers to plan how the manure will be safely used. Farmers must sign the plan in a promise they will try to live by the rules it sets out, Caldwell said.♦♦♦ Exeter is not backing down in a battle with the county over plan ning fees. Exeter has its own planning department but under the county's user-pay system, the county wants to recover some of the cost of oper ating the county department by charging so much for each planning application based on advice the county gives. When Exeter refused to pay, the county voted to with hold money from the county's urban road rebate to make up the difference. Exeter claims the county’s user pay system is not voluntary as it should be, and that it breaks an agreement with the county under which the town was allowed to continue to operate its own depart ment. The town had sued the coun ty claiming it should not have to support the county's planning department, but lost. If the county withholds money from the urban road rebate, Exeter said in a resolution to the Planning and Development Committee, the town will withhold an equal amount from the county levy. Fairies warns municipalities to not be smug Continued from page 6 Norm Fairies, reeve of Howick, warned municipalities with long- use capacity forecasts for their sites from being too smug. "I don't care if you have three years or 30 years, you could have a (test) well go bad or some other problem and you could have a landfill closed tomor row. We have to stick together." Bill Vanstone, reeve of Colbome suggested a possible solution to the funding problem. He wondered if the county has considered lending money to the zone landfills to be paid back from tipping charges by landfill users. Janes said that was one of the alternatives for funding the improvements. "Wild Things Need a Place to Grow" Celebrate National Wildlife Week April 6 - 12, 1997 For more information, call 1-800-563-WILD CLINTON COMMUNITY CREDIT UNION 48 Ontario Street 118 Main Street North CLINTON 482-3467 EXETER 235-0640 OPEN: MON. to THURS. 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. FRI. 9:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m. SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1952 Despite misgivings of some councillors, Huron County council Thursday approved the principle of amalgamating all public utilities in the county and having the new util ity take over Ontario Hydro's duties in rural areas as well. The decision came following a presentation from Tom Phillips of the Seaforth PUC, Fred Durst from the Goderich PUC and Ken Saxon of Wingham PUC based on the rec ommendations of the Donald Mac donald Report into electrical utilities in the province. That report suggested local utilities should be restructured on regional or county district lines and that Ontario Hydro's retail operations should be absorbed into local utilities. Since then the utilities in Huron and Perth commissioned a feasibili ty study by Dominic Gaurasci & Associates to look at two scenarios: combining all utilities in the two counties into one, or creating two separated county-wide utilities. Local councils in the communities affected chose the two, county wide utility proposal. In Huron, the study proposed the amalgamation of 10 municipal util ities plus Ontario Hydro to form a new utility that would have 36,200 customers and $50 million in assets. It would have a staff of 80- 90 employees and annual revenues of $56.5 million. The proposed merger would save a minimum of $1.3 million a year, or a 2.5 per cent rate decrease. If the new utility was allowed to keep the financial assistance rates that now apply for rural customers, the savings would be closer to $4.5 million, of 8.2 per cent. Norm Fairies, reeve of Howick Twp., wondered where Ontario You take your Investments seriously. You should. You expect a fair deal. You should. You demand Security and guarantees. You should. TERM RRSP INDEX FARM PLUS DEPOSITS RRIF LINKED T.D. GIC Limited Time Rate Offer For New Deposits 4-Year Term 5%% Min. $10,000.00 6% Min. $25,000.00 6%% Min. $50,000.00 6’/2% Min. $100,000.00 All funds are reinvested in our local community and deposit insured by Deposit Insured Corporation of Ontario. Call today. You should! Hydro stood on the issue of having its retail section absorbed into a county utility. Saxon said the posi tion of Ontario Hydro locally isn't known yet but in other areas the utility has been willing to take part in talks. Pointing to a section in the study that showed savings could have been $1 million more per year if Huron and Perth had joined in one utility, Ron Murray of McKillop Twp. wondered what was the justi fication for keeping two county utilities. Saxon replied that if the two counties went together now it would be hard to separate if it did n't work out. If two separate county utilities were set up, they could always amalgamate later. He said the PUCs are still riot sure there would be an additional saving because the study was done without a lot of Ontario Hydro figures. The next step, he said, would be to complete business plan. Jack Coleman, reeve of Stanley Twp., pointed out possible advan tages of a county utility for rural residents. Since there would be sev eral service centres set up across the county on the principle that no customer would be longer than 30 minutes from getting emergency service, that would be an improve ment for many rural customers who are served either from the Clinton or Walkerton offices of Ontario Hydro. "I think it's a better service, and hopefully at a cheaper price," he said. HLAJCT AND STROM1 FOUNDATION DID YOU KNOW? - That research has helped reduce the heart and stroke death rate 35 per cent over the last decade? 5-Year Term 6>/4% Min. $10,000.00 61/2% Min. $25,000.00 6%% Min. $50,000.00 7% Min. $100,000.00