The Citizen, 1998-04-08, Page 1itizen
The North Huron
Vol. 14 No. 14 Wednesday, April 8, 1998 700+5¢ GST 750
County budget doubles,
tax load stays the same
Blue Jay sighting
The Huron Perth Wild Turkey Association held its annual
banquet Saturday evening at the Brussels, Morris & Grey
Community Centre. The association grossed over
$28,000 through a silent auction, live auction and raffles.
Two special guests were on hand for the evening, after
playing baseball at SkyDome in the afternoon. Toronto
Blue Jays' right-handed reliver Paul Quantrill, left and
shortstop Alex Gonzales were busy signing autographs
during the evening. Carol Henderson eagerly awaits an
autograph. The two, both avid hunters are supportive of
the association's program. A Roger Clemens
autographed baseball went for $190. (Jim Brown photo)
One of the OPP's Western region emergency response
teams practiced search and rescue maneuvers at the
Wawanosh Nature Centre, April 1. While the officers fine-
tuned their navigational skills in the bush, Constable Bob
McCutcheon of the Mt. Forest Canine Unit went through a
few drills with Chief, his shepherd, trained to track people
and sniff out drugs. The OPP has three teams, with a total
of 48 officers which undertake duties such as
containment, canine backup, search and rescue, VIP
security and crowd management for the territory of
Tobermory to Guelph and Stratford.
Education
See page 11
Feature
A 4-page salute to the
teams of Blyth, Brussels,
Belgrave
See page 15
Agriculture
See page 20
Students
compete in
Science Fair
The Blyth Midget Bagogs are
Canadian Cup champions after a
successful weekend of hockey
action in Montreal.
Capping off an exciting season,
which included WOAA and
OM}IA championship titles, the
team experienced just one loss and
Local girl on
to area finals
It was top honours for a local
youth when she captured first in the
Legion district speaking contest in
Harriston on the weekend.
Shannon Scott, of RR1, Blyth,
earned the right to move on to the
the area finals in Alliston, April 19,
after placing first in the Grade 11,
12, OAC class. She attends F.E
Madill Secondary School.
Her speech dealt with how media
portrayals of women affect the pub-
lic's perception of them.
Graham Worsell of RR1,
Auburn, a Central Huron Sec-
ondary School student, placed third
in the Grade 9 and 10 division of
the Legion competition. He spoke
about promises.
Though Worsell will not advance
through the Legion competition, he
will participate in the Lions Club
contest, in Orangeville, April 18, as
will Scott.
Offices closed
The Blyth and Brussels offices of
The Citizen will be closed April, 10
in recognition of Good Friday.
It will be business as usual on
Monday, April 13.
four solid victories on their way to
this latest achievement.
A third-game defeat to Mariposa
Saturday after trouncing the
Philadelphia Roman Catholic
Selects and the Toronto Bert
Robinson Knights, Friday, then the
Thorburn, N.S. Golden Hawks, ear-
Huron County council will spend
up to $5,000 to study the implica-
tions of purchasing the Morris
Twp. and Town of Exeter landfill
sites.
Councillors were responding, at
their April 2 meeting, to a proposal
from both municipalities to sell
their landfills to the county to be
used as landfills for the north and
south of the county rather than
operating the sites themselves in
arrangements with their neigh-
bours. While no asking price for
the Morris site was released, Exeter
is asking $2.1 million as well as
free use of the site for the duration
of its useful life, and that the coun-
ty will assume the road leading to
the site from County Rd. 83.
The proposal ignited a lengthy
debate about whether or not the
county should continue to spend
money on waste management
issues. Blyth Reeve Mason Bailey
led the side opposed to further
spending. He argued any action of
completing the county's waste
With the county picking up many
programs downloaded from the
province, it will be spending nearly
twice what it did in 1997. The good
news is it will be taking no more
money from the pockets of county
taxpayers.
Under the budget adopted by
county council at its April 2 meet-
ing, the county will spend $51.6
million, compared to $26.4 million
in 1997. The major increases in
expenditures include nearly $17
million for the Ontario Works Pro-
gram, $3 million for ambulance
service, $1 million for social hous-
ing and $828,000 for assessment.
The county will also spend $9 mil-
lion on roads, $3 million more than
normal because of rebuilding
County Rd. 83 which was down-
loaded by the province. That addi-
tional money comes from a fund set
lier Saturday, had them facing off
against Mariposa in the champi-
onship round. The Dogs pulled out
a solid 5-0 whitewash to take the
tournament title.
For the complete story see page
14.
management masterplan study
should be deferred until municipal
restructuring talks were concluded
since it was uncertain where
municipal boundaries would be.
"We don't need a landfill
overnight," he said. "Let's wait and
look at spending the money when
we're sure we need to."
Robin Dunbar, reeve of Grey,
agreed. "The county has a fixation
about this landfill. It's been going
on for 10 years now and it's just
money down the drain," he said.
Instead the municipalities should be
looking to extend the life of their
landfills by recycling and bag tags
to reduce garbage, he said.
But Dr. Gary Davidson, director
of planning and development, said
recycling is already figured into the
future landfill needs projected in
the masterplan so it would be hard
to get further reductions.
In addition, he said, several
municipalities would be in difficul-
ty with their sites if the county was
Continued on page 7
up from money provided by the
province when it turned over the
highway.
The county could balance its
budget without a tax increase
because it's getting an extra $13
million from the province for the
Ontario Works Program. There is
also money available from the
province under the Community
Reinvestment Fund and the county
can use the tax room created by the
province taking over education
taxes: a total of $13.4 million all
told.
But with all properties being
reassessed and the county not hav-
ing the final assessment figures,
Blyth Reeve Mason Bailey sug-
gested the county can't assure peo-
ple there will be no tax increase. In
Blyth, he said, the village was
informed assessment was up two
per cent.
Lynn Murray, county clerk-
administrator, said the province has
informed the county that it is
changing the assessment numbers
and the new figures won't be avail-
able until the end of May.
Blyth Midgets win Canadian Cup
County to study purchase
of Morris, Exeter landfills