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NOTICE TO DOG OWNERS
IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF
MORRIS-TURNBERRY
2002 Dog Tags and licenses are now available:
(Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm)
at the Municipality of Morris-Turnberry Municipal Office,
41342 Morris Rd.
R.R. 4,
Brussels, ON
NOG 1H0
***Tags can be picked up in person or
ordered by telephone***
All dogs must be licensed in compliance with By-law No. 30-2001. A copy of the
complete By-law is available for review at the Municipal Office. All dogs must
be identified by means of a tag and license, issued for a (1) one year period by:
Friday, April 26, 2002
The fee schedule shall be as follows:
1/ All dogs - males, females, and spayed females $20.00 per dog
2/ Kennel License Fee $75.00
(for a kennel of dogs that are registered or eligible
for registration under the Animal Pedigree Act)
3/ Late Payment Charge $20.00 per dog
(Shall be assessed in addition to the license fee, if the
license and/or tag is not purchased by April 26th)
Excrement:
The By-law requires dog owners to forthwith remove excrement left by a dog,
from the property other than the premises of the owner of the dog. Any person
contravening this provision is subject to a $50.00 fee.
For further information contact:
The Municipality of Morris-Turnberry
Telephone 519,-887-6137 Fax: 519-887-6424
E-mail:morris@scsinternet.com
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THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10, 2002. PAGE 7.
Councillor questions ambulance report costs
By Keith Roulston
Citizen publisher
After a year under county
management, ambulance service is
running well, a consultant told
county council, Thursday.
Some councillors, however,
questioned the cost of the
consultant's work while others
questioned the report's conclusions.
Jon Hambides of Pomax Inc. told
council the controversial
reconfiguration that saw four
ambulance stations instead of the
previous six, has been working well.
The company was hired to collect
and analyze statistics from 8,000
ambulance call reports filled in by
paramedics.
The results showed that the Exeter
and the Seaforth-Clinton stations,
the two which resulted from mergers
of old stations, were the most
heavily used, with the Seaforth-
Clinton station responding to 2,680
calls and Exeter, 2,130. Wingham
had 1,684 calls and Goderich, 1,651.
Exeter had the highest number of
"code 4", high priority calls where
the dispatcher feels the patient's life
might be in danger with 864
compared to 785 to Seaforth-
Clinton, 600 for Goderich and 589
for Wingham. These high priority
calls made up 26.2 per cent of all
calls for the county system. Code
three calls (urgent but not life-
threatening) made up 15.06 per cent
of calls. Lower priority code two
calls made up 10.44 per cent of
dispatches while delayable calls,
often to transport patients from one
hospital to another, made up the
largest percentage, 34.84 per cent.
Standby calls, where an
ambulance is sent to a point between
two stations to cover for the absence
of the ambulance from one of the
stations, made up 13.46 per cent of
all calls.
The 2,134 emergency calls during
the year represented three-quarters
of a call per day for each ambulance.
Each ambulance averaged 2.4
patient calls per day.
In terms of time, the ambulances
are busy making calls 31 per cent of
their time and available to take calls
69 per cent. The rule of thumb for
ambulance services, Hambides said,
was that the level of activity needed
to reach 45-50 per cent before you'd
think of adding an extra ambulance,
so Huron has good service.
In terms of time for response, 199
of the most urgent calls required
more than the county's standard of
15 minutes travel time, slightly less
than 10 per cent. Nearly a quarter of
these were outside the county.
Huron's ambulances made 1,221
calls outside of the county, many to
hospitals in London and Stratford,
compared to 227 calls made by
ambulances from Middlesex, Bruce
and Lambton Counties (Perth,
Wellington and Grey figures were
unavailable).
Despite a relatively positive
report, some councillors were not
satisfied. North Huron Councillor
Doug Layton questioned Hambides
about how much he had been paid by
the county in 2000 and 2001 and
when he learned it was nearly
$250,000, he was not happy. "To me
it seems like a lot of money, about
(the cost of) an ambulance station. I
think we're spending a lot of money
on your report."
Paul Klopp of Bluewater said he
wasn't surprised the report was
favourable.
"You designed the system and now
we pay you to report on it so it's no
wonder you say it's good."
But despite figures that show the
response times in the southern part
of the county had dropped by one to
two minutes for the Exeter station
compared to the former Zurich and
Dashwood stations, Klopp said
people along Hwy. 21 were having
to wait longer for an ambulance than
when the stations were farther west.
The figures looked better because
the greatest number of calls were in
the Exeter area and the station is now
closer to these calls, he said.
"This is a lot of money for
information we didn't need to spend
it on."
Goderich Councillor Deb Shewfelt
pointed out there are still 200 calls
that took longer than 15 minutes to
respond to. "Really, what we've
done is cut service," he said. "You
can't convince me otherwise."
Shewfelt said he would like to see
the original contracts the county
signed with Pomax and the motions
of council that authorized the
signing of those contracts. Klopp
said he had already asked to be
provided with those documents but
they had not been provided.
"I just want it on the record this is
not what I asked (for)," Klopp
said.
Lambton wants pay for Grand Bend ambulance station
By Keith Roulston
Citizen publisher
Lambton County has requested
$124,000 from Huron County to pay
for 30 per cent of the cost of building
an ambulance station at Grand Bend.
Prior to the counties taking over
the ambulance service, many Grand
Bend calls were covered from the
Dashwood and Zurich ambulance
stations in Huron.
However with Huron's decision that
the best way to service its territory
was to close the Dashwood and
Zurich stations and to build one
station in Exeter, Lambton decided
Grand Bend must have its own
station.
Statistics presented by Jon
Hambides, Huron County's
ambulance consultant, showed
Lambton ambulances made 190 calls
into Huron County in 2001, nearly
10 times as many calls as Bruce or
Middlesex ambulances.
Huron County councillors
approved a motion to send a letter to
Lambton saying Huron will continue
to pay the provincially-approved per
call charge for cross-border calls.
This charge, the county feels, should
help amortize the cost of the Grand
Bend station and therefore no capital
payment is required.
Fewer councillors, higher costs for county
Remuneration figures released at
the April 4 meeting of Huron County
council show that anyone who
dreamed of savings through
municipal amalgamation that
reduced the size of county council
will be disappointed.
While the former 26 member
council has been reduced to 18,
remuneration for councillors rose to
$196,734.25 from $144,294.72.
With fewer councillors to attend
more meetings, the costs in 2001
exceeded 2000 figures right down
Huron County council will seek a
meeting with local hospital and
health officials to try to gain a greater
understanding of the current
situation facing the county's
hospitals.
Carol Mitchell of Central Huron
proposed the meeting to county
council, April 4. She told council she
and Goderich Councillor Deb
Shewfelt had attended a meeting
with the mayor of London to discuss
the services offered by the London
Health Sciences Centre.
The London Centre is looking at
drastically cutting back on the
services it provides which will have
an effect on Huron residents who use
the centre, she said.
"I don't feel up to speed on what is
happening with local hospitals and
restructuring," Mitchell said.
Mitchell's motion to try to ask
Bonnie Adamson, CEO of the Huron
Perth Hospitals Partnership and Jim
Whelan of the Bruce Grey Huron
Perth District Health Council to
attend a future meeting was
seconded by Shewfelt and passed.
***
Complaints are being received by
the county about delays in payment
of grants under the county's Healthy
Futures program:.
Scott Tousaw of the planning
department explained that the county
cannot issue cheques for the program
until all expenditures have been
approved by the province.
the line. Norm Fairies, the 2001
warden, received $47,196 in per
diems and convention expenses
compared to $39,415 for 2000
warden Carol Mitchell.
Other than Mitchell, the next
highest payout in 2000 went to Brian
McBurney with $6,506. In 2001, 14
councillors exceeded that amount
with the highest being current
warden Ben Van Diepenbeek who
received $13,636.90 (his term as
warden started early in December).
Mitchell received $11,311.26.
Though Huron began approving
applications in early fall, the
agreement with the province was not
signed until late last fall. The
allocation was then submitted at the
end of December for projects
completed before then. The province
has taken more time than expected
approving its allocation of funding to
Among local councillors the
figures were (convention expenses
in brackets: Bert Dykstra, Central
Huron, $7,501.84 ($1,498.16),
$9,000; Jeff Howson, North Huron,
$1,708.51 (part year); Keith
Johnston, Morris-Turnberry,
$7,505.82, ($1,550.85), $9,231.53;
Doug Layton,- North Huron,
$7,812.61 ($1,853.50), $9,666.11;
Bernie MacLellan, Huron East,
$6,363.86, ($1,234.25), $7,598.11;
Neil Rintoul, Ashfield-Colborne-
Waw-anosh, $7,500.82; ($955.29),
Huron so the cheques could be sent
by the county. There have been
further delays by the strike of
government workers.
Tousaw said he expected that once
the strike was over, money will
likely flow faster for projects that
will be in the county's latest report to
the province.
$8,456.11; Murray Scott, North Steffler, Huron East, $5,284.44
Huron, $4,167.84 (part year); Lin ($1,650.79), $6,935.23.
County council briefs
Council to discuss hospitals