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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2002-04-10, Page 7IVES INSURANCE BROKERS LTD. Visit us at: WWWIVESINSURANCECOM "All Classes of Insurance" DOUG GOUGH, Broker 184 Dinsley St. W., Blyth Tel.: (519) 523-9655 Fax: (519) 523-9793 ..111=1=••••-••=. 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 WO6ingcz farm flowm 83341 CURRIE LINE - RR 3 BLYTH 519-523-9407 Owner: Gaye Datema We sell from our greenhouse: bedding plants, hanging baskets, planters and will fill your planters. We have some tomatoes and vegetables, spanish onions, peppers, broccoli, late and early cabbage. We also have some good perennials. We will be open for anyone that would like their planters started early in mid April. Give us a call anytime. We have a good selection of wave petunias and fuchsias, ivies, verbenas, geraniums, begonias, spikes, daisies, and many more. COME AND SEE US THIS SEASON FOR ALL YOUR GARDENING PLANTS 115zze 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