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A Tradition Of Results
THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2004. PAGE 7.
County considers debenturing to reduce budget
By Keith Roulston
Citizen publisher
Huron County will look at the
option of debenturing for road
improvement costs as it battles to
keep its 2004 budget increase to as
close as possible to 15 per cent.
After going over different options
for four hours after their regular
monthly meeting Thursday,
councillors were able to get the
increase down only to 31.6 per cent.
Biggest items in the budget all
related to highway improvements
totalling $4.4 million. While
councillors reduced this amount by
$1.5 million, they refused to make
further cuts in order to bring this
figure down to the 15 per cent
increase they had set as a target.
Council will have another budget
deliberation at its March 16
committee of the whole meeting and
must adopt a final budget by April
A Brussels boy nominated as an
Ontario Junior Citizen for his
volunteer work at Huronlea, will be
honoured by the county as well.
County officials will have a
special certificate made up and
presented to Aaron Richmond,
perhaps at the April meeting of
county council. In his Junior Citizen
nomination, Aaron was cited for his
ability to help Huronlea residents get
their minds off their troubles and his
special way of working with
Alzheimer's patients.
Aaron was one of two Ontario
Huron County staff managed to
find some lighter moments as
councillors plodded through 110
possible budget cuts at Thursday's
county council session.
Chief administrative officer Larry
Adams started the session off on a
lighter note when he passed around a
box of Pot of Gold chocolates at the
beginning of the meeting.
Huron County officials are in a
"catch-22" situation in setting fines
for violation of the new forest
conservation bylaw.
Before the fines can go into effect
they must be approved by the
Ministry of the Attorney General
which will either agree or disagree
with the fine schedule.
However officials in the
provincial office wouldn't give
county officials any idea of what
scale of fines they might approve. It
will be up to the county to guess
what might be acceptable and• wait
to see if the province agrees.
Check out the
classifieds
30.
The current 31.6 per cent increase
would mean an extra $106.81 on a
house assessed at $100,000. A 15 per
cent increase would mean an
increase of $24.45 on the same
house.
Councillors struggled through 110
possible options, many involving
cuts in services offered by various
departments. In the long run,
councillors were unwilling to make
cuts that would have passed the
burden onto local municipalities,
such as saving $53,375 of the library
budget by reducing the maintenance
grants paid to towns and villages that
host libraries. Villages receive
$4,500 a year for renting their
facilities to the library board while
towns get $12,000.
Councillors like Morris-
Turnberry's Dorothy Kelly also
objected to a comment by county
engineer Don Pletch that if the
Junior Citizens nominated by
readers of The Citizen, along with
Chelsey McLellan.
***
Huron County had only one
employee whose salary was required
to be published under the provincial
salary disclosure act. Dr. Beth
Henning, medical officer of health,
made $100,719, just over the
threshold of $100,000 which
requires salaries to be published.
***
Councillors turned down an option
that would have seen a saving of
"Everybody thinks there is a pot of
gold at the county," he said.
Later, after discussion about
cutting summer road patrols to once
a week from twice a week, county
engineer Don Pletch noted crews
wouldn't be happy because road kill
would be left deteriorating in the
summer heat that much longer. A
councillor asked if there weren't
budget for repairs to bridges and
culverts was cut, the obvious priority
would be given to those bridges on
county roads rather than bridges that
were on roads that were previously
boundary roads between two
municipalities that might, since
amalgamation, be in one local
municipality.
"I don't feel it's fair to raise the
county budget and then turn it (a
boundary bridge) back to the
municipalities," Kelly said.
East Huron councillor Bernie
MacLellan assured her that the
county would upgrade former
boundary bridges before turning
them back to the local municipality.
A proposal that would have
cancelled hazardous waste collection
days at a saving of $45,000 was also
dropped. Scott Tousaw, director of
planning and development noted that
if the collections were cancelled
there might be more hazardous
$16,000 on the library budget by not
going ahead with a new library in
Howick Twp.
The library board had earlier
proposed to close both the Fordwich
and Gorrie library branches but
Howick Twp. council had refused to
go along and proposed a new larger
centralized library instead. The new
proposal would have closed one of
the two libraries and kept the other
open but at reduced hours.
Councillors wouldn't agree with the
change.
Councillors also agreed to keep
other county.vehicles that could pick
up the animals on their regular
rounds.
"Maybe the county library van
could pick them up," Pletch quipped
as county librarian Beth Ross
blanched.
materials going into municipal
landfill sites.
Councillors did however approve
a decision to maintain traffic signals
on county roads only and turn other
signals over to local municipalities,
despite a protest by Goderich
councillor Deb Shewfelt.
"We (Goderich) put $2 million
into the county road system but
don't have a county road nearby," he
said. Noting there used to be a rebate
for urban municipalities for some of
the cost of county roads but it had
been cancelled he said the move to
cancel traffic light maintenance was
"rubbing salt in the wound to cut out
the little bit of service we get."
Despite some protests, councillors
refused to drop funding for an
enhanced summer ambulance
service that would see two additional
ambulances for the lakeshore areas
at a cost of $335,000, with $167,500
to come from the province.
$22,000 in the budget that will allow
the larger town libraries to be open
on Sundays.
***
A steering committee made up of
two representatives of the aggregate
industry and one representative each
from the county health and planning
committee, the agricultural industry,
the municipal clerks and treasurers
and the general public will oversee
creation of a aggregate resource
strategy for the county.
MacLellan, argued against the
funding. "Here we're talking about
an enhanced service over nd above
what the public 'is used to." Noting
that the extra ambulance would only
reduce the waiting time for an
ambulance by a couple of minutes
MacLellan said "It's a perceived
improvement not a real
improvement."
But Bluewater councillor Paul
Klopp argued that /an extra
ambulance sitting in Zurich or Port
Albert would improve service for the
whole county by freeing up inland
ambulances. "People do care about
this service," he said.
Warden Bill Dowson, a councillor
from Bluewater, said that taking out
the provision for the extra
ambulances might hurt if the
province began to listen to the call
from municipalities to provide full
50 per cent funding of ambulance
service or take back ambulance
service. If the county improves the
service and the province takes it
back "then we've set the level of
service they have to keep up."
North Huron councillor Doug
Layton warned that if the province
did not provide the funding and the
county decided to go ahead and pay
the full cost for one ambulance along
the southern shoreline he was going
to'be very upset.
While there were amounts as large
as a $852,000 proposal for paving
County Rd. 30, council also looked
at items much smaller. It will save
$500 for instance, by not advertising
budget meetings in local newspapers
but putting the notices on the
county's website instead.
County council briefs
County has hitch
in setting forest
conservation fines
Lighter moments found in
county's heavy budget debate
County honours Jr. Citizen nominee