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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-10-12, Page 1ESTABLISHED 187 f,„ Chance of a lifetime Somewhat reluctantly at first, but with lots of cheering from the sidelines to support her, Allison Stevenson, ably assisted by school secretary Diana Dolmage throws a chocolate and whipped cream pie in Brussels Public School principal John Carr's face. The students had been challenged by staff to sell out the annual Family Fun Night in exchange for even more fun with some of the teachers. They more than met their goal, and Stevenson's name was selected in a random draw for this particular honour. While she may have initially seemed a little unsure about proceeding, the youngster soon got into the spirit of things just fine. Other moments included dressing a teacher in attire selected by the student council and watching as another teacher ate a fried worm. (Bonnie Gropp photo) County to consider future of Ball's Bridge at meeting e Citizen Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Volume 22 No. 40 Thursday, Oct. 12, 2006 $1 (94c + 6c GST) I NORTH HURON PUBLISHING COMPANY INC Inside this week Di., 2 Local merchant gets g. provincial awards Youth park begins to 5.•• .11 take shape - Change comes to Pg• 12 Palliative Care p 23 Man remembers g. the Islanders Div Locals among r ,g• CHSS honourees Bridges to be closed during • repairs In an effort to save money and speed up construction, bridges will be closed to traffic while under repair beginning next year, Huron County councillors agreed at their Oct. 5 meeting. County policy has been to try to keep one lane of traffic open while repairs were carried out on the other half of the bridge, explained wardqn• Rob Morley. But a survey of surrounding counties, presented to the planning, agriculture and public works committee meeting on Sept. 13, showed that most closed down bridges entirely and rerouted traffic. County engineer Don Pletch pointed out to council that if bridges had been closed this summer instead of remaining open, it would have saved $200,000. In addition it would have reduced the construction time to eight or nine weeks from 12. South Huron councillor Ken Oke said the safety of workers on the bridges is also an issue. Despite the posted speed reductions, people drive too fast in construction zones. Morley agreed, pointing out there had been seven deaths in the past three years among workers in construction zones. But Dave Urlin, councillor for South Huron warned neighbouring municipalities to be prepared for people to take short cuts over gravel roads, rather than the designated detour route. When the overpass of the former CP Rail right of way was demolished in August the road was completely closed and the designated detour was to go south to Londesborough, across to County Rd. 8 (The Base Line) and back up to Auburn. Many drivers chose township roads instead of this out of the way route. "At the end of the day is comes down to safety,' service and cost," said Pletch. Councillors agreed with his recommendation that bridges be closed for repairs -wheneer possible. By. Keith Roulson Citizen publisher Huron County councillors will attempt to come up with a recommendation on the future of Ball's Bridge at their Oct. 17 committee of the whole meeting. The decision came after another lengthy debate over the issue at the Oct. 5 meeting of council. Although councillors cannot bind a future council to an expenditure of money this late in their term leading up to the November municipal election, Goderich councillor Deb Shewfelt said it was important for the current council to deal with the issue rather than dump it in the lap of the new council. Ben Van Diepenbeek, councillor for Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh agreed, noting that if anything is going to be done next summer to repair the historic iron bridge south of Auburn, closed earlier by the county roads department because it was deemed unsafe for use, then planning work needed to go ahead soon. Central Huron councillor Bert Dykstra, chair of the planning, agriculture and public works committee, said council must decide what standard they would restore the bridge too, whether to take loads of two tonnes or five tonnes or even to just as a walking bridge, then find what it would cost. He urged continuing to move forward. But other councillors indicated they aren't in favour of spending any tax dollars on the project. "It should be repaired with heritage dollars or fund-raised dollars," said Ken Oke, South Huron councillor. Oke said he had walked on the bridge and was able to shake the whole bridge with one hand on the handrail. "If you can repair that for $150,000 and have a car go over it I would eat my shirt," he challenged. East Huron councillor Bernie MacLellan said he wasn't very sympathetic to arguments to save the bridge for heritage reasons. "It's a piece of transportation equipment that was updated 20 years ago," he said, recalling the building of a new bridge on County Rd. 15 to the south. "It didn't seem that the council (of the day) ever thought of spending more money on it," he said, suggesting councillors were waiting for a natural disaster to take out the bridge. "I'll make it known that I don't think county dollars should be spent on restoring the bridge," MacLellan said. But Van -Diepenbeek said the county spends money on all boundary bridges (the bridge belongs to the county even though it's not on a county road because it links Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh with Central Huron). "I can't say we shouldn't spend any money on it." That comment brought a motion by John Bezaire, councillor for Central Huron, to prepare a study to turn over all boundary bridges to lower tier municipalities. When Huron East councillor Joe Continued on page 6 Huron East budget on target By Shawn Loughlin Citizen staff As far as the budget goes, Huron East council looks like it has very little to be concerned about so far this year. The year-to-date budget was reviewed at the Oct. 3 council meeting in Seaforth, and it looks as if they are coming in right on schedule. There are few points of concern on council's agenda, however. One of the items to watch is the Brussels Cemetery, which is currently carrying a $36,000 deficit, something that treasurer, Brad Knight, said council will have to monitor a bit. "Council's quite happy with the work that the Brussels Cemetery committee does. It's a volunteer committee and they keep that cemetery looking pretty good," Knight said in an interview following the meeting. "I think we'll just .have to look at it to see if there's anything we can do. to reduce some operating costs." Knight also said that council is not completely taken by surprise with this deficit. "Council has always been fairly cognizant of what the surpluses and deficits were." Every year, council budgets for the Brussels pool to lose between $7,000-$10,000. This year, although revenue is down significantly, so too are expenses, so council figures the pool to be right on schedule. "We're sitting at about an $8,000 loss right now. That's what we really expect on a year-to-year basis," Knight said. Another area of the budget that might look like a point of concern is the deficit carried by the Brussels water system. Knight, however, feels this is not a problem. The Brussels sewage system has a reserved balance in excess of $560,000 that will simply be moved over to cover the water system deficit. "There's a case where it works out quite nicely. The same people who use the water system are the ones that use the sewer system," Knight said, citing the reason for the deficit was upgrades that the province didn't see coming. "We had to do these upgrades to the water systems and that work started prior to amalgamation, but the actual, physical work was really done in 2002 and 2003," Knight said. "I think, likely, most watc. systems across the province weren't anticipating the type of upgrades that we were doing."