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Home My WebLink AboutThe Citizen, 2005-09-08, Page 18PAGE 18. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2005. HPCDSB relocates 3 schools Ready for school Parent volunteer Melinda TenPas and her husband Brian were busy tidying up the flowerbeds last week in prepara tion for back to school at Brussels. (Bonnie Gropp photo) Council council briefs Magazine article boost for tourism A recent magazine article on Huron County is probably worth as much as the county’s entire tourism marketing budget, councillors were told at the Sept. I meeting. Scott Tousaw, director of planning and development, said the article in Good Times Magazine took up five pages describing “Alice Munro Country” and such features as the Alice Munro Gardens in Wingham. the North Huron Museum’s displays about Munro, the Blyth Festival and the towns of Goderich, Clinton and Bayfield. Tousaw estimated the advertising rate of the magazine at about $5,000 a page, making the article worth at least $25,000. “That’s more than our entire budg et." Meanwhile a rural tourism profes sor at Wilfrid Laurier University was so impressed with the county’s travel guide that he is going to use it and the county’s unique marketing ventures of Farm to Table, Shakespeare to Shoreline and Heritage and Cultural Partnership in his program. *** Dr. Maarten Bokhout has announced he will leave his post as medical director of the county’s homes for the aged at the end of the year. A recruitment team of county offi cials has been set up to find a suc cessor with the first meeting to be held in the next few weeks. *** A rush of severance applications aimed at beating a July l fee increase has left the planning and development department scram bling to catch up. The first five months of the year saw 34 consent applications processed but 50 applications arrived as the fee increase approached. The health and plan ning committee will devote half days at both the September and October meetings in an effort to clear up the backlog. *** The Richards Group has been hired to enforce the county’s anti smoking by-law. Goderich councillor Deb Shewfelt asked Penny Nelligan director of the health unit how enforcement had been going. “I get no complaints,” he said. “It seems we have a smooth sys tem in place and it’s working quite well,” said Nelligan. There has been a lot of co-operation from owners of establishments with only a few charges laid, she said. *** Municipalities that want to “de amalgamate” will likely have to pass a triple-majority vote at the local and county level just as munic ipalities did to amalgamate. Shewfelt asked Tousaw if there was a process in place for de-amal- gamation after the provincial gov ernment announced it would recog nize those municipalities that could prove they would be financial viable on their own. “I believe it would require a triple majority,” Tousaw said. *** Churches throughout Huron will be encouraged to hold an emergency services recognition day on Sunday, Sept. 11. Bill Dowson, councillor for Bluewater, made the motion to recognize firemen, police and ambulance workers with a special day on the Sunday following the anniversary of the Sept. 11 tragedy. Local municipalities will be asked to help contact local churches about the celebration. *** The Huron County Library Board will send a letter to Madeleine Meilleur, Ontario Minister of Culture, to protest a $700,000 cut to Ontario Library Services, the agency that helps libraries share resources. *** Warden Doug Layton reported on a meeting he held with David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal at the recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario convention. The warden had complained at the July meeting of council that despite the wonderful sound of the announcement of new infrastructure funding by the province. North Huron had been unable to qualify for any funding. At first, Layton said, the minister seemed very interested in the defi ciencies in the program but in the end he didn’t seem to get the point. By Stew Slater Special to The Citizen Some students at St. Mary’s ele mentary school in Goderich will likely have to spend several weeks of the 2005-06 school year in the school’s pre-existing portable class rooms. And students at the newly-relocat ed and newly-constructed St. Joseph’s elementary school in Clinton may encounter a few asphalt fumes as exterior work continues through September. But other than those relatively minor inconveniences, students were welcomed Sept. 6 following the relocation of three different schools within the Huron-Perth Catholic District School Board, along with the major renovation and addition to the Goderich school. In Stratford, the building which formerly housed St. Joseph’s ele mentary school was completely revamped in 2004-05, while stu dents spent a year away from home. On Sept. 6, they’ll return to the St. Vincent Street facility, while the Avon Maitland District School Board reclaims what served as the temporary St. Joseph’s — the for mer King Lear elementary school. The Avon Maitland board has now closed the aging Avon elementary school, with students from that school moving into the former King More speed equals more risk What is the relationship between how fast a car is going and what happens in a crash? The higher the travel speed, the greater the risk of serious injury or death in a crash. Vehicles and their occupants in motion have kinetic energy that is dissipated in a crash. The greater the energy that must be dissipated, the greater the chances of severe injury or death. The laws of physics tell us that crash severity increases dispropor tionately with vehicle speed. A frontal impact at 55 km/h, for exam ple, is one-third more violent that one at 48 km/h. Speed influences crashes in four basic ways: • It increases the distance a vehicle travels from when a driver detects an emergency until the driver reacts. • It increases the distance needed to stop a vehicle once an emer gency is perceived. • Crash severity increases by the square of the speed so that, when speed increases from 65 km/h to 95 km/h, speed goes up 50 per cent while the energy released in a crash more than doubles. • Higher crash speeds reduce the ability of vehicles, restraint sys tems, and roadway hardware such as guardrails, barriers, and impact attenuators to protect occu pants. How can you tell when your child is big enough to use a seatbelt with out a booster seat? The key to using a seatbelt safely is positioning. The lap belt should be across the upper thighs, not up on the abdomen. The shoulder belt should be centred on the shoulder and chest, not across the neck or face. Since seatbelts are designed to fit the adult body, a child needs to be the size of a small adult before mov ing to the seatbelt alone. Whether, or not, a child is ready to use a seatbelt without a booster seat depends on the height of your child, the shape of the vehicle seat and where the seatbelts are attached to Lear for 2005-06. In Listowel, meanwhile, some drainage challenges have apparently been overcome as the Catholic board welcomes St. Mary’s elemen tary school students into their new home. The students had been accommo dated in an aging building in nearby Hesson, but the board constructed a new school on Tremaine Avenue last year. At the same time, another new school was constructed adjacent to the existing St. Anne’s Catholic sec ondary school in Clinton. The new version of St. Joseph’s elementary school, which has been located across town, is also ready to receive students on Sept. 6. Some exterior work remains to be done, however, including laying asphalt in parts of the schoolyard. According to a report delivered to trustees at the Huron-Perth board meeting on Monday, Aug. 29, the Goderich St. Mary’s project is clos est to the wire in terms of getting enough work completed for the beginning of classes. “I’m amazed at how many people (the contractor) has in there work ing,” said business superintendent Gerry Thuss. “But it’s going to be tight.” The scope of what was initially just an addition changed part-way through the planning process, and the vehicle. A booster seat should be used until all of the factors below are met: • The child is at least nine years of age (for pelvic development) • The child has a sitting height of 74 cm (29 in.) (is at leasrL.45 m (4 ft. 9in.) tall) • The child can sit all the way back DANCE! DANCE! DANCE! Sherry McCall and the Huron County Cloggers Invite you to join them Monday & Tuesday Nights at the SDCC I Registration & Shoe Exchange I Tuesday September 27th I 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. I For more information contact Sherry at 527-1307 PS: It’s Show Time!!! April 1, 2006 Bill and Joan Rodger on September 10, 2005 host Wishes from the family that created challenges. It now includes major upgrades to the existing building, and those upgrades will not be complete until later in the fall. So students who will eventually be accommodated in the pre-existing building will be housed temporarily in the portable class rooms that the addition was origi nally meant to replace. “The fact that there are still porta bles there does give us some wiggle room,” reported board chair Bernard Murray, who recently toured the Goderich site. “But from what I saw of the work, it’s a good recondition ing of that school and everyone will be happy. 1 think they’ll soon forget the inconveniences they’ve been through.” Roofing work will be conducted this fall at St. Columban elementary school, but not while students are in attendance. And tenders for lighting upgrades at various facilities were approved over the summer, with the work to take place in the coming months. According to Thuss, it has been very difficult to secure contractors and materials ever since last winter, when the provincial government released significant funds aimed at upgrading school facilities. For that reason, much work across the province has been either delayed or extended into the 2005-06 school calendar. against the seat back with knees bent comfortably at the edge of the seat • The lap belt rests across the upper thighs • The shoulder belt is centred on the shoulder and chest • The child can stay seated like this for the whole trip