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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Huron Expositor, 1997-02-26, Page 1Cekbrabiras Seatorth W.I. celebrates 100th anniversary of Women's institute See page 16 Cleat -up A Hook hack at women's hockey in Soatorth. Sec page 2 llotivOf action in minor hockey :plt►ydfft+. *melange Your Community Newspaper Since 1860 — Seaforth, Ontario Briefly 'No-snowmobiling after. midnight Seaforth OPP would like to •remind snuwmobilers of the town bylaw prohibiting the operauon•ol snowmobiles between the hours of 12 mid- night and 7 a.m. on any surer or roadway in Seati►rth. • According to Bylaw No. 7• for 1991 which regulates snowmobiles. the nmaxtmuin fine for the offence is $300. The bylaw also prohibits snowmobiles from driving un public sidewalks. Singing in Seaforth Gospel singing may rever- berate from central Sealorth on Sunday evenings this summer. On Feb. • 11 council approved the request of Seaforth Community Church lo use Victoria Park for such singing. from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Sundays in July. February 26, 1997 -- $1.00 includes GST Volvo takeover of Champion A Swedish company. a unit of car maker yolvo AB. has launched a "friendly" $ 175 - .million takeover hid for Goderich road -grader manu- facturer •Champion Road Machinery Ltd. Volvo Construction Equip- ment Corp. of Brussels has offered $15 per share in cash direct to Champion share- holders. Early last week Champion . shares wcrc trading at $8.80 each. The price surged in two days to $10.50 with heavier - than -usual volume before trading was halted before: the deal was announced Wednesday. The shares rose to $14.7 on the Toronto Stilt. Exchange Thursday. with ,1 massive volume of 785,Ottt glioma. aefbre last week volume of Champion shares traded on the TSE on any day had not been greater than 17,300. Holders with about 34. per cant of Champion's shard have already agreed.to the takeover. according to 7"h( Globe and Mail. Rower applying *war high school student, arts; aptplying for Ontario um vepaltks this fall. The central application service. thc Ontario University Appli- cation Centre at Guelph. say applications arc down 2.5 per cent to 53,790 students. thc third -straight year they have Sone down. One.explanation is demo- graphics - thc pool of poten- tial -recruits. from ages L8 through 24, has .declined. Others say the rising cost for poet-sondary education is,a or. ,for queers in.edu- cation itself has nose-dived 30 .per cent :across the province. Demand for -dggrces'in engineering is up nine per cent, with science *spec ,demand ,up four per cent and business administra- tion up 4.3 per cent. • Dcmand for degrees in arts and science is .down 6,9 per cent. Trustees have concerns about funOraisiug Morality of lottery questioned BY MICHELE GREENE SSP News Staff A Scaforth trustee threw into question the morality of a separate school board par- ticipating in a lottery: At Monday night's.meeting of the Huron -Perth Roman Catholic School Board. trustees learned their board received almost $128,000 from the Fantasy '97 lottery. Seaforth area Trustee Gerry Ryan said he had reservations about using a lottery for funding. noting fundraising projects such as this deal with people's addictions. "1 think it's in support of • Catholic education. not to support people's addictions." said St. Marys Trustee Bernard Murray. ' "Why don't we just make donations. It has nothing to do with charity or Catholic education. it's about winning a new home," Trustee Ryan responded. Trustees approved his rec- ommendation that the board table the subject until its trustee -clergy committee could investigate it. However, the decision meant the board would miss the Eight hospitailittoweet.;again ay be March 1 deadline to be a part of the Fantasy '98 lottery. Trustees rescinded the motion and voted to take part in the next louery. They also asked the trustee -clergy com- mittee to consider the issue for another year. "lt raises an interesting issue. Is it ethically right for us to do it?" asked Goderich Trustee Aldolpho Spoleto. Stratford Trustee Michael Dack took the idea one step further. He wondered if the board should ask the Knights of Columbus to stop donating to the schools because the money they raise is mainly through bingos. BY CABLA, i Q1 P SSP News Staff "!'here ' may yet be n com- promise on the number of hospital beds distributed in Huron and Perth Counties. The two delegates of the task force on hospital restruc- turing will meet with repre- sentatives of the counties' eight hospitals to talk about bed numbers before March 1, said the chair of the Huron .and Perth District Health Council, Janet Hook. It is too soon to know i whether their agreement will thecome part of the option which the task force will rec- ommend to the Ministry of itlealth, said Hook. c board of` governors at xandra Marine Rc General ospital (AMGH) in ioderich arc positive about rospective meeting with the ask force. "We are hopeful of getting put bed numbers returned to workable level as a result of Obese discussions," said the I' hair of AMGH's board of overnors. Jocelyn Shricr. The hospitals are con- cert-lex! on-cerise ! about the task force's umbers just as thc task force was concerned about spitals' numbers. said Anychange in bed num- bers .will be a compromise between thosct rreviously suggested by,skef,task force and by the < t pital, said Hook, At AMGH, that means finding a "mutually accept- able" number of inedical,apd intensive care beds, sold Hook. The task force .allocated 15 medical beds and 2 intensive care beds to AM(3F1 as a part of its preferred option, released Jan. 27. That was a reduction from the 20 medical beds and 4 intensive care beds given to AMGH in a jointly endorsed plan submitted from all the hospitals ban. 14. Compared to the hospitals' option, the preferred option removed 34 bads from Huron County .and added 31 bods to Perth: -County, said figures providedby ibe chief execu- tive of AMEN, Ken Englestad. This transfer deprived Huron County from having .a hospital equipped to provide the specialized services to which residents had become accustomed, said thc chief of AMOH's medical staff, Dr. Michael Dawson in a Jan- 28 interview. The call from Cioderich hospital medical: tafftfor. return of the beds to Huron was sewndet1 by other med- ical staffs across the county in a Feb. 6 meetipe of the Huron County .'Medical Society. The Society, representing 401,1 is ,Goss of ie �cou» ty. ;visaed a motion asking the ;task force to return to the hospitals' bed numbers which would "maintain and enhance the integrated prima- ry and secondary care ser- viccs...delivcred in Huron County hospitals." llmeir sccond.inotion the task force tri impl separate hospital govern system for Huron Co ;instead of the one -wouldjthrvc loilurort Perth. The task forcecontinues promote chis facet of the p ferrod option. RIVAL . ► PEW Will discuss.}t, ;it pneels with: the,e,ka resa�'ice- C 3t4ts,'f ' Jlliii, m + Upu fax this a0 t 1.*45t11- els cc , ' : tcgetbtrr, WHAT.* CHANGE A DAYMAKES - Students at St. James School in Seaforth were busy playing on their mountain made out of a snewhill in the schoolyard one day, and a couple of days tater (above) Lions Park in Seaforth turned into Lions Lake with warm temperatures and all the rainfall that fell in town and across the province. Both storm and sewage systems in Seaforth were hard -presses to handle 'the runoff friday. Sewer system backs up after heavy rain BY GREGOR CAMPBELL Expositor Staff Seaforth's storm and sewer systems both backed up in places early Friday morning. in the midst' of pouring rains and record high temperatures in this winter's first real thaw. Seaforth clerk/administrator Jim Crocker says he's not sure exactly what happened. and calls it two separate inci- dents, with one compounding the other. - "It was a horrendous amount of rain," he says." The volume of water in the runoff was too much .fur the storm system to handle and, water started getting into basements from that. He says there was also an electrical failure at thc pumping sta- tion, causing the sewage sys- tem to back up. . The town is waiting for word from the Ontario Clean ` Water Agency on why that . happened. again. Crocker says agency staff said the system was okay at 2 a.m: Friday. hut Scaforth Public Works Superintendent answered an alarm that sounded" about three hours later when the system didn't kick in: and started the puipp to the sewage lagoons manu- ally. An 'experienced plumber. in town said on a scale of one to 10. the flooding was a 10. He said water was getting into some houses that had never experienced water,problcrns before, as 'much as 24 inches deep in one basement. A distressed Coleman Street caller with water in her basement said she "had never seen it so high." . Much of Scaforth is built oma swamp. Similar pump. failure occurred in Scaforth causing problems in other residences last September. - Police Services Board to pay Goderich .disputed amount Scaforth's Police Services Board has decided to pay thc disputed balance of $4,513 to the Town of Goderich as final payment for the municipal police radio communications severance package. The motion was moved by Bob Dinsmore and seconded by nig Tcal l at the PSB's Feb. tr meeting, and passed two votes to one. .Lin Stgffler is the other member. .According to the minutes of the .meeting, the local police board decided to send a letter to,Godcrich along with the cheque "indicating the Scaforth PSB's belief the whole issue has been dealt with in a less than honest and above -board manner." Coun. Tull was appointed Chair of thc.Scaforth PSB for this year. Stefflcr.gavc a brief synop- sis of the community policing committee now in the plan- ning stages for Scaforth. PSB board accounts that added up to $4,775.94 wcrc approved for payment• which includes $3,490 (or RIDE program overtime. tisiswityf lie '(e1�1 from wets Seaforth is second highest of the 26 Huron towns and jownahips for "(axes as a. per- centage of municipal rev - antics." accordigg.to a chart ,from,cesunty, las)1rer,IKyn .Nix circuit .fgr,itfQtm- .tion at the o 11;1 E alar meeting.gf g h ncit. Only Gcde,neh OipOt 73.39 per cent is Seaforth's 68.81 petro pt. By comparison, Clinton's percentage is 34,83,eter is iEit 59.3622 per r cent, pdeSS►�' till' 6 ' per cent, McKillop is t38.l0 per cent, Tuckersmf is 28.39 per cent. Hulle;tjs 33.19 percent and Hensel) 47.57 per cent. Huron County's percentage is 31.17 per cern, and Zurich is low at 15.50 per cent. accordingto the county- trea- surer's calculations. The overall percentage .for cOunly,.towns and townships ares 1.24. $eafotth clef treasurer Jim ,C,rogker says thc high per- ce rage .fpr Scaforth .high - ,light$ ahc lack of diversity .fewer options available khere,tp,deal with t}µc t:ti'�ings as provincial grant cutbacks, r cipal revenues eAArl�i in 1996 were ,t2id,9►0;72 andtthc toyt(1>;'s IW'D,iev P , s was , S it.