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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2002-03-13, Page 11Church hopes to expand on park land in Vanastra Huron East council is entering negotiations with the Vanastra Community Christian Reformed Church about the possibility of the church buying some of Vanastra's parkland so that it can expand. "Tuckersmith council met with them last October on site. They would like to put an addition on their church," Clerk - Administrator Jack McLachlan told council at its Feb. 20 meeting. McLachlan said the community has four other parks and will retain parkland to the south of the parcel the church hopes to buy. He added that the church will keep as many trees as possible on the site. News Heads up... Susan Hundertmarkphoto Ian VanDoornik in Grade 1 at St. James Catholic School took part in a tour of Seaforth Community Hosital last Thursday. Board gets extention on loan application after ambigous application makes it hard By SteW Slater Special to The Huron Expositor After tilling out a mistake - marred, ambiguously -worded questionnaire from Ontario's education ministry, the two district school boards in Huron and Perth Counties have been granted an extension on their application for the Student Transportation Loan Program. The program provides interest-free loans to such "coterminous" boards when they implement government - approved computer software for efficiently scheduling cooperative bus routes. At the January meeting of the Huron -Perth Catholic District School Board, staff reminded trustees that the two boards already partake in a significant level of cooperative transportation, but explained that officials had decided to apply for the grant in hopes that further savings could be achieved. However, they also decided to ask for an extension beyond the Jan. 31 application date, because of the considerable time necessary to study the software alternatives. coupled with Huron County's very recent conversion to the 9-1-1 rural address system. At the board's subsequent regular meeting, Monday, Feb. 26, director of education Gaetan Blanchette confirmed the extension had been granted, with Huron -Perth and the Avon Maitland District School Board now expected to hand in a full loan application by the end of June, 2001. But also included in the information packages for the meeting was a photocopy of the original application questionnaire, which was filled out in part by officials from the two boards and submitted by the Jan. 31 deadline, along with a letter stating "it will be impossible to (fully) complete this assessment and review within the timeframe expected under the application." The questionnaire, which is just over one page long, can hardly be considered adequate considering it was created by employees of the Ministry of Education. In the program's title atop the first page, the second letter is missing from the word "Transportation." And for the final question, the person responding on behalf of the Huron -Perth and Avon Maitland boards was forced by ambiguous wording to insert a clarifying note. In the question, the respondent is asked to answer "yes" or "no" to the following statement: "Existing resources are not duplicated." The Huron-Perth/Avon Maitland respondent answered "yes." hut obviously didn't want this to be misinterpreted to mean that resources ARE duplicated. So an extra note was included, stating, "this statement is correct -- Existing resources are not duplicated." Blanchette wasn't concerned about grammatical or spelling errors. He did, however, criticize some of the wording in the questionnaire, saying it pointed to the wider issue of the Conservative government's unswerving promotion of such cooperative ventures. "(Government officials) have this great idea about working together and how it's going to save all this money, but they don't actually know about how it all works within the school hoards," the director of education said. He reiterated that the two hoards have already worked together on transportation schedules for many years. He also explained that, in small boards like the ones in Huron and Perth Counties, often only one person per hoard handles all transportation - related duties, sometimes in conjunction with other responsibilities. These people will still be necessary at both boards even after a cooperative computerized system is implemented, so the savings could be quite small. McMaster Siemon �' INSURANCE M BROKERS INC. 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