Huron Expositor, 2009-01-21, Page 8Page 8 The Huron Expositor • January 21, 2009
Huron Herita
Cheryl Heath
What's new for the old proved to
be the cause of some debate, Jan. 7,
at Huron County Council.
In short, the county's relatively
new $20,000 Huron Heritage Fund,
designed to provide supporting
grants to heritage projects, became
a concern to a handful of county
councillors when a couple of private
entities applied for it.
Cozen. Bill Siemon (Huron East)
was among the first to question the
validity of handing out public -purse
grants to privately run facilities,
which in this case include a $4,000
request from the -Huron County
News
ncil .members
Historical Society for its 2006 and
2007 Historical Notes $8,000 proj-
ect and Brian Jeffray, requesting
$5,000, for the $16,000 35 West
St. facade project in Goderich. The
West Street site is recognized on
the Canadian Register of Historical
Places and is listed on the Ontario
Heritage Properties database.
"1 think we should stop it from
happening in the future," says
Siemon, suggesting the aforemen-'
tioned two grant requests should
be approved.
Coun. Ben Van Diepenbeek (Ash-
field-Colborne-Wawanosh), mean-
while, argues it is unfair to ques-
tion the projects given at least one
of them has been in
the works for years.
Coun. Bernie
MacLellan (Huron
East) recommended
a wait-and-see ap-
proach before mov-
ing forward with the
grant allocations.
"Let's clarify the
policy," he says.
Coun. John Grace
(Goderich) support-
ed Van Diepenbeek's
approach, but Coun.
John Bezaire (Cen-
tral Huron) added
This voice to the cho-
rus of those
seeking greater
'It was an
infant program
and it needed
to grow.a little
bit and evolve
a little bit,'
John Bezaire
Central Huron Coun.
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accountability.
"The criteria
is too loose," he
says, suggest-
ing safeguards
should be in
place, _ like re-
quiring private
applicants. to
sign agreemeirts
requiring grant
repayment if a
property is sold
within 10 years
of the work's
completion.
In short, says
Bezaire, mechanisms
need to be in place to pre-
vent heritage -property
flipping at the taxpayers'
expense.
"It was an infant
program and it needed
to grow a little bit and
evolve a little bit," he
says, noting he does not
have concerns with the
current applicants.
Grace agreed with
Bezaire's approach but
adds, "You can't change
the rules halfway through
the game."
Coun. Deb Shewfelt says
the Huron Heritage Fund needs to
exist in order to help preserve the
county's historical sites.
"If you don't start protecting our
building . heritage in this county
then you are not going to be able to
draw anyone here," he said.
In a recorded vote, nine council-
lors voted in favour of discussing
the issue further at the committee -
of -the -whole (COW) level while
nine voted against it. The warden's
tie -breaking vote in favour of more
debate means the issue will be fur-
ther reviewed at the county's next
COW session.
CORRECTION
In last week's edition of the Huron Expositor on page
20 in the article titled "Nursing students heading to
Dominican Republic to provide medical care for up to
400 patients a day," the email address of nurse and trip
fundraiser Tanya Thompson was incorrectly spelled.
The correct email address is ball_tanya@hotmail.com.
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