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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1988-08-31, Page 1Imes Serving South Huron, North Middlesex One Hundred and Seventeenth Year dvocate & .North Lambton Since 1873 EXETER, ONTARIO, August 31, 1988 Price Per Copy 60 Cents 'FACE PAINTING - Megan Gingerich gets the full treatment from "Daisy" of Toronto at Saturday's Zurich Bean Festival. More pictures of the very successful_ event appear on Page 9: Protective Plastics enters restructuring receivership HURON PARK - Protective Plastics entered into re- of business operations. Thc intent of the proposition -before the coups, ac- cording to MacDonald; is to "rearrange the company in a better manner than it has-been." MacDonald claimed the 55 million it cost to relocate operations to Brantford put a "severe strain" un tilt company and creditors began to get angry.' He noted the move to Brantford was financed without . government financial assistance. For the restructuring, Protective Plastics was required to technically lay off all employees from the board of directors on down, and then rehire them under the terms. of receivership. . Other operations in Brantford, Scarborough, and Don Mills are already back in production, but Huron Park still awaits the outcome from talks with the union be- fore full production will resume. Nevertheless, the Huron Park plant is still scheduled for closure. MacDonald said while more than half of the employees have offered to move to Brantford, he had hoped more could have made thc move. ccivershrp last week, but company officials insist the situation is a planned technicality and the company will be back on schedule as soon as possible. The receivership falls -in the midst of an ongoing rel- ocation of production facilities to Brantford. The com- pany, which makes fibreglass. truck beds, bought the former White's Farm Equipment plant in Brantford and closed its St Marys factory last The Huron Park facility was due to close within a matter.of weeks andemployeeswere offered the chance to relocate to Brantford... • A call to the Huron Park plant revealed little: em- . ployees were not at liberty to discuss the matter. Bruce MacDonald at Protective Plastics head office in Toronto confirmed the company's receivers were 'Touche Ross of Toronto. "What we have done is filed under the Bankruptcy Act of Canada for restructuring," MacDonald said. Thc restructuring application is unusual because it not only requires a hold on all outstanding debt, ap- pointment ppointment of receivers, but also allows a continuation Stephen applies for grant to repair roof of township arena STEPHEN TOWNSHIP - Ste- phen township will be appty'ing to the Ontario Ministry of Tour- ism and Recreation for a grant to be used for repairs to the township arena at Huron Park. Cost to replace the arena roof and insulate the ice surfacing room is expected to be about $7,000. A letter will be written to the Ontario Ministry of the Environ mcnt concerning a complaint re- ceived regarding odours emanating from the Grand Bend lagoon sys- tem. An engineer's report .on a repair project on the Haist municipal drain at Lot 10, Concession 4 was re- ceived. The report will bc considered at a public meeting scheduled for September 6. Road superintendent Eric Finkbeincr and arena manager Frank Funston will be attending a Municipal Health and Safety Pro- gram in London on Octdbcr 14. Approval was given to a minor variance application for Pineridge Park at Grand Cove -Estate , near School trustee changes Grand Bend. A. public meeting will be held September 6 to hear minor variance applications from Donald Hcaman in the police village of Centralia and Elizabeth Jones at Oakwood Park, near Grand Bend. A severance application from Douglas Walper at Lot 14, Conces- sion 16 was opposed by council as it did not meet requirements of the zoning bylaw. Rejection of the ap- plication was approved on a record- ed vote by three to two. • Exeter • ets re own representative esentative p EXETER .- Implementation of Bill 125 by the Ontario government has allowed redistribution of areas served by trustees on the Huron County Board of Education. Duc to a switch to population rather than property assessment in determining the allocation of trus-. tees, the town of Exeter will be solely represented by one trustee. in former years, Exeter and the town- ship of Usborne shared a representa- tive. The revision gives the board 16 trustees. That's the same figure as during the past three year term, but two were separate school representa- tives and they now have been re- moved.- The re - moved. -The town of Goderich will have two school board uustees due to the change and the towns of Exeter, Clinton and Wingham along with the townships of Howick and Ste- phen will have one each. The township of Usborne former- ly combined with the town of Exet- er now joins thc township of Hay We'll be late Duc to the Labour Day holiday on Monday, the Exeter Times Ad- vocate will be published one day later than usual next week. Advertising deadlines will be ex- tended to 4 p.m., Tuesday and the paper will be printed Wednesday night for Thursday morning deliv- ery. OPEN HOUSE Area residents visit Dashwood tirehall page- 8 and the village of Zurich for one representative. The village of Hensall and the township. of Tuckersmith will share a trustee as will the village of Bay- field and the township of Stanley while the town of Seaforth com- bines with the township of McKiI- loNo change takes place in the im- mediate Exeter area on the Iluron- Perth Separate School Board. One trustee will represent the town of Exeter, the townships of Stephen and Usborne and parts of McGilliv- ray and Biddulph townships in Mid- dlesex county. The villages of Bayfield, Zurich - and Hensall join with the town- ships of Stanley and Hay in naming one representative. VERY SUCCESSFUL A photo review of Zurich Bean Festival page 9 Lucan residents quite upset over proposed project costs LUCA! - Lucan taxpayers .wer out in force -on August 23 to chal lenge village council's plan t bring water and sewage projects into town-. • The residents packed the arena' main hall to find out why the pro jdcts would cost each househol over $3,000 up front, or 5830 pe year over a decade, as outlined in the letter announcing the publi meeting. "It restores one's faith in junk mail," joked reeve Norm Steeper as more chairs had to be found for the crowd. • Steeper tried -to explain the costs of a connection to the Lake Huron water supply and a new sewage treatment plant for the village, but he was quickly swamped by heck- lers questioning the need for either. • Steeper defended the proposals, pointing out that if the village is .to attract growth it must have ade- quate water supplies and sewage ca- • pacity. - Estimates on thc cost of the un- dertaking show two options open to taxpayers to finance the munici- pality's -share of the 59.739 mil- lion projects. If paid up front, or all at once, the bill will be $3,047, with $24.58 on the monthly utility bill for maintenance, • If debentured over10 years, Lu - can households will'scc 569.17 a. month on the utility bill. - Present utility costs charged by Lucan arc only 511 a month. The province is expected to con- tribute -79.63 percent of the pro- jects' costs, even though Lucan had asked for the.maximum of 85 per- cent. "Neither of the projects are likely to go ahead for one, two, maybe three years," explained Steeper. En- gineering and ministry funding and -approval prevent work from begin- ning this year. "What will happen to all the houses and apartments built after e - this? Will they be taxed the same - andwill we get a rebate?" asked a o resident in the audience, . Steeper answered that the same charges would apply to new devel- s opments. Huron -Middlesex engi- - neer Don Plctch explained future d residents would contribute tea re- rserve fund for maintaining and ex .parading the system. . c A comment from the- audience objected to the high monthly cost AiI . approve of Stanley water More than 200 people packcd the Stanley Complex for a public infor- mation meeting on Saturday, Au-, gust 27. to discuss the proposed ex- tension of the Lake Huron shoreline water works into Stanley Town- ship. No objections to the propo- sal were raised. In fact, the strong- est complaints were from those who said the proposed project docs not go far enough, and at present is designed to serve only selected areas - where a strong desire for a new wa- ter supply was previously ex- pressed. Other areas need and want the water, too. Steve Burns, a consulting engi- neer with B.M. Ross and Asso- ciates Ltd., reported on the current status of the project. The engineer- ing study is nearing completion, and expected to bc finished in Sep- tember. The results of various question- naires that had bccn sent out were reviewed. Present plans call for building the main line along Highway 21, and distribution systems in the arca be- tween sidcroads 10 and 20, and in the subdivision west of the Sugar - bush campgour,d. The total cost is estimated to.cost S3.1 million, with the township's share being 51.2 million. The pro- vincial government will provide a grant for 75 percent of the cost of the main trunk Zinc, but there will be no grant for distribution sys- tems. - A1i serviced areas along Highway 21 and the Lakeshore will pay to- wards the cost of the waterworks whether they hook up on comple- tion or not. Any objectors will have an op- portunity to air their views at either an OMB" or an environmental as- sessment hearing, depending on the nature of the objection. Members of Stanley council will meet with B.M. Ross engineers and personnel from the ministry of the environment in early September to review the issues raised at the meet- ing, and decided if any changes should be made to the project plans. Burns is optimistic work on the pipeline will begin next year. BRAD MARSH Praises Huron Hockey School page 1A 4 of the 10 -year debenture. • "A lot of us can't afford paying for it in 10 years. What about 20? Doesn't Lucan have enough collat- eral," he asked:--- -- "You like paying -interest that. much?" came a rebuttal from the back of the hall. Steeper was asked why both pro- jects were needed at the same time, burdening Lucan with an enormous Please turn to page 2 Can't blame PUC for latest street digging EXETER The Targe excavation which impededthe flow of traffic on Huron St.. West last week was dug by Bell Telephone, not the PUC, manager Hugh Davis in- formed the August meeting ..of the Commission. The PUC was: called in when the telephone com- pany with unerring inaccuracy sent a rocket into a town water main. The waterworks account is at a low ebb,- and the department may end the year with a small deficit, as forecast- in the budget. All major projects such as Pickard Road, - Highway 4.and fire hydrant instal- lations have bccn completed. Main breaks and a drastic drop in-- revcnue from the utility's biggest customer account for. this . year's extra financial strain. • • • Davis passed on some of the rig- id regulations concerning PCBs imposed by the ministry. of the en- vironment that may have an im- pact or the local PUC. - Before the three 4a-gauon drums containing _the residue from the clean-up of the substation transformer can - be picked up by the company which did the cleaning, the substation yard has to be declared a generator --site. The paperwork could take six months. (There are no PCBs in. Ijic drums.) 'All transformers are tested for PCBs before leaving the PUC yard. ,Davis is currently awaiting. the results of a second test on a transformer, after an initial test showed 64 parts per million. slightly over the allowable 50. Davis warned the commissioners they might have to consider stor- age facilities costing from . $2,000 to 55,000 if -the second tests con- firm that the transformer's PCB count is unacceptably high. Davis noted that the average de- livery time now for transformers is eight months. • The Commission will meet. again September 29. Public awareness concerns reeve L.UCAN. - After Tuesday's meeting, Lucan reeve Norm Stecper offered his comments on the evening's events. He said that while many villag- ers were aware of the problems Lucan faced through a dwindling water supply and a lack of sewage capacity, he found out most resi- dents did not realize the amount of work council had put into the projects. I don't think people were aware that council had explored other options, such as wells, and they weren't aware, probably, of the need for these environmental' reviews and the costs involved in those other options," said Steep: Cr. According to Steeper, the prob lcm is in getting the public out to the public meetings. A meet- ing inthe early spring to present the project proposals failed to at- tract more than a. dozen people, most tail' whom were professionals or the press. Steeper said this time the projected costs were in- cluded with the meeting notice to purposely generate corthmunity concern. Naturally, Steeper expected some angry comments from the crowd. "As I told council, there will be flak tonight. It -has to come. It's the natural course of things," he said. • "Once the heat took place there were some pretty rational and positive things that started to come out of the meeting," con- cluded Steeper. R • QUESTION PERIOD - Lucan reeve Norm Steeper explains to a crowdof concerned residents why they face increased utility costs. Four men arrested in Ailsa Craig scuffle LUCAN - Four men were arrested early Saturday morning aftcr police were called to a noisy party in Ailsa Craig. Two officers of the Lucan OPP detachment called for assistance from Exctcr, Grand Bend and Fbrest detachments when they became in- volved in a scuffle with about five young men. EXOTIC ANIMALS On show at the Pineridge Zoo at Grand Fiend page 14A The original officers arrived at the scene at 3.30 a.m. Charged with causing a distur- bance were Steven Leyten. London and James McVicency, RR 2 Hen- sall. Leyten was also charged with assaulting a police officer as were Paul McVecney and Paul Barnes, both of Ailsa Craig. CROPS UPDATE Area farmers get latest research data at CCAT page 15A