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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes-Advocate, 1987-04-08, Page 14,. L4 HONOR SUPERINTENOENt — A retirement party and dance was staged for former Osborne road Le..._ John Batten at the Kirkton-Woodham centre on Friday.. He was a full-time employee for over 32 years and worked on a part-time basis for five years prior to that. Posing with him are reeves who signed his cheques over the years, from the left: Archie Etherington, Lloyd Ferguson, Wolter McBride. Batten, Bill Morley, former clerk Harry Strang, Murray Dawson and current reeve Clarold Prout. The engroved shirt indicates that "old road superintendents don't die...they just don't make- the grade". Oddfeflaws mark -- 116 years 6 * Brigid Pyke lists farm- -issues 14 * Second heart course is underway 7 * lucan Irish need one more win ...1 A HOME & GARDEN SUPPLEMENT IS ENCLOSED E Three people injured in district's collisions The damage and injury total was high in the three collisions in- vestigated this week by the Exeter OPP. Only single vehicles were in- volved in all three and there were minor injuries to three people and two horses. - Two of the injuries occurred on Tuesday when a vehicle driven by Charette D. Brousseau, RR 3 Goddi ich, skidded out of control into a ditch on Highway 84 just west of Hensall. The vehicle sustained damage of $10,000 and the driver and a -passenger-Alice Lockhart, Goderich, sustained minor injuries and were treated at South Huron Hospital. On Wednesday, a vehicle driven by 100 percent of the cost of oversizing Robert Ellerington, RR 1 Centralia, the Hay township waterline along which was towing a -loaded-hor8e--1hghway-21 trailer, hit a snow patch on the A three -party agreement was - drawn up on Friday when Stanley and Hay township councillors met with representatives of the ministry of the environment in the Hay council treatment. chambers. Peter Cyr, Dashwood, left Hay con- cession 12-13, went into the ditch, and struck a tree and then a hydro pole. The driver suffered minor injuries and was taken to South Huron Hospital. Damage to the vehicle was estimated at $5,100. During the week, the detachment officers laid 36 charges under the Highway Traffic Act, four under the Liquor Licence Act and one under the Criminal" Code. The R.I.D.E. roadside testing pro- gram resulted in one person being charged with driving with a blood .alcohol contentover the legal limit and two others were given 12 -hour suspensions. Good news for Stanley "We are so excited we can hardly talk" -was -Stanley_ township Reeve 'Clarence Rau's reaction to a promise by the provincial government to pay Kirkton Road, causing the trailer to swing and flip over. There were two horses in the trailer, but they suffered only minor scratches and did not require medical Damageto the trailer was listed at $3,000. The final crash of.the week was on Sunday when a vehicle driven by Those submitting tenders to con- struct the trunk line wili he asked to give estimates for both the original specifications and for the oversizing Ames to allow Stanley to hook in at a later date and d extend the water line further north. The tenders, scheduled to be opened on April 20, will now be open- ed on May 4. The Liberal government has also indicated that financial assistance will be given to building the line into Stanley. The percentage of the -- estimated cost will he announced in about two weeks. Rau credited environment minister Jim Bradley and Jack Riddell, this riding's MPP, with approving thy grant. "If everything -goes -real -good; .we - could have water in Stanley -township - next year", Rau enthused. DAFFODILS FOR CANCER — Gail Jongkind d Marian Rider are __ shownpriLor_t_o_Eriday's sale of daffodils by anmembers of the for Sororities in Exeterwith_ proceeds _going to the-C-anadion-Cancer Society.T A photo Serving South Huron, North Middlesex One Hundred and Sixteenth Year voca & North tambton Since 1873 EXETER, ONTARIO, April 8, 1987 Price Per Copy 60 Cents xeter After a lengthy discussion with in- dependent planner Jean Monteith at an afternoon session, Monday, Exeter council unanimously agreed to fight the proposed Huron Tractor in- dustrial park all the way to the On- tario Municipal Board again, if necessary. Council won an earlier appeal over the proposed development of the pro- perty in Hay, with the OMB conten- ding that the application from the, township had not satisfied the re- quirements of the . Foodland Guidelines. will will In an attempt to satisfy those re- quirements, the Huron County department of planning and develop- ment, in conjunction with Hay, did an appraisal of need. However, Ms. Monteith told Exeter council in her discussion on Monday that she was of the opinion the report was lacking and was basically a justification of want and not justifica- tion of need. While noting that Hay had the legal authority to change the property to AG3 (agricultural commercial) in the comprehensive zoning by-law, it was fight up to Exeter to decide whether anything had changed from the time of the OMB decision in their favor to the present date. She questioned whether anything had changed. The London woman also noted it was an important decision, because it could open up further development competition on Exeter's other boun- daries and the area in Hay that is south of the proposed industrial park. She explained that the alternative to appealing to the OMB was to negotiate with -Hay what uses Could be made of the property to be developed. County okays contract for. ;2.4 million project Huron County Council has award- ed the contract for the Huron County Pioneer Museum redevelopment pro- ject to a London firm. At its regular meeting Tuesday in Goderich, councjl gave its approval to a museum committee recommenda- tion to award the contract to Bach - McDougall, Engineers and Contrac- tors, at a price tag of $2.4 million. That figure, however, is more than $200,000 lower than the firm's original tender - the lowest of three submitted - of $2,606,800. Following the opening of tenders at a meeting March 19, the committee authorized project director Claus Breede and architect -Christopher Borgal to meet with the lowest bidder to negotiate reductions in the total tender price. The $2.4 million price is the result. - To meet the new price, a number of substitutions and deletions were made in the original tender, some of which could be put hack in at a later date should additional funding be con- firmed prior to completion of work by the contractor. Breede, following council's ap- proval of the recommendation, had difficulty suppressing his pleasure. "I. feel this is a good day for the county", he said. "A dream appears to be on the horizon". Bayfield Reeve Dave Johnston ex- pressed some concerns over some of the changes in construction materials from those originally specified. Both orgal ano the project director agreed with his observation that although some of. the deleted items could be re -instated at a later date. some changes. however. were irreversible. To the question of why it was decid- ed to negotiate the adjustments rather than go through the procedure of retendering, Breede told council it would have been far too costly. Borgal said the county would have Figures are high! Exeter Reeve Bill Mickle confirm- ed this week that the unemployment rate in South Huron is well above the provincial average. He said the figure as of February 23 was 10.8 percent unemployment and seasonally adjusted, the figure was 9.3 percent. The area includes Exeter, Hensall, Zurich, Stephen, Usborne, Ilay and portions of Stanley and Tuckersmith to an area neat Brucefield. "We have a great deal of work,to be done," he said in reference to chang- ing the figures. adding that it shows there is room for the senior levels of government to support the attraction of new industries into.the area. Mickle was not present when a discussion arose on the unemploy- ment figures contained in his economic development committee report at the last meeting of council. Comments at that time by some councillors suggested that South Huron was a depressed area. • been faced with an increase in con- struction costs of as high as 25 percent had re -tendering been necessary. in addition, there would have been ex- tra costs incurrecd in order to redesign the project. "What you see when you look at this list ( the negotiated changes) is the 'nice to have' items that are being deleted," Breede said. These items had been deleted. he added, "because we fell we had an obligation to bring this pro- ject in on target." During the museum committee report, presented by Goderich Reeve Harry Worsen, council was told demolition has already begun to make way for the renovations and restorations to the museum. . Breede also said he is confident the contractor will be on site and ready to proceed within ten days. In other business related to the museum, Howard Harris of Goderich, Friends of the Huron County Pioneer Museum president, appeared before council to announce a fundraising pro- ject his group is undertaking. Harris said the project involves selling building blocks to be used in the renovation and restoration work, at a price of S5 each. The group hopes to raise at least $10,000 for the museum through -this sale, he said. although the ultimate target is twice that figure. He thanked council for its diligence in giving its attention to what was needed at the museum. "Your forethought will go a long way into the future," he said. "Our children and grandchildren will reap the rewards" H It was indicated that a similar situation has arisen on the outskirts of Elora and while no, decision has been handed down by the OMB on that, she said proposed development of agricultural land had been oppos- ed "extremely hard" by the ministry of agriculture and food. "It will be an important decision", she said of the Elora situation. In the appraisal of need study, it was noted that county planning direc- tor Dr. Gary Davidson had used the rationale that he strongly believes that he didn't need to prepare such a to OMB report because the proposed uses of the Hay development originally were agricultural related and were not in- dustrial or commercial. Ms. Monteith said the problem was that the same uses can - and are-- be- ing made of land inside Exeter's boundaries and there was nothing uni- que in the suggested uses of the in=. dustrial park in Hay and it was basically being developed because of the drawing power of Exeter. - Reeve Bill Mickle also noted that the appraisal of need did not recognize that Exeter had land available for the same type of uses as those being suggested for Hay and said that may give the town a reason to consider annexation. Ms. . Monteith said many municipalities in southwestern On- tario were similar to Huron in that they had only prime agricultural land. but the Foodland Guidelines still required that less desirable sites he looked at as they were available. "This report didn't look at other less_desirable-sites;" she contended: - adding that a journey through Hay Please turn to page :i IT'S MUSIC TO YOUR EARS During Wednesday's seminar entitled Sounds -Like Music for grade eight students at Exeter Public School. Matthew Godbolt and Gavin Snell listen to the sounds of o conch shell Florida. T -A photo from Hay ratepayers given 6.26 percent tax hike Hay township ratepayers paying residential public school support face a total rate of 330.33 mills on their 1987 taxes, an increase of 6.26 percent when compared to the 1986 rate of 310.86 Mills, according to the budget presented at the first regular April session of Ilay council. ,Although the separate school board has not officially released their final figures until a board meeting this week, RC supporters can expect to pay 335.59 mills, an 8.9 percent increase. Hay's share of the education budget is 1860,871 (compared to $798,982 in 1986), a jump to 215 mills. The county's levy on the township is $354,966, up from $248,915 last year. The township's estimated expen- ditures total $678,412 this year. When, other revenue of $328,5'7 is deducted, $348,835 remains to be t'aised through taxation, a 14.34 increase from 5304.197 in 1986. One of the larger items in the 1987 budget is fire protection from the Hensall, Zurich, Dashwood and Ex- eter fire area boards amounting to 862.000. The township truck and the backhoe are other big-ticket items. Zurich councillors. executive members of the Zurich and District Agricultural Society and engineer Don Pletch attended the -first night session of the year to discuss the Society's assessment for repair of the Zurich drain. - So• ciety president Gerald Thiel told councillors the organization has no money to pay the 85.000 assessment. Ile said the Society a non-profit • organizatio4,_w as committed to put- ting on a yearly fair. and if they had to pay for their assessed share of the clean-out they would have to put their land up for auction. Zurich Reeve Bob Fisher said that Please turn to page 3 Now he'// join 'em There's an old saying that if you can't beat 'em, then join 'em. That may be the philosophy of Fred Mommersteeg of Gidley St., who along with his wife. Shirley. was em- broiled in a bitter battle with the town over the placement of a TV dish. This week, Mommersteeg's name came up on the council agenda again. but under more favorable conditions- ile has been awarded the contract to maintain the town's flower Meds for this year at a price of 83.200. - In making the recommendation, Deputy -Reeve Lossy Fuller of the public works department said she was certain Mommersteeg would. do an excellent job. citing the work on the Gidley St. rt'sidenlial lot as a basis for that opinion. 443.