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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1992-04-01, Page 1Mini Carnations $695 a bunch spring colours COSH et Carry so COUNTRY fLOWfkS Maw Geiser nate Insurance itExperience 234420 Inside Accused A Zurich man battles Children's Aid page 2 Playwright School librarian writes fcr the stage ease 10 __ #fir Clocks go forward Sunday Walkathon Sunday afternoon EXETER - The atxond annual Sick Fids Waikathon will be kicked off at 1 p.m.on.Sunday. Walkers will be leaving:the Exeter Lions Youth Centre on.a-nine kilo- metre .trek to raise money for the Childrens Hospital Foundation. The walkathon is being organized by Audrey and Steve Skinner, again in memory of their daughter who lost her battle with liver failure two years ago. Melissa Rossoni, this year's Mira- cle Network Telethon Miracle' Child will be cutting the ribbon on the walkathon at 1 p.m., explained; Audrey Skinner, but said some' walkers needing to get a bead start on the hour and a half route can start early. Sponsor sheets have been availa- ble from local businesses for the past few weeks, but Skinner said anyone interested in joining the walk without sponsorship is wel- come. Donations will also be ac- cepted. Skinner also said she and her hus- band just got word as to the out- come of last year's walkathon which saw 350 people raise about 523,000. The Children's Hospital in London has purchased a STAR ventilator for the pediatric critical care unit. The $20,000 machine will have an engraved plaque on it, dedicating it to the memory of Stephanie Lynn Skinner. Since 1+73 Wednesday. April 1. 1992 Brno a da/fodil Daffodil Day is this Friday and the Exeter Branch of the Canadian Cancer Society will be selling 1,300 bunches of daffodils in town for $3 each, both on the street and from the storefront beside Selah Books. From left are Donna Jones, representing the Beta Sigma Phi sorority, Leona Brock, president of the Exeter Cancer Society, Ervin Sillery, also reprei senting the Cancer Society, and (seated) Elaine Bogart with both the sorority and the Can- cer Society. Controversial study findings Exeter 'just plain boring' EXETER - The _Exeter BIA) had hoped to hear some good news about how the town could better promote its assets this year, but instead received a scathingzepartfrorn a consulting company. Ian Lirpa from Day One Marketing of Leaden =presented his anal ysis -of Exeter's best assets to Fri- -day's meeting of the BIA. The outlook, he said, is not promising. Lirpa said he expected that Exeter would have "typical small-town quirks" that can work well to a business area looking to capitalize on a unique im- age- "It would appear that most of the more fun events Exeter has planned over the years all disappearedin the 1970s," said Lirpa. "I understand the Peanut Stomp and the Rodeo were excellent attractions in their time, •but have since gone by the wayside." When one BIA member pointed out to )_ rpa that Exeter continues to have a very successful T=all Fair,' he replied that his marketing survey did reveal the strength of that event "But everybody's town has a fair, and not all are so close to the Western Fair either. You need some- thing special," he said, adding that Zurich has it's Bean Festival and Dashwood has Friedsburg Days. Lirpa did point out the Legion's Chili Fest has promise, so long as it continues in coming years. "I have found that Exeter has had a problem hold- ing 'second annual' events," he said. When asked why the town's white squirrel popula- tion did not constitute a genuinely marketable attrac- tion, Lirpa said he too had at fust saw it as a valu- able asset. After researching the squirrel's fame and popularity in the region, he said he discovered "most people thought it was a gag, like that albino groundhog". When shown a photograph of a white squirrel, Lirpa said most of those surveyed were convinced it was a doctored photograph ora practical joke. "People just won't believe 'e"yre real," croaccded Lirpa. "I don't see how we can get around that." He also said the relative lack of knowledge about the white wonder led him to test the awareness of Exeter in general. Lirpa said he picked 60. people at random in a London shopping mall and asked them 10 name lose communities north of London. He said the mast common responses included Godetich, Clin- im, Lucan, Arva, Clandeboye, and Delaware. Ex- :alor,•he said, ranked just above Kippen in the total mer of responses and for most people "wasn't eat he map". . *Let's face it he said. "Your town is just plain boring. Even the town newspaper's last big stand was to come out in favour of safe driving." A BIA member at the back of the room was heard to snort with derision and say that he didn't want to see the BIA's good money being "wasted on a re- port full of crap". Other members joined in to com- plain about the content of the $2,500 study, but af- ter the chairman calmed the meeting down, he thanked Lirpa for the presentation and said it raised "some very salient points about how our town is perceived by the outside world. If we want to pro- mote ourselves we have to know our weaknesses as well as our strengths." "And besides," he continued. "April FooL" County taxes to jump 6.3°10 GODERICH - There is good news and bad news surrounding the 1992 Huron County budget. Warden Bob Fisher said he was 4eod to announce the increase , 1been kept to a minimal 6.3 pa - atilt However, services throughout the county are going to have to be reduced drastically. In Goderich on Thursday, council passed the annual budget after a _heavy session_ last week 11,Atich re - some dcpartments''it iilaash iuidividt gets eVer--Safer to the bare bone. '"Initially all departments had to come in at a zero percent increase," said Fisher. , He estimates that services, like roadwork, will be dropping five percent. The library board had to close seven branches in order to keep their budget down. "It wouldn't be a wise decision to cut any further," said Fisher who complimented the department heads for the work they did on their budgets. The county portion of a Huron County ratepayers total tax bill is between 15 and 20 percent with the remaining pan going towards mu- nicipal and school board taxes. "The ratepayers I've talked to want reduced taxes but not a reduc- tion in service," said Fisher. The biggest increase for the county will come in social services and waste management. With the increasing _ number of CM/Ia. die eta social -assistance -Wiitifteildifiton 32204,742 to $3,919,715. It was more than $400,000over budget in 1991. Huron County is currently look- ing for a county wide landfill site which they hope to have in opera- tion by 1996. That has meant an in- crease from $177,292 to $312,255. Waste management, social ser- vices and library were the only three departments which did not come in with a zero percent budget. Fisher said that while the waste Please turn to page 3 Provincial grant losses may hike education taxes six percent By Ray Lewis CLINTON - Trustees of the Hu- ron County Board of Education discussed preliminary budget esti- mates at a special meeting last Monday night in Clinton, and while the budget has been placed on hold, director Bob Allan fore- -auggooseincrease. '�tijltt now we are only able to formulate a guestimate," said Al- lan. "It appears the total county in- crease could be between four and six percent." Allan explained that several fac- tors must combine to provide the board with their outlook. On the revenue side, because of the market reassessment which is taking place in Huron County, the province has not been able to give the board the equalization factor on what grants it will receive. The equalization factor is a math- ematical number which applies to a municipality and is provided by the Ministry of Education. However, numbers must travel from Huron County through the Ministry of Revenue at route to the Ministry of Edualfa `before being given to the -board. Allan expected to receive the factor between mid to late March. "'the purpose of that number is to assure that our assessment lines up equally with every other county in the province," said Allan. As of right now, the equalization factor is missing, and without that factor we can't calculate precisely what our grant revenue will be." What the board has done was Please tum to page 3 Junes .have tical flavour EXETER - For those of you who happen to have a copy of the record "White Wonder" released a few years back, you might just want to hang onto it During Sunday's Juno Awards, Cassandra Vasik of Blenheim beat out country artists Anne Murray, Carroll Baker and Joan Kennedy in the country female vocalist of the year category. Surprisingly enough, Vasik sang harmony with Peter Snell on the record. "It was really exciting when I heard about it," said Snell. "To think of the company she was in, it was quite an accomplishment." Five years ago Snell and some friends were busy at the SRS re- cording studio in London. Vasik, at the time, was working in the stu- dio as a harmony singer, where she was hired by Snell for the record. River trail plans may take years to complete EXETER - It might take years to accomplish, but there is a plan on the boards to develop a nature trail extending all the way from Exeter's MacNaughton Park out to the fourth concession of Osborne Town- ship. The plan, drafted in the fall of 1988 is now edging closer to being put into effect with a fundraising plan by the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Foundation. The Foundation, a volunteer group which works in conjunction with the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority, is raising money to 'establish a river trail through a raffle on a Tammy Laye painting of Exeter's white squirrel, and through the sale of limited edition prints of the painting. But putting money in the bank is no guarantee that a river trail is in the works. Although many people don't realize it, the land between MacNaughton Park and Morrison Dam is mostly privately owned. The cross- country ski trails between the park and the reservoir arc created through wintertime easements. Come mid- March, anyone walking along the river is actually tres- passing. in 1991 the ABCA sent letters to the various land- owners along the river, asking if any were interested in selling their part of the river "corridor" - the floodplain land unsuitable for development or farming. Few indi- cated they were willing to part with their river front. "They don't object to the winter use, it's the summer they're not too keen on," observed Kathy Monk, corn- munications manager of the ABCA. She said that many fear that opening the river up to hikers and walkers would bring unwanted traffic to neighbouring prop>,.:ties. Some even bought their properties to be near the river. While the possibility of purchasing or negotiating casements for a river trail has been raised, Monk says that the purchase of the entire corridor is a preferred option. "If they want to sell it, we'll buy it," said Monk, but acknowledged this could take years to complete. On the bright side, there are plans for subdivisions within Exeter that flank the river. Because subdivi- sions require five percent of land to be set aside for parkland, the river area is a likely choice for this, main- ly because it can't be developed anyway. Another small parcel of land is on the ABCA's shop- ping list. It would connect the farthest east part of the trail with Concession 4 of Osborne, allowing hikers to start at that end, or cross over the river to return on the other side. Anyone who wants to walk past the Morrison reser- voir that far had better bring hip waders, because as Monk explains, the trail has been mapped out but is far from being easily travelled. The ABCA is even con- sidering the creation of a pond upstream of the reser- voir to serve as a filter for sediments and pollutants be- fore the river reaches the fish -stocked reservoir, and will likely become a favourite spot for waterfowl. "It's an ideal corridor so people can go from Exeter right the way out: said Monk, adding that such a trail is not only recreational, but can be used to protect and iKathy Monk of the Ausabie B -' -�< •. field :Consery Ion Author observe mid& Nesting boles can even be set up along the way to encourage habitation of species that find fewer and fewer places to live these days. The Conservation Foundation fundraising, said Monk, will go a long way to .get this project off the "Getting funding from the province for this type of thing is pretty tight," she said, pointing out that expro- priation of river lands is not being considered. She hopes that the curtent practice of arranging win- ter easements for cross country skiing will eventually serve as a pattern to create a permanent trail. "There are some cases of vandalism, but I think that is often a case of there not being enough people in the [rival area," said Monk. While there are no plans to extend the park/trail con- cept further west, Monk agrees that connecting the cor- ridor to Conservation Authority lands in the Hay Swamp also may be a worthwhile goal. But for now, the main focus is on the MacNaughton, 'Morrison corridor, and if completed in the next few years, complete with boardwalks and bridges for the more damp areas, Monk predicts it could become a very vital part of the lifestyle of Exeter residents. "Once spring comes there are always a few people who come out [to Morrison Dam] to use die trails in the evenings. There are always a few cars parked out by the darn," she said. The White Squirrel painting is being raffled off with $10 tickets for a draw at the annual ABCA/Lions din- ner auction on April 30. Prints are being sold at the Conservation Authority office. All proceeds are going towards making this vision of bringing the recreational benefits of a riverside trail right into Exeter a reality, even if it takes years to complete.