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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTimes Advocate, 1992-10-07, Page 2Page 2 Times -Advocate, October 7, 1992 Seven years of miracles keep hopes alive at Zurlch store Sy Adrian Harte T -A Editor '711k1CH at started ott on e very small scale and 1 thought it would stay that way," explains Pearl Kuepfer of her foray into the thrift store business seven years ago. Today, she finds Blessings Un- limited not only quickly outgrew the house it started in and needed a large storefront, but a second floor was added to the building last year and a new extension is currently under construction at the back. Shyly, she confesses that had she known what was in store for her those seven years ago, she might not have been so eager to wade in so deep. Blessings Unlimited is a not-for- profit operation on Zurich's Main Street. For sale is used clothing and household goods and a small food bank has been running for awhile, although that too is. under expansion. "It's really a miracle how it has all fallen into place," said Kuepfer. The store is run with volunteer help who sort through all the donat- ed items, tag them, and put them on display. The venture is not sup- ported directly by any one local church, sr, it has to meet its own ex- penses, but the demand for bargain - priced clothing raid free food has proven there are many who need any advantage to help make ends meet. The current recession has shown an -increase in demand and Kuepfer says she has been glad to help out some families. She says those who have been hurt by layoffs or job sharing have sometimes needed the support of .the food bank to help pay the mortgage or meet the rent. • i think what has amazed us is the quality of the donations coming iii," said Kuepter, , noting many in the community are recognizing the need for Blessing's Unlimited sup- port in these times. She says in one bag of donated clothing were found $200 in rolled dollar coins along with a note saying "we've been sav- ing our change for a while and we hope this will help". Kuepfer says she doesn't get the chance to thank all. those who do- nate or volunteer, but she wishes she could bless them all. "We appreciate everybody. An- drew {her husband). -and 1 certainly couldn't run it without the volun- teers," she said. The Kuepfers are still *accepting donations to help pay for the finish- ing of the extension on the back of the stole which is being built with volunteer labour. It will house the expanded food bank and a larger sorting room to help cope with the donations. An upstairs addition last year was meant as a display for off-season clothing, but Kuepfer notes that hardly a day has gone by this sum- mer without selling something from those rocks. - This month marks the seventh an- niversary of when Kuepfcr took the plunge and rented a house on Main Street to open her thrift store. 'She even made an arrangement to delay paying rent to test the market, but soon received an anonymous enve- lope at church with $100 in it to pay the first month's rent. "That to me was the first mira- cle," she said, and added that the miracles have kept coming one af- ter the other to this day. "We like to call this a community service, because it isn't a business, it's a service," said Kuepfer. "We have gained so much. Getting to know. people, being able to help them." Police budget cuts difficult Continued from front pace the meeting, 11 is obvious the recent termination of the chtet and subse- quent negotiations between the town's and the chief's lawyers for a settlement will have a bearing on the overpaid salary issue.. Discussion also confirmed that the police chief has been suspended with full pay, even though Shaw had declined to reveal that fact sev- eral weeks ago Shaw also said since the 521,000 cruiser had already been purchased, other budget cuts might be needed to replace those funds. He suggest- ed that trimming overtime or other salary costs might be needed to re place the money New fire chief for Grand Bend GRAND BEND - Effective, No- vember 1, Jack Hebden will be- come the new fire chief for the 'Grand Bend Fire Department. The village. along with Bosan- quct, Stephen and Hay Townships have a joint fire board and during the September 17 meeting, it was announced Hebden would -c re- placing Stan Lovie. Hebden is presently a full-wnc firefighter in Guelph and brings 32 years of experience with him.'Cur- rently he is a platoon chief in Guelph. He is moving to Grand Bend in early 1993 but spends time in the village now as he is a partner with a local trailer park. Churches planning to televise services EXETER - The cable television eummunuty channel. which bas broadcast public to vice announce- ments and the time for the past sev- eral years, will soon feature at least two new programs for local view- ers. In addition to a weekly televised bingo operated by the Exeter; Lions Club. four Exeter churches are hop- ing to get their worship services on the air. A meeting was held Monday eve- ning with representatives from the Christian Reformed Church, the Exeter Pentecostal Tabernacle, the Emmanuel Baptist Church. and the Exeter Bible Fellowship to discuss plans to put a rotating schedule of services on cable. Services will be taped at one of the churches each Sunday by came- ra crews from the church. There will be a week to edit the tape be- fore broadcast the next Sunday morning at 10 a.m. to communities served by Ex-Ccn Cablevision. if all goes well, say orgaivarers, the church service broadcasts should be on the air by November i . 'More questions than answers, .thats where we stand at the mo- ment," said Shaw. Councillor Robert Drummond said since those items were unjusti- fiahly put in the budget, it should be up to the police board to make the cuts. "If they are reluctant to do that, shouldn't it then come into council's court to cut that back?" .said Drum- mond. "We !the board) think we can come close." said Shaw, but said there will be difficulty making all the cuts. Shaw did say acting chief Brad Sadler was tackling the budget problem "with gusto" and was be- ing helpful to the board. Hoogenboom said time is being wasted and can only hurt the people involved. He said the two salaries should have been cut back the da‘ the decision was received. "Eventually, if we don't do some- thing drastic, we will have to pick up the difference," said Hoogen- boom. "M far as the budget is core cerned, the money will have to be found before the end of the year, that's all there is to it," said Shaw. Council will be meeting with the police board members Thursday in an attempt to hammer out an agree- ment on what to do with the com- mission findings. Local municipalities want county representation system to be changed GODERICH - While there arc currently 32 Huron County councillors, that number could be changing in the future. There has been discussion in the past on whether. or not this number should be changed and recently, the county received in- put from 20 of its 26 municipali- ue Responses from those within the Times -Advocate coverage arca varied. Hay Township suggests the number be kept at 32, but if the deputy -reeves arc eliminated from county council, each coun- cillor should receive one vote. At present, the Town of Gode- rich, has botti their reeve and deputy -reeve who sit on county council but are given a total of three votes. On the other hand, the towns of Sealorth, Clinton and Wingham are only repre- sented by their reeves and have one vote. Exeter, is represented by reeve Bill Mickle and deputy -reeve Lossy Fuller, each have a vote. "County council is at a premi- um and over the next few years there could be six more deputy - reeves added and when you get that number, it's really too many," said Fuller. Exeter recommends that each municipality have only one rep- resentative, but be given a num- ber of votes on a per 1.000 elec- tor basis. In other words, Exeter would have five votes. Each county councillor is on a committee. There are seven dif- ferent committees and with the recent realignment -which • bas • the Library and Museum boards joined and Agriculture, Planning and Development together, some committees have an even numbcr of councillors which makes it difficult to break tie votes. "1 think the numbers work well with the committees we have," said Fuller. The Village of Zurich agrees with Exeter to eliminate deputy - reeves from the county chamber and supports the vote -weighted system. Hensel) has also thrown its support behind the system that would give their village two votes on council OPP investigating four cases of theft EXETER - The Exeter OPP in- vestigated four cases of theft in the past week. The first was repotted by Hooson Lighting north of Grand Bend, which bas found itael[ to be a vic- tim of apparently the same suspects who robbed stores in Parkhill, St. Joseph, Bayfield. and Goderich last weekend. Hutson Lighting reports seeing four suspects, two shales, two females, leave the store in a small grey coloured, hatchback lyes car with rust spots after 3125 was taken from the cash register during store hours. Area store owners arc being asked to be on the alert for suspi- cious persons. Last Monday. the OPP investigat- ed a theft of about 5320 in cigar - encs from Seyler's Foodland in Zu- rich after culprits smashed the plate glass door of the store at about 4 a.m. Also last Monday, approximately 3600 in clothing was stolen from a clothesline on Algonquin Drive in Huron Park. Police are also investigating a theft of tree climbing equipment from Bob's Tree Service in Central- ia, valued at about S1.000. As a result of an earlier OPP in- vestigation, Joseph Minteault of Hu- ron Park was convicted of break, enter and theft .in Goderich Court on September 16 for an incident at the Club Albatross. No property was recovered and restitution was ordered by the sewn. Volunteer Veola Wood (right) and Blessings Unlimited operator Pearl Kuepfer wont in the Zu- rich thrift store that has seen demand fbr its used clothing and food bank increase so much in recent years, that two expansions in the past year have been necessary. Complaints about emergency unit Continued from front page patients with specific injures, like severe burns can be directly trans- ported to another hospital. Currently, South Huron has 32 active beds plus 20 chronic beds. From the statistical report, which has a year ending date of March 31, 1992, the Exeter hospital had admitted 964 patients and dis- charged 971. - There are 66 full-time staff equivalents and they operated with a 34,351,327 budget, the smallest of the five -county hospitals. "The outpatients continue to grow while the in patients are de- clining slowly. We are gearing to- wards this trend with some reorgan- ization," said Robison. Pan of that is the emergency rooms being enlarged and the labs being moved. Phase One of this protect has already received the ap- proval from the Ministry of Health. There are also two new x-ray ma- chines, one which is now in opera- tion and the other to be ready for use later this month. Cost of those is around 3600,000. Although the situation involving doctors and emergency room duties remains a touchy one. Robison said, "we're working closely with the doctors and they're quite com- fortable with the staff we have there." , South Huron, along with Clinton. Seaforth and Goderich s Alexandra Marine and General Hospital all made Chatelaine Magazine's top 300 list. Each of the 3(X) hospitals holds the Clean Three designation which is the top award given by the Cana- dian Council of Health Facilities Accreditation. To appear on the list, Canadian hospitals must ad- here to a strict code of care -giving and pass a ngid inspection by the CCHFA. "They come and do an inspec- tion. The brochure we filled out was 1,100 pages. Each department has different standards," said Cur- rell. He said South Huron is the recap - tent of a three-year CCHFA award. the highest available. There are alse one and two year awards which signify unprovements are needed in certain' areas. Of the over 1,1(X) CCHFA in spected hospitals, only about a quarter of them have three-year awards. Hay in oppositign Shoreline Plan needs support of townships to go into effect ZURICH - While the Ausable Bayfield Conservation Authority's Shoreline Management Plan is un- der revision to make it more palat- able to Lake Huron couagers, it may not go very far at all unless it can win over the township govern- ments. Hay Township council voted in September to reject the first draft of the Shoreline Plan, citing a poten- tial loss of property values for cot- tage owners in the restricted zones, the fact that the township currently regulates its own Lakeshore devel- opment and that such authority should stay with the municipality. To collage owners the most con- tentious parts of the plan, aimed at controlling development in areas subject to erosion, were the "red" no -development zones, and "yel- low" caution zones along the Lake- shore. Reeve Lionel Wilder said bis council rejected the plan "because there'ell whole lot of questions un- answered". "We don't want the Shoreline Management Plan incorporated in our zoning bylaws as it stands; said Wilder. "It's far too restric- tive." Wilder said the plan offers no compensation for couagers who have bought property, installed wa- ter connections only to find the 'red" zone would prohibit all build- ings. As far as revisions to the plan, Wilder said his council would like- ly prefer the ABCA not take over control of Lakeshore development at all and remain in an advisory ca- pacity only. "We think we should have the fi- nal say on things," said Wilder, who also said be objected to the plan to have the "red" zone follow the entire shoreline. He said the plan ought to red -flag only the highly erosive areas. Pat Donnelly at the ABCA said he acknowledged there are changes to be made to the original plan. Currently over 300 wriucn submis- sions are being reviewed for their comments, criticisms and advice. However, he said the plan's pur- pose is to identify the erosion po- tential of the whole shoreline, not just specific areas. "It would not be a true Shoreline Management Plan then, I guess," said Donnelly. "It would be an eroding bluff management plan.'. Linc present draft has its positive and negative points, said Donnelly. but toted few townships would dis- agree with its emphasis on im- proved drainage to prevent erosion and to improve Lakeshore septic systems. Donnelly did agree that the town- ships do have the final say on whether the fatal plan, due out some time next year, will become part of their bylaws. "There is certainly the opportuni- ty to say 'no, we don't want a Shoreline Management Plan'," said Donnelly, but said the province is pressing hand for such lakefront de- velopment controls and may leave few options for reluctant municipal- ities. Alec Scott of the ABCA was meeting with Hay council Monday evening to further discuss the plan and how it could better meet the township's objectives.