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Zurich Citizens News, 1981-05-06, Page 141.ty.y. .w•...� . . .•� - ,., .•.i w.w..1 -`:.r 'r:' ....•.-.N cwy.. A. �/ +r t �. GRAND OPENING — Shown are part of the estimated 150 people who attended the opening of the Bluewater Rest Home Apartments and were entertained by the Zurich choir. It was a beautiful sunny day for Sunday's opening. Attendance good at rest home opening About 150 people attended the grand opening of the Bluewater rest home apart- ment addition, Sunday. The addition, built late last fall, contains 10 self con- tained one -bedroom apartments. Maurice Bossy, member of parliament for Kent, represented Paul Cosgrove, the minister of public works. Bossy said the government was pleased to be helping out with the project.If ever there was a priority in govern- ment spending, he said, this would be it. Bossy introduced John Doherty program office from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation's Kitchener office. CMHC helped finance the new addi- tion. Doherty presented Bluewater superintendent Joe Risi with a flag set to be used inside the main building. Other greetings came from Huron MP Murray- Cardiff, urrayCardiff, and Huron - Middlesex MPP Jack Riddell. Cardiff presented the superintendent with two Canadian flags on behalf of parliament. Please turn to page 6 FIRST WITH LOCAL NEWS RIBBON CUT--- Cutting the ribbon to officially open the new by artmentsffhi-Bluewater Rest Home, Sunday, are: (from left) Lewis Boshart, from the board of directors and master of ceremonies for the opening; board chairman Dr. C.J. Wallace; Maurice Bossy, M.P. for Kent, on behalf of the Hon, Paul Cosgrove, federal minister of public works; and Housing Corporation offices in Kitchener. Haydebates drain repair A delegation of local land owners discussed the clean- ing of the Datars-Miller drain at Hay council's meeting, Monday. The drainage ditch runs from near lot 6 on conces- sion 12, west to the lake. , The delegation reported the drains were silting up, and some of the culverts In the • system were almost blocked. Erich Freiter, RR 1, Dashwood, said he had done part of the cleaning out of the main ditch on, his ptoper- ty last fall. Other farmers had also cleaned out parts of the drain and Frieter felt he had done his part. It was suggested an engineer be called in to check the situation and to check the suitability of the existing culverts. Deputy reeve Lionel Wilder reminded those pre- sent that the council must be petitioned for any clean-out done. Work costs are then assessed to those whose property drains into the ditch. The only assessment schedule the 'township has is for the original installation of the system and culverts. A new engineer's report would set up a maintenance schedule of assessment and more equitably distribute the costs of future clean-out of the drain. { Freiter said he would op- pose bringing in an engineer since the money could be better spent on simply clean- ing out the ditch. He said he couldn't afford the assessment every five years to clean out the ditch. He also felt that if the engineer was brought in the whole system would have to be reviewed and renovated. If the ditches were simply cleaned out, the culverts would be flushed out by the water flow, he said. Councillor Tony Bedard said it would be a good idea to have an engineer come in and review the drains. The work will have to be done sooner or later he said, and if land owners down stream request the work and it is passed through ' council, everyone draining into the ditch would be assessed. Council will set up an on- site meeting with an engineer to look at the problems of the drain and gather more information 'on what should be done to solve the problems. The council will request a representative from , the county meet with them and explain the operation of a maintenance and occupancy by-law. Wilder said the by-law could be instituted to control absentee landowners who are tearing down barns and houses. The housing is need- ed in the township he said, and the township loses tax assessment when barns are torn down. Councillor Dick Rau said council should be looking at some form of property con- trol by-law at the same time. He said council was plan- ning to control the tearing down of houses, but not the cleaning up of un -maintained yards and property. Such a by-law would make land owners clean up barn foundations after the building above was torn down. Council accepted an application for tile drainage from Peter Oud for lot 12 and 13, concession 15. Another application was turned down, as a map of the installation was not provid- ed. It was suggestedthe good quality map submitted by Oud be used as an example for other applications. ' Clerk -treasurer Joan Ducharme said the township was allocated about $197,000 for tile drains last year. The township has not yet received this year's alloca- tion, but over half of last year's amount is already spoken for. In other business: Council was told the enumeration of township dogs was completed. Reeve Lloyd Mousseau said council should instruct the future enumerators not to be work- ing late evenings or on Sun- days and disturbing people at night. It was also noted land owners are responsible to collect fees from dog owners renting their property. Council gave its approval to a land severance re- quested by Edward Prouty, on lot 3 concession 10. The severance conforms to the secondary plan and will allow the farm land to be sold and the farm home retained for retirement pur- poses. Price per Copy 25 Cents coobudget up $38 assessmenf increase Huron County taxpayers will have an additional $38.71 on their education tax bill this year based on an average assessment of $3100.. That increase is based on an average residential assessment in the county, as supplied by the assessment commissioner, and follows the Board of Education's ap- proval of a 1981 budget in Clinton, Tuesday. The• new budget -calls for total expenditures of 828,- 630,287, an increase of 13.2 percent over the board's 0,296,061 in expenditures last year. That means the taxpayers of Huron will have to contribute 89,484,702 to the education system this year, an increase of 19.1 per- cent over the $7,964,847 rais- ed through taxes in 1960. That means the local mill rate for education will jump 13.49 mills In 1981 to 105.93. On an average residential assessment in the county the education portion of the tax bill will rise from $289 to $328. The biggest chuck of the budget, 71 percent, is labell- lip r ed for salaries and benefits. The salaries and benefits for teachers and administration amounts to over $20 million for 1981. The other big items on the expenditure side include $2.4 million for plant operation and maintenance and . $2.3 million for transportation. This year, debt charges on debentures and interest on operating. loans will amount to $983,336. So while the overall -expenditure rose by 13.2 percent the amount rais- ed through taxation will go up by a whopping 19 percent. Several municipal and township clerks attended the budget meetingand Director of Education, John Cochrane outlined the budgeting procedure for 1981. He in- dicated that much of the in- crease in education taxation is due to a reduction in the percentage of provincial grants. In 1975, provincial grants accounted for 76 percent of the elementary school budget and that has steadily declined to 68 percent last year. In the secondary panel the story is much the same. Provincial grants in 1975 covered 76 percent of the cost and fell to 65 percent in 1980. Cochrane also explained that declining enrolment has limited provincial grants. "Money from the province is based on the number of students and with declinig enrolment the grants have fallen off," he said. "The provincial spending ceilings have fallen behind price in- creases." The board's committees did make cuts from original budget estimates and one of the major deletions was $75,- 000 thatwas removed from a proposed teacher sickleave gratuity fund. Cochrane said that accumulative sick -day pay for teachers with more than 12 years experience would amount to $3.3 million. Despite a warning from the auditors to establish a reserve fund, the board decided to wait on the reserve fund and delete the $75,000 from the budget. A separate motionwasalso passed to put a freeze on hir- Please turn to page 5 1/ • St. • ,ra ••.s 4' f i �,• 4- + t .r •P4 ,r. f:'�' $ « • ,,I•.. HARD TO WORK — Zurich public school students were showing when they went out to help pick up litter at the Zurich park. Shown Dale . Gingerich (from left), Tim Teeter, Albert Barker, and Chris 440 AIL their civic pride, Friday, are grade eight students Goodliffe. 1 •