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HomeMy WebLinkAboutClinton News-Record, 1986-12-31, Page 19a1IMINOR Yl9NC,-9M.M.' HI ‘ND 9NDARD-9191..l64lHELD 964(1,LE New clerk -treasurer named By David Emslie BLYTH - After filtering through 24 ap- plications to come up with a short list, then carrying out interviews, council here an- nounced the hiring of a new clerk -treasurer on December 16. A Teeswater woman, Helen Grubb, will be Blyth's new clerk -treasurer as of January 1. Mrs. Grubb has worked as a part-time secretary clerk for the Township of Culross for the past five years. When asked what work she carried out there that pertains to her new job she stated, "I do everything, absolutely everything." Aside from her work experience, Mrs. Grubb has been studying a subject for the past two years that gives her a good backround for the job. "I drove to Owen Sound for the last two years for night courses to study the Municipal Clerk -Treasurer Adminstrative Course," She said. "That gives me my Association of Municipal Clerk -Treasurers (AMTC) designation." She added that the course was set up NO. 53 121 YEARS WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 1986 50 CENTS :v'f:F .•ice; x. ,. through the AMTC and McMaster University. Mrs. Grubb attended the December 16 council meeting as an observer, and she was impressed with what she saw. "It was excellent, compared to what I'rn used to. I'm talking about the business at- titude of it, it was straightforward," she said. "They ( council) appear to be very gen- tle, relaxed, considerate people." While working in Blyth, Mrs. Grubb will be keeping her home in Teeswater. "I have three children in school, with two boys in Grade 11. In one more year they will be off to college or university, and I'm not going to disrupt their lives (by moving)," she ex-. plained. "I have a daughter, Tammy Lynn, she goes to Walkerton Separate High School. She is in Grade 9. That's another reason I don't want to pull up roots." Mrs. Grubb is eager to start her work with council in January. "I had two interviews, I spoke with dif- ferent councillors and I'm really looking for- ward to it. They are very co-operative peo- ple to work with." Council votes unanimously to change town's insurance CLINTON - A considerable increase in the town's 1987 insurance premium and some investigation of other firms, has resulted in the town changing agencies. The matter was discussed at council's December 15 meeting and a special meeting was held on December 22 to discuss details and make a decision before the year's end. It was during the special meeting that coun- cil unanimously voted to deal with ROMA (Rural Ontario Municipal Association) in- stead of Frank Cowan Insurance. "The bottom line is, we're saving and get- ting more insurance," said Deputy -Reeve Rosemary Armstrong. Clerk -Treasurer Marie Jefferson estimates the town is saving $8,000. The ROMA premium is $41,758 and the com- parable Cowan Insurance premium was $50,928. Council also elected to get environmental coverage and go with $6.2 -million liability coverage.. To see how reliable ROMA is, Clerk Jef- ferson phoned other municipalities who deal with them. One such municipality was Grand Valley. "I spoke to their clerk about when the tor- nado went, through. To start with, they had an old library of 1,700 square feet and their insurance was $457,000. The council at that time made an agreement with the insurance company because they wanted to rebuild the library, making it 4,400 square feet and put it in a new location," she said. Mayor John Balfour added that Grand Valley received 100 per cent funding for their building. The town's policy will have a $5,000 deduc- tible on property insurance and $250 deduc- tible on equipment used at the arena, such as the boiler and compressor. Ministry turns down • grant application This group took a bit of time out to pose for a picture in front of the legislative building prior to beginning their busy day of receiving awards from the Minister of Natural Resources for essays they pad written. In the back row (left) is Graham Yeats, a Blyth Public School teacher, and Andy Houser, the District Manager for the Wingham office of the Ministry of Natural Resources. In the second row (left) is Melanie Knox, a Hullett Central School student, Dave Hessels from Blyth Public School and John Koch, a student from Sprucedale Public School. In the front row are four more Blyth Public School students, (left) Lisa Bromley, Kelly Cook, Tammy Medd and Tabatha Montgomery. (David Emslie photo) Blyth wins contest again STANLEY TWP. - The Ministry of the En- vironment has turned down, for the present, the township's request for financial assistance to extend the water pipeline ap- proved across Hay Township into the adja- cent municipality. A letter received earlier this month said that in view of the fiscal restraints facing the provincial govern- ment, and the low priority assessed to this particular project (which does not claim prevention of health hazards or impairment of the environment), extension of the pipeline into Stanley is not eligible for a grant at this time. Reeve Clarence Rau told those in atten- dance at the regular December session of council that one of his first priorities in the new year will be further negotiation to get the ministry to change its mind and provide a subsidy. MP Jack Riddell will be con- tacted and asked to set up a meeting with Environment Minister Jim Bradley. Other priorities stated by Rau for 1987 were completion of paving on the Goshen, and replacing a culvert at the Goshen Church. Two zoning changes were approved with no objectors. The zoning on part lot 18, con- cession B.R.S. from AG2 to VR1 creates a building lot for Gord Hill. A change from AG1 to UI (communications and utilities) at Part lot 30, S.B concession allows Hay Municipal Telephone to install a remote switchine substation at Drysdale. Turn to page 13. Expenses of landfill site are simply outrageous Essay contest winners treated to a day in Toronto This is the eighth year for the Ministry of Natural Resources Wingham District Essay Contest. The winning essays for 1986 have been selected and the awards presented. For the fifth year in a row, Blyth Public School was the best overall school submit- ting essays. The best essay was written by John Koch from Sprucedale Public School in Shakespeare. The first runner up, and part of the winning school team from Blyth, was Tabatha Montgomery. The second runner up was Melanie Knox from Hullett Central Public School. All of these students travelled to Toronto on December 16 to have their awards presented by the Hon. Vincent G. Kerrio, Minister of Natural Resources. "Judging from the great essays you have written on the theme 'The Importance of Fish as a Resource', I think Ontario is in pretty good • hands," Kerrio said. "Keep thinking about the future. Keep entering contests - like the Wingham District Annual Essay Contest - where there is a chance to write about these subjects," Kerrio continued, "because there is still a lot of work to do and its going to be your job to do it." After the presentation ceremonies, the students, accompanied by Graham Yeates, Blyth Public School Grades seven and eight teacher, and Ministry staff from Wingham District, Andy Houser, District Manager, Mike Malhiot, District Biologist and Ron Spurr, Extension Services Supervisor, toured the provincial legislature and saw some of the question period portion of the House in session. In addition to the awards presented to the school and the individual essay winners, each student will receive a free two to three- hour charter boat fishing trip next spring courtesy of Sam Argyle, a charter boat operator from Goderich. As Kerrio put it, in taking time to make the presentations personally to these children, "People have begun to think more about the future of fishing in Ontario. They realize we have to work hard to keep our lakes and rivers full of fish for everyone to enjoy now and in the future." Melanie Knox, of Hullett Central Public School finished in third place for the individual essay in the Ministry of Natural Resources Wingham District annual essay contest. Ors December 16, she travelled to Toronto and was presented with her prize, a personally autographed print of a small mouth bass by artist Glen Loates. Presenting the award was Vincent Kerrie, Minister of Natural Resources. (Ministry photo) i TUCKERSMITH TWP. - The search for a landfill site continues to be a headache for Seaforth and Tuckersmith Township officials. Although the Kootstra site outside Clinton has passed strict requirements set down by the Ministry of the Environment, members of the Seaforth-Tuckersmith Landfill Com- mittee are coming to the realization that any landfill site which conforms to the rules of operation as set down by the ministry, may be too expensive to maintain. Seaforth Mayor Alf Ross said it frightens him to think about the costs that could be involved. , "The people of the ministry refuse to talk about economics. They don't realize the im- pact of economics in a small town," he said, adding the ministry's attitude has been simply to lay down the criteria for the land- fill site without a thought to how much it is going to cost to meet that criteria. "Money was never important to the ministry," added councillor Carolanne Doig. "Nobody ever discussed it with us. Cost was not to be considered.. And that's fine if you have unlimited funds - or a benefactor - we don't," she added. To date the search for the landfill site has cost $237,990. A further $100,000 is expected to be neededcomplete the Environmental Assessment report and environmental assessment; nd if the committee decides to go ahead with the Kootstra site as the land- fill, another $331,000 must be spent to pur- chase the land. That brings the capital cost of the landfill site to $668,990. Once the capital costs are finished with there are still development costs, both in- itial and mid-life to be considered. Those costs are expected to total another $829,000 and would include such expenditures as; the creation of an access road to the site; fenc- ing of the site; stripping and stockpiling top- soil from the berm location and from the disposal site; adding clay material to raise the base grade in the easterly cells; placing clay till in the berm core, placing topsoil on the berms, seeding and tree planting; con- struction of a leachate collection system to completely surround the disposal area, in- cluding the wet well; a building to house the landfilling equipment, aeration blowers and a small office; construction of a power line, additional monitoring wells, and leachate • pumping, treatment and disposal system - including forcemains, aerated lagoon, polishing lagoon and spray irrigation. The landfill itself, when in operation, is expected to cost an additional $100,000 each year to operate. That figure was reached based on the average annual cost of ear- thwork to obtain the base grades and pro- vide materials for daily cover, final cover and site closure; equipment for handling waste and cover, plant operator's wages; ,Site monitoring; average operating cost of leachate treatment and disposal and miscellaneous costs such as power, building maintenance, survey layout, snowplowing and etcetera. With the total capital costs at $668,990 and total development cost at $829,000 that means Seaforth-Tuckersmith will have out- layed nearly $1.5 -million before the site is even is use. Based on a $1,500,000 debenture of 20 years at 12 per cent interest, an annual payment of $200,820 would be required in ad- dition to the yearly operational cost of $100,000. Seaforth's share of that cost would be $138,377.20 (46 per cent) while Tuckersmith Township would absorb $162,442.80 (54 per cent) . Based on the Seaforth figure the commer- cial assessment for the town would be $907,948. Eighty-five per cent of the residen- tial assessment would be $1,702,499 for a total of $2,610,447. The commercial mill rate increase for garbage disposal would be 53.008 and the residential mill rate increase for garbage disposal 45.057. Based on•an average residential assess- ment of 3,000 there would be an increase in taxes of $135.17. The cost of garbage disposal per residence would be $157.96 (total annual estimated cost for Seaforth divided by number of residences). "If we do it, we won't be able to do anything else," said Miss Doig, "Our roads would go to hell." "The bottom line is if we go ahead with the landfill site we're going to have to stop everything else we have been doing," added Mr. Ross, "and we can't do that. The figures only show an increase in taxes to cover the landfill site, there is no allowance for other general, county or school board increases. Turn to page 5 Bird stolen, owner bitten CLINTON - On December 20, the owner of Jonesy's Pet World was given an unpleasant surprise. At approximately 3:30 p.m., Brian Jones and one employee were in the store located • on Albert Street, when a male and female entered the building with a dog and stole a blue and gold Macaw valued at $2,000. According to Mr, Jones, the pair went to the back of the store where the bird sits, threw a box over its head and then made their way towards the door. When he tried to stop them, the dog which was accompany- ing them, bit Mr. Jones who later went to the hospital and received six stitches. The thieves have been caught but the bird has not yet been returned.