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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Goderich Signal-Star, 1986-02-05, Page 1Goderich 138 YEAR -06 GODERICH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1986 60 CENTS PER COPY The Cartier Constructjon Company has been detonating explosives in the Goderich Har- bour over the past week, chipping away at the rock, bed in an effort to reach seaway dep- th. The blasting is taking place alongside Goderich Elevators and will cover an area west up to Captain ]Fats. The dredging of the harbour in that area has to be complete for the -opening of the shipping season in March. One hundred and fifty pounds of explosives is placed in six holes drilled three metres deep and three metres apart. After the blasting the loose material will be scooped up. In the inset, Robert Borden, an explosive and blasting expert with VME Associates Ltd. of Rexdale monitors the effects of the harbour blasts. (photos by Dave Sykes) Harbor blasting shakes the town If you've been feeling the earth move in Goderich lately, it's nothing to be alarmed about. For the past few weeks, the Cartier Con- struction Company has been blasting in the Goderich harbor to make it seaway depth. By drilling six holes three metres apart and three metres deep and -filling them with dynamite, the company will clear three inetres from the harbor bed. "People have called because they don't know .what's going on. Their dishes were rattling on the shelves and some people Washington D.C. measuring 5.5 on the hire he'd felt his chair move around the thought a car had hit their house or their Richter scale. time of the earthquake on Friday. furnac,e had blown up," says Works Coin- Anna Marie Young, of RR3 Auburn said The earthquake took place atthe epicen- missioner Ken Hooter. she was on the phone and noticed that the tre beneath, the American shore of Lake Niter says both town hall and the television and the coffee table started to Erie, about 125 kilometres south of London shake at 11:50 a.m. at 11:46:50'a.m. on Friday. It was the most police department have received about 15 Neither the town hall staff or the police powerful quake ever recorded from the calls each about the blasting. received many calls about the earthquake. spot. And, on Friday around noon, the Signal- "One man called and asked what it was Dishes and furniture will continue to rat - Star received several calls enquiring but we didn't know at the time," says tle in Goderich for another few months, about earth tremors which turned out to be Police Chief Pat King. however; as the blasting at the harbor con - an earthquake felt from Orillia to Hunter said Coun. John Stringer told tinues. Survey shows publiq BY SHARON DIETZ An informal random telephone survey of the public's attitudes toward the doctors' demand to keep extra -billing found four out of five people, who agreed to par- ticipate, opposed to extra -billing. While most agreed it is a difficult issue with conflicting factors, almost everyone said the two sides in the dispute, the On- tario Medical Association representing the doctors and the Minister of Health Murray " Elston should sit down and discuss all the issues affecting the health care system and come to' an agreement. Catherine Burrough, -a senior citizen said doctors should not be allowed to extra - bill. People don't always have the money to pay doctors' bills and she doesn't like the idea doctors could withdraw their ser- vices. She said she has been asked by a specialist on the first visit. to his office, if she, could afford to pay if he extra -billed favors extra -billing ban her. She said she wasn't embarrassed to tell him she couldn't afford it. Sara Chalmers is fortunate to have a doctor whom she considers a friend more than a doctor. She doesn't think doctors should be permitted to extra -bill. She said she knows people who cannot afford to pay the fee and then wait for 013IP to reim- burse them because they live on fixed in- comes. If the doctors do decide to opt out of OHIP and bill director it will be a real burden for senior citizens, she said, because many of them have to see a doctor several times a month. Chalmers said she has a friend who was seeing a doctor who was opted out who often talked about how she hoped she wouldn't have to go to the doctor too many more times this month because she didn't know how she would manage to pay the bills. Her friend has since changed doctors and is now seeing a doctor who is opted in. "Doctors to me have always been people who are compassionate and didn't care whether they got paid or not, but I guess I'mold fashioned," she commented. Mery Hoy said he obviously doesn't like to pay extra for health care but he believes doctors should have the freedom to bill for their services as other professionals do. . He doesn't like to see government legislating what people can charge but for seniors and others who can't afford to pay he agrees it is a problem. What will be worse than' extr., illing will be the situation when doctors t out of OHIP and bill their patients directly. Pa- tients will then have to wait for reimbuse- ment from OHIP. ' Hoy admits doctors are better off finan- cially since the introduction of the health care insurance plan. Doctors were never able to collect payment for all their ser- vices and there was a certain percentage of accounts they had towrite off. The proper thing would be to sit down and work something out. The doctors and the government should sit down .and negotiate, said Hoy. He leans toward permitting doctors to extra bill. "We'll have even more in- tervention if government is permitted to regulate doctors. We don't need anymore government intervention than is necessary." Dorothy Haan is a mother of young ildren and she said she's not happy with billing. She was extra -billed by an aethetist when she' had a ceasarean sec- tion during the delivery of one of her children. She said she was not informed the anaesthetist would be sending a bill before the bill arrived. If a doctor is opted out, that is his 'Turn to page 2. Museum hires six people through program BY SHARON DIETZ The Huron County Pioneer Museum has received grants totalling $238,750 through the Canada Job Development Program ,,and the National Museums of Canada, Museum Assistance Program. The grant of $123,000 under the Canada Job Development Program is being used to hire support people to assist with the packing and storing of museum artifacts for the duration of the construction period, while a new building for the museum is be- ing built. Six people have been hired and began working at the museum at the first of January. The program has a heavy training com- ponent and the museum's project co- or- dinator Claus Breede has already con- ducted a 10 day training, seminar on cataloging, control and handling of materials and artifacts and warehousing techniques. The five fulltime permanent staff at the museum, as well as 10 Volunteers from the comMun'ity . who are interested hi the museum also attended the training seminar. The staff and job development trainees are now using the skills learned 'at the seminar to pack large numbers of objects to -put in storage to safeguard the artifacts during the construction period. Over the next several weeks they will begin catalog- ing the new acquisitions at the museum which have been acquired over the last two to three years, says Breede. Then begins the process of packing the old pieces of the museum's collection using catalogue verification. All of this informa- tion gathering is being done in preparation for filing the catalogue on computer. The museum has between 40,000 and 50,000 individual items • in its collection ranging from a CPR steam locomotive to tiny little buttons. "Imagine five years from now when we are dressing the galleries and I will say 'I remember we had a hat pin and it would go great here.' We will be able to back track through the system from the catalogue number to the storage room, to the shelf to the box where that exact pin is located and find it.",Breede explains.The job develop- ment program will also include regular performance checks, debriefing, training sessions at other institutions including the Lambton Heritage Museum where the trainees will attend a sendnaron th care and handlitig.of works of art on paper. The next professional visit will be to the Ford Museum to see large objects in a storage situation. The traitiees have already attended a leahtreo'n rhatcrisils•control and cotriputer Cataloging conducted by Jon ilnn of Champion Road Machinery.' The group C1 us Breede will follow up the lecture 'With a site visit to observe Champion's new warehousing system in operation. The components of the program will de- pend on the progress of the situation as the museum proceeds through the con- struction phases, said Breede, making the program flexible to the needs of this'par- ticular situation. - The Museum Assistance Program grant of $115,750 will -be used to prepare the ar- chitectural drawings of the new museum building. Breede says the selection of the architect will be completed before the end of March. Seven design proposals will be presented to the museum committee which will make recommednations to county council hopefully by March 6. The proposals will be a test of the ar- chitectural firms to see if they are thinking, along the same likes as the museum com- mittee, says Breede. Following the selec- tion of an\architect, the process enters the design stage and public input will be in- vited at this point. ' A community task force consisting of the Huron Historical Society and the Huron County OenealbgicalSociety as well as in- terested community groups and a task force of colleagues including the curators of the Lambton Heritage Museum, the Bruce County museum, the Grey -Owen Sot ,d Museum and the Colliulgwood Mttseutri. °with advise on the dt hdeptuei work in the preparation of the working drawings, says Breede. 40 apartments to be built An invitation by the Muaistry of Housing for binders to construct 40 rental apart- ments for low- and moderate -income families in Goderich will relieve the town's rental situation considerably, Mayor Eileen Palmer told Goderich council at its Feb. 3 meeting. "I guess it shows the squeaky wheel gets the grease," she said. The invitation was made under the $75 million provincial Renterprise program, part of the ministry's Assured Housing for Ontario strategy. It will help in the con- struction of 5000 rental units across On- tario. Fifteen -year interest-free loans will be made to builders, with loan amounts depending on project costs and first - mortgage financing at market interest rates. The Renterprise loans will help bridge the gap between economic and market trends. • Up to 40 per. cent. of the apartments will be allocated to neidy families who will pay rents based -on their ir,icornes rather than on the size of the accommodation. Housing Minister Alvin Curling said Renterprise is an example. of the public and private sectors workig together to stimulate rental construction in areas with low rental vacancy rates and a need' for rent -geared -to -income housing. Builders wishing further information on the Renterprise program in Goderich should contact the Ontario Housing Cor- poration regional office in London at (519) '679-7110. V program may sketch life in Goderich 'i'he town of Goderien may be featured in the CBC television program "Sketches of Our Town." The producer of the show, Conrad Beau- bien recently contacted Goderich's Tourism -Industrial Promoter, Robin Stuart; for information about Goderich, Stuart told council at itsFeb. 3 meeting. "Having viewed some of these pro- grams, -I am pleased with their quality. This wiuld, be a good promotion for Goderich," he said in his report. Each program, includes 24 minutes of footage with emphasis on the historical and cultural aspects of the town. The series is shown on television stations in London, Wingham, Kingston, Hamilton - and Ottawa reaching a potential audience of 500,000 each week. 'Ibis is the most inexpensive publicity the town could get," said • Coin. Dill Clif- ford. "When the manor costs of providing accommodation are offsetted by the free publicity, it's well worthwhile." Snow blitz is this weekend Let the cold winds` blow. Let the snow pile up around the house and' leave the shovelling for another time. The effects of winter may be much in evidence in the Goderich area but a weekend of fun and frolic is just the tonic needed to shake the chill and blues out of winter. The fifth annual Port of Goderich Snow - Blitz Winter Weekend offers a myriad of activities this weekend, and the list of Turn topage 7 INSIDF THE SINAL -STAR ,11111111111111110 Theatre student Twenty one year old Jennifer Gowanlock of Goderich has been accepted in the stage management course after auditioning for a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, one of the oldest most prestigious theatre schools in the world. Accepting was the easy part. Now she has to find $10,000 to pay for her study at the academy. Jennifer's dream of becoming a theatre stage manager is featured on the front page of today's community section. Silver medals The 6DCI senior girls relay team won the silver medal at the All Ontario Indoor Track and Field Games held at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto last week. Ten Goderich athletes qualified to compete at this annual classic. See inside today's sports section, page 8A. Exhibition hockey Goderich hosted two teams from Port Huron, Michigan as the two novice Tier fI teams completed the second leg of their annual exchange with their Michigan counterparts The Goderich teams gave it their best but came up short with two losses and a tie. See the photo spread and game report on page 8A of today's sports section. CNS 'Cryhards vs Minor Hockey Hobo Coaches Sat,, 7:30 p.m.