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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1985-12-11, Page 1Bi y'a rl , •'4 X11/ • NON• 1II 7 bain frnr FIRST SECTION Wingham, Ontario, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 1985 Single Copy 50c Offer of advice brings eviction threat at council The chairman of one off the mayor declaredwith town's advisory committe was threatened with evicti from the council chamb Monday night for trying offer advice to council on matter it was considerin The incident came nea the end of'the lengthy b otherwise uneventfu inaugural meeting of th Wingham Town Counc when Ernest Eaton, chair man of Heritage Wingha (the local architectural con servation advisory commit tee) attempted to speak t council on the subject of tw bylaws being proposed t clear up the incorrec designation of a heritag property., Newly -elected Mayor Jack Kopas told council the bylaws were required for "more appropriate identifi- cation" of a property and had been prepared by the town solicitor. At this point Mr. Eaton, who frequently attends meetings of council and had been an observer throughout the meeting, raised his hand for permission to address council. However Mr. Kopas refused to hear . from him. "This meeting is not open o the public ... The chair oes not recognize the ember of the gallery," the , out es looking at the man who had on also been his closest rival in er the mayoralty election, to losing by seven votes. a He said the public may g. only address council as a ✓ delegation. ut "Does the chair not 1 recognize its own committee e to give advice?" Mr. Eaton it inquired, then asking whether the council might m consider "a momentary recess to the benefit of - council" in order to receive o his information, which he o said was intended to prevent o later embarrassment on the t part of council. e "I hope the chair will not have to request the member r of the public to vacate the n chamber," Mr. Kopas responded. "This is very r embarrassing for us." c Following this exchange c council resumed discussion d of the bylaws, which dealt 0 with the heritage designation of a cast iron fence located on a residential property on p Victoria Stre. t. The fence t had received heritage h PATRICIA DAER was presented with a framed letter of commendation by Ian Moreland, chairman of the Wingham Board of Police Commissioners, .. during last week's board meeting. Miss Daer, 13, the daughter of Wingham Const. Ed Daer, is credited with helping the po/ice to apprehend thieves who stole a number of wallets from dressing rooms at the Wingham arena earlier this fall. " Girl's quick thinking helps foil wallet thieves Quick thinking by a Wingham-area teenager helped to foil the plans of thieves who made off with a number of wallets from a dressing room of the Wingham arena this fall. her part in solving the crime. Chairman' Ian Moreland presented her with a framed letter of commendation and congratulated her for her presence of mind. The fact that she noticed Patricia Daer, who was at the suspect vehicle and the arena at the time, thought of writing down the happened to notice a licence number made the suspicious looking vehicle quick'arrest and recovery of which kept circling the area. the wallets possible, Mr. She noted the licence Moreland noted. ;The number and, when the theft suspects were arrested was discovered, passed the "before they ever got home information along to- her to divvy up the loot:" father, Const. Ed Daer of the •He said Miss Daer's ac- 'Wingham police force. tions were a tribute to .her Her action enabled the upbringing. Wingham police, in coopera— tion with • the Goderich pol- ' ice, to apprehend the ve that Const. •Daer also has hicle, with the wallets still received a special com -inside, at Goderich. Arrests mandation in his personal' were made and tivo suspects file as a resultof his handling are currently awaiting a of three occurrences during court appearance. the past year. .On March 29 the officer reported to the commission The missing wallets, checked a vehicle on containing valuable personal Josephine Street and papers and approximately discovered two men with a $150 in cash, were returned 'quantity of hardware ar- • to their grateful owners. titles. Upon questioning Last week, at a meeting of them it was found they had • the Wingham Board of just completed a break, Police Commissioners, Miss enter and theft at a nearby s Daer, 13, was honored for village and were en route New councilpasses police benefit bylaw • from the crime. The accused t were sentenced to jail terms d in September and . the m property was returned to.its owner. On May 31 Const. Daer was dispatched to a par vehicle left overnight o commercial lot.. Altho the vehicle itself revea nothing unusual, ser number checks on artic found in the truck show them to have been sto recently from the Goder area. Two persons we arrested for possession ked n a ugh • . led The Wingham.Public ial Utilities Commision has les granted its employees an' ed across-the-board len. PaY in len crich ease of five per cent for, 1986. re The increases, approved at of a meeting held last Thursday re evening, will bring PUC al. employees here up to par dse at other PUCs in the district, according to Chairman Roy Bennett. n- Manager Ken Saxton's he annual salary goes to $44,289, he while PUC Superintendent nd Ken Simmons will earn ar $34,450 in 1986. at The salary of PUC office manager and commission n secretary -treasurer Brenda pass both bylaws, the first revoking the bylaw passed in 1983 and the second re - designating the property with the correct description. Councillor Bill McGrath asked for assurance that all was being done correctly this time, and Mr. Kopas assured him that it was. However after the meeting Mr. Eaton said council had erred once again, this time in failing to follow the procedure set down by the Ontario Heritage Act for dealing with such bylaws. The Act requires con- sultation with LACAC and public notification before a bylaw is either passed or epealed, he "explained, and either was done in this case. He also pointed out that the evoking bylaw passed by ouncil is incorrect in that it ontains the new . land escription rather than the Id one. Had it been routed through LACAC, as required by the Act, or had council ermitted him to speak at he meeting this could all ave been cleared up, he designation in 1983, however council was told the property description in the original bylaw was found to be in - correct, creating problems for an adjoining landowner. Council eventually voted to PUC employees are awarded five per cent stolen property and a currently awaiting tri Articles valued at appro mately $2,000 were return to the owner. The third incident co cerns the • recovery \of t wallets stolen from t Wingham arena Oct. 28 a subsequently found in a c in Goderich. Most of the discussion the meeting dealt with e forcement of the new tw hour parking bylaw along the main street of Wingham. Chief Wittig. reported that Pat Angus, the department ecretary and an auxiliary police officer, has been atrolling the street' and balking tires, adding he had eceived. a .number of ositive comments about her being on the street. Mr. Moreland noted that he police commission had of received any direction rom town council on how it ants the bylaw enforced. This is just a trial run." Jack Kopas, mayor -elect, uggested ,the commission hould ask council to put in riting its expectations for rking enforcement, ad ng this would be ,an ex !lent topic to add' to the enda of the joint meeting e commission hopes to hold ith council next month. it takes considerably more me to enforce parking thout the meters, Chief ittig reported, saying the lice will "do as much as can to the best of our ility." However he noted at on the list of priorities volving police work, rking is probably near the ttom. If council is not isfied with the results, it n appoint someone else to the job or else chanSe the. vsiem, he suggested. Vl�illiam Harris, the retir- mayor, repeated his diction that the removal the meters will prove a ure. ''i hope they hung o them, because I bet in years they i the meters) he hack in." he declared. e said he hopes the• nge has been for the good he town, "but I've had a of a time finding a king space around here nt ly CHAIN OF OFFICE—Outgoing Mayor William Harris presented the mayor's chain of office to his successor, Jack Kopas, during the swearing-in ceremony preceding h in ing t e start of the augural meeting of the said. Wingham Town Council on Monday night. McGrath wins council seat Adams will go to $21,793 in • 1986 and office employee Don McKay will make $16,482 next year. The hourly rate fora PUC lineman will to go $13.70 from $13.04. Mr. Bennett said the commission members also will be requesting a five per cent increase in their own honoraria. The chairman currently is paid just over $1,000 per year for his work on the com- mission, while the other two members received ap- proximately•$200 less. The increase in the commission honoraria must B d he approved by town council. o - In a unanimous vot coming at the end of it inaugural meeting Monda night, the newly-installe Wingham council passed th controversial bylaw provid ing for the early-retiremen benefit to be awarded t members of the town polic department, All discussion of the bylaw was. held in -camera, afte council had moved behind closed doors to read a letter from its solicitor regarding this matter. Neither Mayor Jack Kopas nor Reeve Bruce Machan could be reached for com- ment Tuesday morning, however Deputy Reeve (and former mayor) William Harris said the solicitor's let ter had advised council to pass the bylaw. The letter outlined pro- cedures and what council can and cannot do, he said, — ad_ding lt- had---be-±'ex=. plained very thoroughly". He also said the majority of police forces now have the early-retirement benefit and "it was going to come sooner or later," The new councillors had some questions about the matter, Mr. Harris said, but "when everything was ex- plained to them, everyone seemed fairly happy." He added that council still plans to hold a joint meeting e with the police commission t s sometime next month to f y clarify their respective w d areas of responsibility. , e The new council's action - represents an about-face s t from the stand taken by the s o previous council at its final w e regular meeting in Novem- p bei -At that time a number of di councillors questioned the ce r new benefit, which was ag awarded by the Wingham th Board of Police Commis- w sioners in a three-year con= tract signed earlier this ti year, and council declrped to wi pass the bylaw. w Former councillor James po A. Currie objected that we council had been given no ab information about the early- th retirement award, describ- in ing it as a luxury the town pa cannot afford. ho At a subsequent meeting of sat the police commission, Mr. ca Kopas had proposed a joint do —meeting -off -the---commts'siti -- s and the new council, and as recently as last week he had ing said such a meeting "should pre precede further considera- of tiorof the (early -retire- fail menet bytaw. Haweve'r tfie iinf bylaw was on the agenda for five Monday night's inaugural will meeting of council. lI The police benefit repro- cha sents an additional cost to of t. the town of $41,519 in a lump hell sum or $72,750 spread over 15 par years. rec•e ecount confirms Kopas Although his margin of victory shrank to just seven votes, a judicial recount last week confirmed the election of Jack Kopas as the new mayor of Wingham. The final tally was 417 votes, representing. 36.6 per cent of the total votes cast, for Mr. Kopas, 410 votes (36 per cent) for Ernest Eaton and 312 votes ( 27.4. per cent) for Tom Burrell, the third candidate. In a separate recount concerning the election for council seats, Bill McGrath managed to overcome an apparent two -vote victory by Dianne Grummettto claim the sixth and .final council seat. The initial count had Ms. Grummett winning by a margin of 541 votes to 539. However the recount last Wednesday fo.uncl an ad- ditional two votes for Mr. McGrath while Ms. Grum- mett lost four, giving him a 541 -to -537 victory. Candidates had until! Monday to challenge the recount, but Clerk -Treasurer Byron Adams, who also was chief returning officer for the election, said Monday afternoon he had not been notified of any. intention to• mount a challenge. There also is a provision in the Elections Act allowing 90 days to challenge the validity of an election. If successful, such,a challenge would require a complete re vote. • The recount, which was requested by the Wingham Town Council as being in the, public interest, was made necessary when Mr. Eaton discovered a discrepancy in the vote count for mayor at Poll 5, where the number of votes counted for the three mayoralty. candidates ex- ceeded the number of ballots . reported as cast. Mr. McGrath filed a separate request for a recount in the council election. Mr. Eaton said following the recount he was satisfied the discrepancies had been .cleared up.• Although the recount did not change the results of the • mayoralty election, it did produce a number of changes in the vote counts. While' the official results . initially showed Mr. Kopas with 428 votes, Mr. Eaton, with 415 and Mr; Burrell.with 318, the recount changed the numbers to 417, 410 and 312 respectively, A total of '41 ballots were unmarked:and l5 were rejected as spoiled. Ad deadline is advanced As our issue during the week of Dec. 23 will be coming out on Monday, Dec. 23, please call us by next Thursday, Dec. 19, with any classifieds you wish to have published , in the Dec. 23 - issue. This Monday will of course be the regular deadline for the Dec. 18 issue. _ Art _.Clark is chairman of board of ed. Art Clark of Wingham was acclaimed chairman of the Huron County Board of Education at the board's inaugural meeting last Thursday in Clinton. Mr. Clark represents the Town of Wingham, as well as the Townships of Turnberry and Howick on the board. Mr. Clark, vice chairman of the board for the past two years, was unchallenged in his bid for the chairman's ----posit-ion-and all—positions or the board were filled by acclamation, he said. John Jewitt of Londesboro was acclaimed vice chair- man and Eugene Frayne of Goderich is past chairman. Joan Van Den Broek of Saltford was acclaimed chairman of the education committee, Tony McQuail of West Wawanosh Township will head the management committee and Graeme Craig of Walton was ac- claimed chairman of the personnel committee. THE GRADE 6 PUPILS from Mr. Whiteley's class at the. Everybodythey t for y� Ever bod said had fun dressing different one Wingham Public School held a "Sex -Change Day" last day, but were glad to revert back to their old roles when Friday with the boys dressing up as girls and vice versa. Friday was over.