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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1983-04-13, Page 1Blyth BranOI Library BOX 2(t2 Blyth a Ont. Mem- 1.f. Jan . 4 MYTH FIRST -PLACE WINNERS at the North Huron regional science fair for elementary school students held in Wingham last week included Paul Bray, Treena Jeffray and Tammy Storm of Turnberry Central and Michael Cameron of the Wingham Public School. Other. -first- place finishers were Donna Johnston of Brussels, Jeff Douglas of Howick and Linda Versteeg of East Wawanosh. Tree programs move ahead Cutting program resumes ut....relp-iantin. to keel;i.:.;p; While the Wingham works department has resumed its program of cutting down aging maple trees in town; at the same time the town council has earmarked, $1,500 this year to held replace them. The grant will allow the Wingham Horticultural Society to plant 50 new trees along town streets this spring, matching the number planted last year. Councillor Bruce Machan, reporting for the works committee during a council meeting last week, said that a recent -meeting with a tree expert from London con- vinced the committee it is right to go ahead with the cutting program. The man thought the works department was doing a fine job of selecting hazardous trees for removal, Mr. Machan reported; and during his visit also spotted some potentially hazardous trees located back from the street line on private property. As a result of that visit,. 28 more trees were designated for removal, about half of which have already been cut. Council approved the resumption of the cutting, which had been temporarily suspended by the works committee last month after some members expressed concern over the number of trees being cut. It also agreed that the Dairy off the hook over metric delay Sun Rise Dairy in Wingham has been granted a special extension of the deadline for changing over to metric packaging, allowing it to use up existing quart containers and avoid prosecution for missing the April 1 deadline. Owner Patricia Bailey said she received a call from Agriculture Minister Dennis Timbrell's office last Thurs- day morning, offering an Morris teenager suffers injuries in tractor mishap A Morris Township teenager, Dianne Campbell, 15 -year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Peter Campbell, RR 4, Wingham, is in Vic- toria Hospital with a crushed pelvis after an unfortunate farm accident which oc- curred on her parents' farm on Thursday afternoon about five o'clock. Dianne's brother, Brian, was operating a tractor and she was attempting to mount the moving vehicle when she slipped and fell under the machine, the front wheel passing over her body. She was rushed to Wingham and District Hospital by am- bulance and later in the week was transferred to the London hospital. 1 extension to April 18. She said the extension gets her "off the hook" and should enable her to use up most of the approximately $3,800 worth of !Imperial measure container she had left. A staunch Liberal, Mrs. Bailey called the decision "really fabulous" and said she has been very impressed, by Mr. Timbrell during his tenure as agriculture minister. "They're really being good 'to the little guy," she declared. "This is what we need in government, more under- standing of people's problems." Sun Rise Dairy, a family- owned enterprise, is the sole remaining processing dairy in Huron County. Charges against lawyer remanded The first of numerous charges against a former Wingham lawyer, Robert Campbell, were put off until April 20 after a first hearing in Provuic►a, kik euLes wu. Y, Goderich, Monday. Over 150 charges of possible misappropriation of funds have been leveled against Mr. Campbell over the past several months. works department should notify property owners about trees on private property which appear hazardous. The department is authorized to remove or trim such trees, with the approval of the property owner and at a charge to be negotiated. Councilor William Crump, who had been one of the strongest objectors to what he said was unnecessary cutting of trees which could be saved, said he is satisfied the town is on the right track now with its tree program. Continued on Page 5 Special caution is urged to prevent rabies outbreak Parents and pet owners in Wingham are being urged to take special precautions following confirmation that a skunk shot in town by police last week was rabid. Police Chief Robert Wittig said parents should caution their children to stay away from any animals acting' strangely, and pet owners should make sure their pets' rabies shots are up-to-date and keep all food or water dishes inside. A pet using a dish which has been visited by a rabid animal runs the risk of contracting the disease, which can be transmitted through the saliva. There are quite a number of skunks living in the town, which is not unusual, but the discovery that rabies is present among them raises new concerns, he said: Many of the animals live under sheds or old buildings, and he asked that anyone knowing of or suspecting a den contact the police or the Ministry of Natural Resources office so the animals can be live - trapped and disposed of. Anyone observing a skunk or other animal acting in an unnatural manner is also asked to contact the police. Local farmers 1 to Why is Dennis Timbrell so eager to pay the property taxes on farm land and buildings? That is a question which a growing number of farmers in Huron County and around Ontario would like the agriculture minister to answer. And their concern runs deep enough that several local farmers are devoting considerable time and effort to an attempt to ki+1 the proposed 100 per cent farm tax rebate. "We cannot understand why the Ontario government is pushing this so hard and brought it on so quickly," explained Jim Armstrong of RR 4, Wingham, one of the leaders of the group. "There's nothing fair Wingham PUC plans to offer dual.heat conversion program Homeowners in the Town calculates that each unit customers. heater was installed. ]residential energy advisory off Wingham are hieing of -installed should use about "If you're going to go into "We're not,quite ready to program) survey of the fered an opport trtitr save 14,000 kilowatt hours an- this thing, we should get one sail into this thing," he house, which includes money on their'"` home nually. At the base here and have it on display," concluded, "but we're checking whether the heating, at the expense of a residential rate of fourcents he commented. close." minimum . i n v est men t , per kilowatt hour, that would "It looks like a good thing homeowners interested through a dual -heat con- raise an additional $560 for for us and the customer," taking part in the version program offered by the PUC and, so long as the Mr. Saxton said. The only conversion program Ontario Hydro and the local use is during off-peak problem could be if an oil contact the PUC public utilities commission. !periods, it would not add to furnace were on its last legs, residents, their The program, which is its costs. but in that case the customer office. The first partially subsidized by Mr. Saxton recommended would be advised before the program is Hydro and the PUC and also the PUC should join the makes use of the federal off- program, arguing that, oil grant, makes it ,possible "Although its going to cost us for a homeowner to install an a few dollars, we should get electric plenum heater on an it back later, but if some - oil -burning furnace for an thing is available our out-of-pocket cost of as little customers have as much as $320. right to it as anyone else in Hydro calculatesthat most Ontario." homeowners should be able If necessary, he said, the to recover the cost in a commission could borrow couple of years; by making the money to pay for its use of more efficient elec- share of the program. trical heating during He noted that the reason relatively mild spring and the installation cost can be fall periods. The oil furnace kept so low is that the new would continue to heat the heaters, which came on the home during colder weather. market only at the beginning The nine -kilowatt plenum of April, can be connected to heaters, although too small even a 60 -ampere household to heat a home in the coldest service rather than the 200 - weather, are adequate to ampere service required by keep a home -warm during an electric furnace. A load the milder periods, when oil limiter in the heater will stop furnaces are at their least it from coming on if it would efficient. overload the circuit. According to Hydro promotional literature, the heaters, which do not re hire a beefed -fit;; electrical ser- vice 141to the ► se; can cut 00+miprk r w ;: 9o. per cent, Y P .dkiing-me: the climate. ►° • Under.' a new program which (has just been in- troduced, Hydro in con- junction. with utilities commissions offers the heaters as an add-on to most oil furnaces for a set fee of $1,040, which includes the heater, installation and inspection. The installation is subcontracted to local heating contractors, with Hydro carrying out the final inspection. Un er the off -oil program, the IYE eowner can apply for a federal grant amounting to 50 per cent of the total, $520, provided he cuts his oil consumption at least in half. An additional $200 is con- tributed by Hydro ($67) and the local utilities com- mission ($133), making the net cost to the homeowner just $320. At a meeting of the Wingham PUC last week, Manager Ken Saxton reported he and Bernie Haines, an employee, had attended a meeting at Barrie to learn more about the dual - heating program. Although there is some initial cost to the utility, over the long run the.: program should be beneficial by in- creasing revenue from the s. o lectricity during off- ak periods, he said. hydro in dual -heat should • Commission members endorsed the program and authorized the manager to sign an agreement with !Hydro to offer it in WinghaM. They also decided" that installations would be divided between the two electrical contractors in • Wingham, if they are in- terested. PUC . Chairman Roy Bennett also suggested ordering a sample model of a heater for display in the PUC office to prospective or, for rural local Hydro step in the a REAP plenum on the existing furnace will accommodate a heater. After that the customer sn agreement with the PUignsC a(or Hydro), which arranges for installation and inspection. A DOUBLE BIRTHDAY PARTY was held in the Whitechurch Community Hall Sunday for Victor and Valetta Emerson, both of the village. The Emersi ns both celebrate bir- thdays this month: she will be 85 years old and he will be 90. Friends and family honored them at the party and they received many good wishes from people all over the area. Negotiations underway to save furniture factory Negotiations are un- derway in an attempt to save the Conestoga Chair Co. Ltd., a Wingham furniture factory which went into receivership at the end of March. If successful, the plant, which has been part of Wingham for almost 100 years under a variety of owners, would resume production here. . Robert Harlang, vice president of Richter and Partners, Toronto, acting as agent on behalf of the secured cred'tors,said 'talks have been going on for a couple of weeks with a potential purchaser. ibon land tax changes about what they brought in, absolutely nothing fair about it!" he declared. "They're asking business and in- dividuals to pay farm taxes." "We suspect their motives," he added, "but we can't say what they are because we don't know." However while he doesn't know for sure, Mr. Arm- strong said he suspects the proposal is a "handle" Lor the government to get con- trol of and regulate the agri- cultural industry, whether today or at some future date. "We're the only free en- terprisers left." As for the minister's assurances that the tax rebate will not jeopardize farmers' ownership of their land, "There's no guarantee that will guarantee a guarantee," Mr. Armstrong responds. In other words, even if Mr. Timbrell does not use the "handle", what's to say one of his successors won't? Mr. Armstrong and the other members of histroup, which includes George Underwood, Tom . Ja' kson and Bill Sheard, condo?ted a poll of other Ontario fa firers through a number of farm publications, to see if they had similar concerns. The result, he said, has been an overwhelming show of farm opposition to the proposed tax changes. "in all the letters and phone calf's, we had one person cross out 'against' and put 'for'," he reported. "One person rt of hun- dreds." Nor has the opposition been confined to a "pocket" in Huron County; rather, they have found that farmers from Northern Ontario to Lake Erie and from Lake Iluron to the Quebec border share their unease about the tax rebate. ship orders which were Given the strong show of under production. grass-roots opposition, Mr. The factory had previously Armstrong said he is per operated for two years as plexed by the Ontario Kilgour Furniture Ltd., Federation of Agriculture's which bought the plant and support for the minister's equipment from Electro - proposal. A . number of home Ltd. when the Kit - county federations have chener-based manufacturer voted to oppose it and others moved its Deilcraft furniture will be voting soon (a vote by production to a new plant in the Huron County federation Kitchener at the end of 1977. Continued on Page 5 Electrohome purchased "We're in the midst of negotiations with a party with a view of having that party purchase the assets to keep the operation at its present location." He said he hopes that, if the negotiations end up favorably, the sale could be wrapped up within two to three weeks. "Things seem to be proceeding," he said, though he added that he preferred not to appear too optimistic prematurely. He said the prospective buyers think that, "with certain adjustments and some improvement in productive facilities," the factory could once again be made a viable concern. Conestoga Chair, which produced a line of carved dining room chairs and rockers, was just entering its fourth year of operations at the Victoria Street plant. At the end of last year the company employed ap- proximately 40 hourly and salaried workers, but 22 were laid off during the first week of January. All the remaining em- ployees were laid off when the company went into receivership, but a half- dozen hourly and three salaried workers have been called back to complete and the plant in 1969 from Fry and Blackhall Ltd., the name under which it had operated for many years and which had gained a wide reputation for fine furniture, and as recently as 1976 the plant employed up to 100 workers. The company was formed by Norman Fry and Charles Blackhall, foremen, and Walter Van Wyck, expert upholsterer for Walker and Clegg, and Samuel Bennett, who had operated a planing mill, after the Walker and Clegg furniture factory closed in 1918. At first its operations were located in part of the old Brown's factory on Alfred. Street; in 1927 the firm was forced to move and pur- chased the Union Factory building on the corner of `Victoria Street and Diagonal Road, which it later enlarged. . In 1965, Fry and Blackhall was purchased by the Toronto-based firm of Dho, Kirkham and Co. Ltd., but the name was retained. Even prior to that, there was a furniture factory at that location. Oliver Gilchrist and Walter Green were active partners in the firm of Gilchrist, Green and Co., formed in 1886, which that year erected a two- storey frame building on the site. There were seven em- ployees when the firm began operations, and by 1889 this had increased to 70, with the men working overtime and another storey added to the factory. Sturdy but low- priced bedroom suites, side- boards and tables were designed and manufactured for the settlers of western Canada. By 1891 there were 150 employees when, in that year, a fire wiped out the factory. A joint stock company was formed and a new and larger brick building was put up, known as the Union Factory. It and several other fur- niture manufacturers were bought by Canada Furniture Manufacturers in 1901, but within a few years business dwindled and the staff greatly decreased. For a few years the factory closed during the summer months, and eventually ceased operations in 1917. Police warn youngsters about flasher Police have been warning schoolchildren in the area to keep away from strangers following an incident at Belgrave last week in which a man exposed himself to a group of youngsters. Sgt. Roy Anderson of the OPP, Wingham, said that to date that is the only com- plaint police have received about such an incident. Following the report they visited local schools and circulated a warning about the man, together with a physical description. The man is said to be about 20 years old, 5' 7" tall, and slender, driving a small blue car with a white stripe. At Betgrave he reportedly left his car, clad only in underwear, which he dropped while trying to engage the children in conversation.