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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1977-02-09, Page 1NO. 6 VI/inter This winter frequent storms and heavy snowfalls are wreaking havoc with village and township road budgets. Costs of snow removal in the townships have doubled over last years figures and in the villages as well costs have substantially in- creased. Zurich Clerk Betty Oke says the village to date has spent as much as it did all last winter for Townships suffer eather ruins road budgets snow removal. If February is a bad month, the costs will rise considerably and there is still November and December of this year to be included in the final figure. "We're not suffering as much as the people in the townships are," says Mrs. Oke, "but last year we only removed snow in the village once or twice all year. This year equipment has been hired to remove large amounts of snow on several occasions." Mrs. Oke has not received all the bills for this work, so a final cost will be a while in coming. Hensall Reeve Bob Heil echoed Mrs. Oke, feeling that the townships have been hurt much more than the villages. "We only have about five miles of road in town to keep clear, the townships have a lot more than ALMOST TOO MUCH FOR THE BULLDOZER — The hard packed drifted snow was almost too much even for the bulldozers hired by Hay township in an attempt fast week to get the roads open, even if they were only a single lane in width. photo by McKinley Turnout for licences terrible Less than 10 percent of the 2,000 people who usually purchase their car license plates at Zurich have done so. Ron Heimrich, who is in charge of the licensing, says the response so far this year has been "terrible". "Usually I process at least 500 license renewals in January alone, but this year the weather has been so rotten I have only processed about 150 licenses since December," says Mr. Heimrich. The deadline for licenses renewal is February 28 and Mr. Heimrich says at the present time there is no thought of ex- tending the deadline. Mr. Heimrich urges the residents in the area to pick up a card at. the LCBO or in Heimrich's Variety where the licenses are sold and have it filled out ahead of time. Another thing to remember is to bring along a current insurance card and cash or certified cheque. The Ministry of Transportation regulations require cash or certified cheque as payment. Licenses may be renewed any time during regular store hours of Heimrich's Variety and Mr. Heimrich would like to remind those concerned that full year commercial licenses are available as early as February 1 and it would be helpful to get some of them out of the way as soon as possible. If you have filled in the card properly, have the cash ready and have an up-to-date insurance card with you, your license can be renewed in a matter of seconds. There have never been serious line-ups for licenses in Zurich, but we have never had a year quite like this one. Avoid the line ups by coming prepared and coming now. Delay arena decision Plans by the Hensall recreation committee to visit the arena in Dorchester last Saturday were foiled once more by poor weather conditions. The trip has been rescheduled for this Saturday, weather permitting. The committee wishes to visit the Dorchester arena before making any recommendation to council concerning repairing the old arena or building a new one. Other arenas have been visited by the committee. No official report has been received from the engineers hired to estimate the cost of bringing the old arena up to the labor standards set out by the provincial government. Hensall has already spent close to $55,000 on the arena over the past couple of years, but even so the only reason it is being allowed to remain open is because of a regular monitoring system. This has allowed the arena to remain Community Centre report Due to the weather conditions there will be no list of Communi- ty Centre contributions this week. open throughout the winter, but permission for this ends in April. It is not certain that council will wait for a recommendation from the recreation committee before making a decision on the arena's future as April draws closer. A decision must be reached, and council has the final say. that." Mr. Heil said in 1975 the village spent $2,000 on snow removal. In 1976 this figure jumped to $4,500 and this year he expects the figure to be over $5,000. The main task of the village concerning snow removal ac- cording to Clerk Heil is keeping the main streets clear and the snow pushed back at the corners. Some sand and gravel have been used at the more dangerous corners in the village but the high costs of the sand have limited its use. This type of snow removal is subsidized by the provincial government, but if a village wishes to clear its sidewalks, the entire cost must be borne by the village. Hensall is one of the few villages around where the village does clear at least the main sidewalks, but this costs in the neighbourhood of $10 to $12 dollars per hour, an expensive proposition. Also, the village workers are running out of places to put the snow from the sidewalks. In Hay Township, Clerk Wayne Horner says the snow removal costs for the township are going to be "skyhigh". Road superintendent Karl Haberer says the costs of snow removal could go up as high as $30,000. Last year the township spent around $18,000. The main problem seems to be the necessity of hiring bulldozers to clear paths through many of the township roads. The long stormy weather and heavy winds filled many concession roads in to depths of 10 or 12 feet •with heavy snow and the township plows are unable to budge the drifts. Paying bulldozers to clear the roads is expensive, but necessary. However, Clerk Horner hastened to add the outlook is not all bleak. If February is a good month, the cost of the snow removal estimated by Mr. Haberer could drop drastically. It will be hard to tell what kind of costs the township actually faces until they get the bills for the bulldozers and see just what the rest of the winter has in store. Stanley township clerk Mel Graham says they still don't know what the snow removal is going to cost exactly, but he expects it to be around twice as much as last year, Certainly in January twiceas much was spent this year as last year. Wages alone in the last two weeks of December were $4,000, an unheard of sum. Usually the wage cost for an entire winter month for the township is around $3,000 but overtime and weekend hours have driven costs up. It doesn't look too pleasant for the road budgets but the real determining factor in just how bad it is going to be will depend on February, and February is not usually a good month to count on. toms defeat G. ®. first ame i, Mme The Zurich Atoms won the first game in a best two out of three play off with Grand Bend. The victory came last Sunday in a game played at Zurich. In a very closely fought first period Zurich could not quite get it together and they failed to score. Grand Bend on the other hand did get it together as Richard Brown scored assisted by Robbie Mennen. Early in the second period Zurich tied the score on a goal by Dean Armstrong assisted by Cam Steckle. However, the tie lasted for only a minute before Grand Bend's number four Daryn Courtney scored singlehandedly to give Grand Bend the lead once more. Before the second period ended however, Zurich had not only tied the game, but for the first time in the game they took the lead as Dean Armstrong and Rick Kuepfer scored and assisted on each other's goals. An additional assist went to Cam Steckle. Early in the third period Grand Bend scored as Richard Brown tucked one in behind Karmen Bedard in the Zurich net. However, that was to be the last goal of the game to get past Karmen as the Zurich team held the Grand Bend team scoreless while scoring four goals them- selves to win the game 7 to 3. The last four Zurich goals went" to Rick Kuepfer, Jeff Laporte with Dean Armstrong scoring twice to give him a total of five points for the game, followed closely by Rick Kuepfer with three points. The next game will be played in Zurich on Wednesday night at 6 p.m. TIME OUT FOR A FRIENDLY CHAT — These three Zurich area residents took time out from pushing and blowing snow an the north Goshen to have a neighbourly chat, something the stormy weather and blocked roads had prevented for quite some time. photo by McKinley.