The Citizen, 2012-02-02, Page 1CitizenTh
e
$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, February 2, 2012
Volume 28 No. 5
SPORTS - Pg. 8Bantam Reps winInternational Silver Stick VANDALISM - Pg. 20 Vandals run wild inBrusselsWASTE- Pg. 6Councillor clarifies CentralHuron waste programPublications Mail Agreement No. 4005014 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
With the school not even built yet,
the new Maitland River Elementary
School (MRES) will have two
familiar campuses this September.
Avon Maitland District School
Board (AMDSB) staff has gone to
its “Plan B” for the new Grade K to
6 school, and will place some
students at Wingham Public School
and others at Turnberry Central
Public School this September.
AMDSB superintendent of
operations Mike Ash told trustees
that board staff developed their
alternate plan in the 2010 – 2011
school year as Ontario Municipal
Board (OMB) appeals began to
delay the building process.
The final site plan approval
arrived in September 2011, more
than two years after the board
decided to build the new school.
Full Day Kindergarten, slated to
begin at MRES this September, was
the biggest reason staff decided to
move to “Plan B”, Ash told trustees
at the Jan. 24 board meeting. “The
only way we can implement that is
to consolidate the school,” he said.
The board also wants to move
forward with the communities
affected and begin to build the new
school culture of MRES, Ash said.
Merging the schools into two sites
will also pool resources and reduce
split grades, the report
accompanying the presentation
stated.
Staff are optimistic that the new
building might be ready in the 2012-
2013 year, and want to have classes
and school staff organized
beforehand so that a move can take
place at any time with little
disruption.
“We have to organize our classes
as if we were in the new building,”
Ash said. But which classes will be
located at the Wingham campus and
which will attend the Turnberry
Central campus won’t be known
until late spring, when staffing is
completed. The staffing process for
the two campuses will take place in
February, March and April,
according to the report.
At least one portable will also be
needed, but the final number of
portables and which campus will
have them won’t be known until the
final grade configuration has been
decided upon.
Grade 7 and 8 students from the
schools affected will go to F.E.
Madill Secondary School as
originally planned.
AMDSB staff presented a
tentative timeline for building
completion to trustees; if all further
approvals go as planned, work can
begin on MRES on April 2, 2012.
The original 2009 AMDSB decision
was to close Blyth Public School,
Wingham Public School, Turnberry
“I’m in complete shock.”
Those words, said to The Citizen
by North Huron Reeve Neil Vincent,
summed up how Vincent felt when
Morris-Turnberry Council
announced they planned on forming
its own fire department.
“I don’t think they looked at our
budget for the Fire Department of
North Huron (FDNH),” Vincent
said. “When we set it up we made
the FDNH legally compliant and
that costs money.”
Vincent said that he was
“speechless” and couldn’t believe
that Morris-Turnberry thinks this is
the best plan of action.
“In the discussions we had with
Central Huron over cost, the
impartial mediator said that less than
one per cent of the budget was
discretionary spending,” he said.
“We needed everything in the budget
to make the FDNH legally
compliant.”
Vincent was puzzled as, when the
local area fire boards dispersed,
North Huron had to step up and
provide coverage because other
municipalities were concerned with
Belgrave will get one of two fire
stations in a new plan for a Morris-
Turnberry fire service announced
following an in-camera meeting
after the Jan. 24 meeting of council.
In a press release, council said it
had purchased two parcels of land in
December of 2011 and planned to
build two fire stations in order to
provide a fire service beginning Jan.
1, 2014.
Council last summer had called
for proposals for a five-year
agreement to provide fire services
by North Huron, Huron East and
Howick fire departments but had
been displeased with the proposed
rise in costs and in November
agreed to renew its fire agreements
with the various departments only
for 2012 and 2013.
The land purchased in Belgrave is
located at the corner of Parker Drive
and London Road at the south side
of the village. The second parcel is
at the north side of Wingham on
North Street West, Lower Town
Wingham, at the corner of Arthur
Street and North Street West.
Speaking in an interview
following the announcement, Mayor
Paul Gowing said it might not mean
the end of the provision of fire
service by neighbouring
municipalities because it still made
sense for the closest fire department
to provide service so areas near
Blyth might still be covered by the
Blyth station of the North Huron
department, areas close to Brussels
by the Brussels station of the Huron
East department and areas of
Turnberry, by the Howick
department.
Likewise the new Belgrave
station would be closer to some
areas in East Wawanosh than either
Blyth and Wingham so perhaps
Morris-Turnberry could trade off
coverage of that area in return for
North Huron covering Morris Ward
near Blyth.
Gowing said the municipality has
$400,000 in a reserve fund from its
share of the dissolution of the old
Wingham and Blyth fire area boards.
This will help finance the start-up of
the new department.
The announced plan calls for 32
local volunteers to be selected and
trained to staff the two stations.
Mayor Gowing said the people of
the municipality have a proud record
of volunteerism and he feels there
will be people who want to fill the
positions. A public meeting will be
held to give residents more
information and to invite volunteers
to join the new service.
Gowing said that council had
spent many hours discussing the
possibility of starting a department
(there have been special meetings as
well as several closed sessions
following regular meetings) and in
the end, it was a unanimous decision
to proceed. He said staff had put in a
lot of work to provide the necessary
information on the costs of setting
up the fire service.
One of the points stressed in the
press release was that “Morris-
Turnberry will once again have
equity and ownership in the fire
department”.
In the interview, Mayor Gowing
elaborated, saying that under a fee
for service, the municipality had
nothing to show for the money it
was putting in to other fire services
even though the fees help cover
capital improvements. If it’s paying
the bill for its own department at
least it will be accumulating capital Local students to be split up
Morris-Turnberry
sets up fire service
Vincent ‘shocked’
by fire decision
Take a hike
Snowfest 2012, which was held on Sunday at the Wawanosh Nature Centre, is an annual ode
to snowshoeing and Rachael and Colby Thomson were out taking full advantage of the
Maitland Valley Conservation Authority’s annual event. The pair were among dozens of people
out to enjoy the snow and the crisp weather before temperatures took a turn for the warm at
the start of the week. (Vicky Bremner photo)
By Keith Roulston
The Citizen
Continued on page 7
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 7
By Rita Marshall
Special to The Citizen
Continued on page 19