The Citizen, 2012-07-12, Page 1CitizenTh
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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, July 12, 2012
Volume 28 No. 28
AGRICULTURE - Pg. 15Provincial critic meetswith Federation ART - Pg. 23Painted Black Studioopens in BlythDOGSHOW- Pg. 13Local girl (and her dog) bringhome ribbons from showPublications Mail Agreement No. 4005014 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Huron County Council officially
voted to change its composition after
the 2014 election, but the decision
on who the lower tiers will send to
represent them in Goderich has
already been made for them.
Last month councillors decided to
reduce the number of Huron County
councillors from 16 down to 15. The
only difference from the current
composition would be that the
Municipality of Bluewater would
lose one of its three representatives.
After the changes and subsequent
appeals late last year and into 2012,
Huron East, Central Huron and
South Huron, who all had three
representatives at the Huron County
level, had their representation
reduced to two councillors each,
leaving Bluewater as the only
municipality with more than two
representatives.
In Committee of the Whole
discussions in June, however,
changes were made to the suggested
motion that would give lower tier
municipalities the power to decide
who they would send as a
representative. In previous bylaws, it
had been clearly dictated that
representation had to consist of the
municipality’s mayor (or reeve), and
if the municipality was awarded a
second representative, the deputy-
mayor (or deputy-reeve).
A change was suggested, and
passed, that representation be left up
to the lower tier councils
themselves, to allow other
councillors to represent the
municipalities at the Huron County
level.
However, when the vote came up
for confirmation on July 4, several
councillors wanted the motion
changed back to its original,
presented form.
It was North Huron’s Neil Vincent
who first suggested that the
composition motion be extracted
from the rest of the Committee of the
Whole report and be dealt with on its
own. He said that minds had
possibly been changed and it needed
to be voted on independently, as it
needed to be discussed further.
“Some people have been thinking
about it. Votes may have changed,”
Vincent said. “I’ll let it go at that.”
Bluewater’s Paul Klopp said he
had misunderstood the “alternate”
that council had been discussing at
June’s Committee of the Whole
meeting. He said that while he
initially thought the idea was a good
one, upon further reflection he
thought it was “cumbersome” and
that he would be changing his vote
to no.
Central Huron’s Jim Ginn
addressed the issue of when the
policy would be made at the lower
tier. If a vote was taken and a policy
was put in place, he said, and then
someone didn’t get voted in, it
became even more confusing, so he
felt the policy should stay the way it
is.
Goderich’s John Grace said the
debate at the lower tiers could get
“messy” before it was all over and
said if there was some sort of
“mutiny” at a lower tier council, the
vote could result in two first-time
councillors being sent to represent a
municipality at the Huron County
level.
Grace’s fellow Goderich
representative Deb Shewfelt,
however, said that might be exactly
what council needs to rejuvenate it.
“It might be a breath of fresh air,”
Shewfelt said.
Grace said mayors and deputy-
mayors should be able to take the
position on Huron County Council if
they want it, and if they choose to
decline, then an alternate can be sent
by the lower tier.
“If they want to be there, they
should have first dibs,” Grace said.
Bluewater’s Tyler Hessel said he
was fed up with the debate and he
felt that council should either vote
for the motion, or against it and they
could move on to other issues.
“We’re all talking about it,” Hessel
said. “Let’s make a decision. It’s the
right thing to do, it’s the responsible
thing to do, so let’s just up or down
it.”
The motion would have to be
officially put in place by the end of
2013 to be in effect for the 2014
municipal election.
Huron East’s Joe Steffler said if
you run for a position like mayor or
deputy-mayor, it has always just
been accepted that representation at
the Huron County level comes as
part of the job.
“It’s like school,” Steffler said. “If
you run for a higher position, you
move up to high school. If you don’t
want to represent your municipality
at the county level, then run for
Lexi Aitken competed in the under
15 age group of the Legion’s
provincial track and field
championships and came away with
three gold medals and a new
provincial record.
Aitken set a new record in the 200-
metre hurdles and she also placed
first in the high jump and 80-metre
hurdles events.
Her three gold medals qualify her
for the Legion National Youth
Championships in Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island in August.
Aitken will head to P.E.I. on
August 14 alongside Crystal Taylor,
second vice-president at the Blyth
Legion for the competition.
Taylor has been selected as a
chaperone for Team Ontario to assist
head chaperone Carol Phillips of
Wingham at the event.
Huron East Council decided to
pay the lion’s share of insurance for
this month’s Brussels Homecoming,
a cost incurred due to new
regulations concerning municipally-
significant events.
Because the Homecoming
Committee is not a committee of
council and the event is not being
run by municipal staff members, it is
not technically a municipal event,
which means it does not fall under
the umbrella of the Huron East
insurance policy.
Clerk-Administrator Brad Knight
used the new Brussels farmers’
market as an example, saying that
because the farmers’ market is not a
committee of council, they couldn’t
tap into the municipal insurance
policy either.
Knight said a policy would cost
$1,600 for the event, which would
cover all of the event’s volunteers
over the course of the weekend.
He told councillors that the
decision they had to make was
whether or not to subsidize the
insurance policy for the event.
Because of the thousands of
people that are expected to return to
Brussels later this month for
Homecoming, Knight made the case
that council may want to consider
paying $1,000 of the $1,600
insurance policy because of the
benefit to the municipality the event
will have economically.
Knight said it would be a gesture
in good faith to the Homecoming
Committee when they weren’t
expecting to pay anything at all for
insurance. The remaining $600 of
the policy, he said, could still come
as a shock to members.
Before a decision was made,
Mayor Bernie MacLellan said
council might want to consider
developing a policy for events such
as Homecoming, so they can be
uniform going forward and event
organizers will know what to expect.
“We should develop a policy, set
up the guidelines and follow the
policy once it’s in place,” MacLellan
said. “We don’t want it so anybody
can have anything and the
municipality would pick up the bill.”
Councillors asked what was done
in the case of the Brussels farmers’
market, and the market paid for its
own insurance, so there was no
Representation passed for Huron County Council
Londesborough girl
wins three golds
Starting early
The younger generation of dog handlers also had their day over the weekend as the Bluewater
Kennel Club held its annual show and competition in Blyth last week. Here the Junior Novice
Division of the Junior class had its time in the ring as Medley Small judged. Hundreds of
people flocked to Blyth over the weekend for the show and those visitors have now been
replaced by Campvention visitors, which began this week. (Jim Brown photo)
Council subsidizes
event insurance
for Homecoming
Continued on page 20
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 20