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The Citizen, 2012-09-27, Page 21THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2012. PAGE 21. Months after North Huron Council sent a invitation to their counterparts in Morris-Turnberry to join a joint economic development committee consisting of ratepayers and council members, Morris-Turnberry councillors responded. Morris-Turnberry, however, may not be happy with the response to their request to join the committee now. Reeve Neil Vincent stated he was very surprised that, since nothing had come from Morris-Turnberry since the creation of the group earlier this year, they were now interested in joining the group. Vincent said that, if the decision were up to him, the answer would be “no thank you”, to Morris-Turnberry in their request to have someone sit on “our [North Huron’s] economic development committee”. Councillor Archie MacGowan said that when the initial request wasmade of Morris-Turnberry, he had adiscussion with Mayor Paul Gowing. “The mayor was not receptive,” he said. “He believed the only reason North Huron wanted the committee was to tell Morris-Turnberry how to develop. “It’s curious that they didn’t want to be a member and this is coming back to us now,” he said. “Maybe they have had a change of heart, and that is a good thing.” MacGowan said that the change of heart could be indicative of a step towards amalgamation in the northern part of Huron County which could result in problems being solved across many fronts including economic development and fire services. Councillor Bernie Bailey said he didn’t want a decision made right away and that if a change is going to be made to the economic development committee (of which he is a part), the change should becommented on by the committeefirst. “Send it to the committee so that they can comment on it and can decide what they would like to see,” he said. MacGowan said he didn’t understand why the committee needed to be involved since the majority of them sat on council as well and could, if all of them were in agreement, which he believed they were, make a decision that would be representative of what the committee would decide. “I’m not dismissing the committee, but with seven members, three of them being on council, you nearly have a majority now,” he said. Chief Administrative Officer Gary Long stated that he agreed and that the at-large members of the committee had looked on the request favourably. Councillor Brock Vodden felt that, since North Huron had created its own committee instead of a jointone, no one else should be permittedon it. “The North Huron economic development committee deals with information that shouldn’t, or can’t, be shared with Morris-Turnberry at this time,” he said. “We don’t want to be dealing with prospective businesses and have them go elsewhere because of shared information. We could be corrupting our own economic development.” Deputy-Reeve David Riach agreed that the proposal wasn’t feasible, but for different reasons. “It doesn’t matter what we say, we’re going to be shooting ourself in the foot either way,” he said. “The committee has focused on North Huron’s goals, and to water down or diverge from that now wouldn’t be in our best interest. Saying no, however, would hurt the relationship we’re trying to improve with Morris- Turnberry. “In a year, I believe we should approach Morris-Turnberry as awhole and see if there is morewillingness to work together,” he said. “Right now, we need to focus internally and get our current agreements for water and fire settled. The timing just isn’t right.” Councillor Ray Hallahan echoed some of Riach’s sentiment, saying that the timing was a bit off. “We have other issues here, we’re working with a bushel basket of things already,” he said. “We’ve got the fire agreements, the cross border servicing agreement, the timing on this isn’t good since those other issues should be a priority.” Bailey reiterated that he would like to see the proposal sent to the committee first. “Please support the committee and let them have the time to look it over,” he said. Council decided to defer the issue and get comments from the economic development committee before pushing forward. 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