The Citizen, 2012-10-11, Page 1CitizenTh
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$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, October 11, 2012
Volume 28 No. 40
CHURCHES - Pg. 15Local churches changelocations AWARD - Pg. 16 Former North Huron firechief honoured with awardCOUNCIL- Pg. 9Councillor fears county isfalling behindPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Business survey presented at three meetings
Majority votes with
council reduction
Serving it up
Kim Higgins, front, and Karen Cook, were among the many volunteers who made last week’s
annual Belgrave Fowl Supper a success once again. As they have for over 60 years, hundreds
of diners descended onto the Belgrave Community Centre on Oct. 3 to sit down together and
break bread shortly after 7 p.m., all at once. The supper is the community centre’s main
fundraiser of the year. (Vicky Bremner photo)
The Blyth Business Improvement
Area (BIA) presented the Business
Retention and Expansion report
(BR&E) on Blyth three times last
week: once to North Huron Council,
once to BIA members during their
monthly meeting and to the public
during a special BIA meeting on
Oct. 4.
The report, which proved
controversial at the council meeting,
made claims that businesses felt
council members weren’t supporting
local businesses or the Blyth Festival
and that there was too much red tape
involved in opening, retaining or
expanding a business.
“The reaction was less than
favourable,” BIA Chair Rick Elliot
explained during the BIA’s meeting.
Douglas Barill who, along with
consultant Genny Smith, put the
report together, stated that the BR&E
should be treated as a
communication and a community
building tool.
He stated that, whenever there is
financial aid available for projects
from the government, the BR&E
report will be the first document that
is requested.
The report makes reference to the
fact that a part-time employee with
the mandate of being a liaison
between businesses, the BIA and the
municipality would benefit everyone
involved, however, with a limited
budget, there were questions as how
it could work.
Rick Howson asked, during the
public meeting, how such a position
could be funded with what the BIA
has to work with and Barill stated
that it could be accomplished
through fundraising.
He stated that, if the organization
could create fundraising
opportunities they could be eligible
for grants to fund consultants for the
opportunities which in turn could
translate into a part-time position for
a consultant. Furthermore, if those
events raised any money, he said
they could use that to pay the
consultant’s wages.
Howson also said, during the BIA
meeting, that despite council
eventually warming somewhat to the
document, he was still
uncomfortable with it.
“No offense to Douglas, but I
wanted to see the statistics, I wanted
to know where these statements
came from,” he said.
Barill explained that the biggest
feature of the survey was that it was
anonymous and that, by showing
statistics, some of that anonymity
may be sacrificed.
Howson also suggested that, in
future exchanges, the BIA approach
North Huron Council more humbly
in an attempt to garner good will
from the township, however Stephen
Sparling felt that an effort like that
may be wasted.
“We can’t forget the struggles
we’ve had over the past decade,” he
said. “We’ve tried being humble,
we’ve tried every approach and
we’ve had study after study done and
we’re still in the same place.
Monday night [when the report was
presented to council] forced us to a
tipping point.”
He said that the future needed to
look at three steps; establishing
economic facts, setting a baseline of
data to work from and committing to
a strategic plan.
The strategic plan, according to
Deputy-Reeve David Riach, was
underway, but he admitted that the
process has been a “long, slow
tedious” one.
North Huron Community
Development Co-ordinator Connie
Goodall stated that, in the last year,
council had really concentrated on
preparing its strategic plan and that
the final draft should be presented to
council in the near future.
The impending release of the plan
to the public also brought other
Members of Huron East Against
Turbines (HEAT) had some
questions for members of Huron
East Council at their Oct. 2 meeting,
but councillors felt they already had
provided answers to the group’s
questions.
Tom Melady, Rob Tetu and Gerry
Ryan, members of HEAT had four
requests of council, but weren’t able
to get to them all due to the length of
the discussion the issues created.
The first issue raised by the men
was the implementation of a cost
recovery bylaw that would protect
property owners if the value of their
property were to decrease due to
wind turbines, which Mayor Bernie
MacLellan has said may be one of
the few measures council could
legally take on the issue of wind
turbines.
Melady brought forward data from
studies that suggested scenarios
where property values were
decreased due to wind turbines in
Ontario between 20 and 35 per cent
in some cases.
“This is definitive information that
After voting in favour of reducing
the number of Huron County
councillors from 16 down to 15, the
county received the triple majority
of votes it needed for the change to
become official.
Six of the county’s nine
municipalities voted in favour of the
shift and the population of those six
municipalities totalled 36,867, over
10,000 over the 26,001 people
needed to comprise a majority.
Voting for the motion were
Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh,
Central Huron, Goderich, Howick,
Huron East and South Huron.
Bluewater and North Huron voted
against the motion, while no
response was received from Morris-
Turnberry.
According to a report compiled by
Huron County’s Acting Chief
Administrative Officer Heather
Adams, Morris-Turnberry tabled the
resolution until an explanation as to
why the recommendation of
consultant George Cuff, who
recommended a move to nine
councillors, was not considered.
North Huron also felt the county
should be following Cuff’s
recommendation, while Bluewater
simply was not in favour of the
proposed bylaw.
The triple majority needed to pass
the new bylaw on the composition of
Huron County Council has now been
achieved after council voted in
favour of the motion, a majority of
lower-tier municipalities voted in
favour of the motion and the
majority of the county’s ratepayers
were represented by those
municipalities voting in favour of the
motion.
The municipalities voting against
the motion consisted of 12,228
people and Morris-Turnberry’s
2,904 people were not factored into
the vote due to the lack of an official
response from the municipal
council.
The new structure of council
would allow for two representatives
each for Ashfield-Colborne-
Wawanosh, Bluewater, Central
Huron, Goderich, Huron East and
South Huron and one councillor
each for Howick, Morris-Turnberry
and North Huron.
The only change from the current
structure of council is that
Bluewater, which currently has three
representatives, the only
municipality with three
representatives, would be reduced to
two councillors.
After numerous court challenges
and appeals, the composition of
Huron County Council was changed
earlier this year, being reduced from
20 members down to 16. Bill
Siemon (Huron East), David Riach
(North Huron), Brian Barnim
(Central Huron) and David Frayne
(South Huron) were all bounced
from their Huron County Council
positions after the landmark
decision.
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
HEAT discusses new bylaw
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 10
Continued on page 20