The Citizen, 2012-12-06, Page 30PAGE 30. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2012.North Huron votes downBailey’s fire proposal
Strategic plan incites discussion
Parade with a smile
It wouldn’t be a parade in Brussels without the Brussels Fall
Fair Ambassador. Meagan Dolmage was one of the many
smiling participants at Saturday’s annual Santa Claus
Parade in Brussels. (Denny Scott photo)
North Huron Township Councillor
Bernie Bailey sought to make some
headway in fire suppression
negotiations with neighbouring
municipality Morris-Turnberry by
creating a committee to deal with
negotiations but couldn’t find the
support he needed to make the
committee a reality.
At North Huron Township’s
Monday night meeting, Bailey
proposed a motion that would limit
the interactions of council and staff
to two elected individuals from each
government in hopes of avoiding
confrontations that have plagued
previous meetings regarding the
subject.
“I make a motion that North
Huron establish a committee of two;
Ray Hallahan and myself Bernie
Bailey to meet with an equal
representation formed from Morris-
Turnberry to discuss and bring a
resolution to the issue of fire
suppression between Morris-
Turnberry and North Huron,” he
said during the meeting. “The terms
will be as follows: There will be a
staff individual from both sides to
take direction but not participate in
negotiations, neither North Huron or
Morris-Turnberry will request or
receive information from each
other’s township staff unless through
and directed at the committee
meetings. Neither parties will have
final decision powers but report
back to their perspective councils
on progress and for a final
decision.”
While both Bailey and Hallahan
voted to pass the motion in a
recorded vote, the support ended
there.
Councillor Archie MacGowan
accused Bailey of “grandstanding”
and said he was under the
impression that North Huron was
going to finalize their agreements
with Central Huron and Ashfield-
Colborne-Wawanosh (ACW)
Township councils before entering
negotiations with Morris-Turnberry.
Councillor Brock Vodden
questioned Bailey’s motivation and
stated he believed that any resolution
that would be reached between
Morris-Turnberry and North Huron
would need to be done as a result of
the full councils’ meeting.
“It’s a difficult and complicated
issue and we need to address it
together,” he said.
Bailey said that no motion was
made to wait for North Huron’s
dealings with ACW and Central
Huron to be completed. He said that
council may have agreed but they
never voted on the issue. He
continued to say that he still felt this
was the right thing to do.
“I didn’t set a timeline, we could
wait, but as it is the meetings [with
Morris-Turnberry] haven’t been
contained,” Bailey said. “I’m hoping
that, with fewer people, calmer
heads will prevail.”
Reeve Neil Vincent then called for
the recorded vote, but the motion
was defeated.
Continued from page 1
communicate the priorities that the
municipality will focus on and it
will give consistent direction when
guiding decision-making,” he said.
Long explained that council and
staff had met regularly over a year
and half to discuss the assets and
challenges the township has and
that, through community
consultation like round table
meetings and surveys, as well as a
confidential staff survey completed
by the University of Guelph, they
had created their draft strategic plan.
The key themes of the document
are economic development,
community and citizen engagement,
the development of a healthy and
safe community, fiscal
substantiability and valuing and
protecting national environment.
Through nearly 100 actionable
items, the township hopes to sell
North Huron as a growing
municipality.
At the meetings, residents
prioritized the actions through the
aforementioned four categories to
help guide council in finalizing the
draft plan.
During an interview with The
Citizen after the meetings, Long said
that the program had run well.
“I think that, overall, the meetings
went quite well,” he said. “There
was a good discussion about the
action items and initiatives that are
listed in the strategic plan and where
the community thinks they should
be ranked.”
Long explained that, while the
attendance at the meetings may not
have been as high as it could have
been, this was just the beginning of
the process and that residents of
North Huron could still get involved
in helping to create the plan.
“It would be nice to have gotten a
few more people out, but there is
still the potential for people to read
the draft strategic plan and review it
on our website and provide
comments over the next several
weeks,” he said.
The ability to come back to
council with ideas is an important
one as, at the Blyth meeting, Blyth
Business Improvement Area (BIA)
Chair Rick Elliott said that he would
like the ability to get the feedback of
the BIA during their Dec. 5 meeting.
Long said that, from the meetings,
the responses were in line with
council’s ambitions and he feels it is
representing the township well in
the decision making process.
“There were no surprises when it
came to the action plans,” he said. “I
think, when we had our community
consultations before and did our
community feedback survey,
supporting business was the top
priority,” he said. “People want the
township to communicate well and
be engaged with the community and
the plan reflects that.”
He said that, following the
community feedback, one of the
best directions North Huron could
proceed in, according to responses,
was to advertise the area not only to
businesses but to individuals as well.
“We need to do more not just to
attract business and investment but
also to attract more people away
from the urban areas to North
Huron,” he said. “We need positive
stories to tell about the assets,
quality of life, affordability of
housing and availability of shops
and health care to show the
community as a welcoming area.
The community identified that as a
priority, which wasn’t a surprise, but
it was nice to have that discussion.”
The meetings, which were held in
Blyth on Nov. 26, Belgrave on Nov.
27 and Wingham on Nov. 28, gave
concerned citizens the chance to
reflect on what issues they felt were
most important using a four-
category system introduced by
University of Guelph professor
Wayne Caldwell.
Caldwell, who had reviewed the
township’s strategic plan, stated that
there were four different options as
far as actionable items went; those
that required little effort with a large
impact, those that required a lot of
effort and had a large impact, those
that had little effort and little impact
and those that had a lot of effort but
little impact.
By placing the actionable items
that the township had suggested in
these four categories, residents were
able to help tell township council
what they felt the direction the
municipality should take is.
Participants at the Blyth meetings
had 32 different action items placed
in the “A” or “Gems” category,
which are items that should require
little effort but will have a great
impact on the community.
Included among those actionable
items were completing an economic
development strategy and action
plan, promoting opportunities to
work with other municipalities and
trying to share costs with
neighbouring municipalities,
developing fundraising plans for
projects like the Blyth Downtown
Streetscape Master Plan, developing
a sustainable marketing plan for
North Huron tourism and all that
entails, developing a seniors strategy
to support the well-being of older
adults, developing policies on
affordable recreation in North
Huron, completing a facility
assessment of the buildings owned
by the municipality and exploring
future options with those structures,
and a long-term substantiality plan.
There was some debate as to
where other actionable items should
be, including tree replacement and
maintenance plans, however most of
the ranking of actionable items went
uncontested.
The draft strategic plan, which
helps to plan for a five-year period
starting in 2013, is available for
review on North Huron’s website at
www.northhuron.ca
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