The Citizen, 2008-08-14, Page 1Dedication
The Blyth Festival held a naming ceremony in honour of the Phillips family on Aug. 8. Dr. Anne
Juhasz (nee Phillips) of Chicago, centre was present for the dedication of the Phillips Studio,
formerly The Garage. Left is artistic director Eric Coates and right is architect John Rutledge,
who designed the signs. (Vicky Bremner photo)
The Blyth Festival held a naming
ceremony in honour of the Phillips
family on Aug. 8.
Dr. Anne Juhasz (nee Phillips) of
Chicago, Illinois, was on hand with
her brother Harold (Butch) Phillips
of London when the Festival’s board
of directors and staff dedicated the
Phillips Studio.
The Phillips Studio, formerly
known as The Garage is the
Festival’s rehearsal and studio space
at 209 Dinsley St.
In 1007, Dr. Juhasz donated
$50,000 to the Blyth Centre for the
Arts. In addition to the naming of the
Phillips Studio, the Festival has
launched the McCreary-Juhasz
Young Company Director’s Fund.
When Dr. Juhasz decided to make
such a generous donation, she
determined that it should support
arts for youth in the community. The
Blyth Festival’s Young Company
was immediately identified as an
ideal recipient.
By investing this money in its
endowment fund, the Festival will
use the McCreary-Juhasz fund to
provide a professional theatre
director for the Young Company. Dr.
Juhasz’s legacy will be appreciated
by the next generation of young
artists in the community.
In the past, Dr. Juhasz has
commissioned several pieces of fine
furniture for the Blyth Centre for the
Arts, including a bench for the art
gallery, a garment rack in the lobby,
and two elegant display cases.
Canada’s biggest outdoor
motocross event kicked off this
Tuesday and will run until Sunday
at the Walton TransCan.
Owner Chris Lee is expecting
approximately 1,000 riders from all
over North America to descend on
Walton for the week. He expects to
have between 4,000 and 5,000
people on the grounds at all times,
nearly 15,000 on Sunday for the
finals and 30,000 in total by week’s
end.
While the bikes hitting the dirt
will most definitely be the main
attraction, Lee has stocked this
year’s event with more extra-
curricular activities than ever
before. The weekend will feature a
motorcycle trade show, live
entertainment, riding
demonstrations, beer gardens,
helicopter rides, paintball, games
and giveaways.
New social events are also making
their mark this year. Bingo will be
featured, in addition to a Racing
Against Drugs promotion that will
feature a racing car simulator. There
will also be a big screen projector to
display a contest to see which group
can edge out the others in this year’s
hottest group game, Rock Band.
There will be a karaoke night, hip
bike racing and a scavenger hunt.
For more information, visit the
event’s website at
www.waltontranscan.ca or call
Huron East tourism at 519-440-
9600 or 519-527-0160.
Festival
honours
family
As part of a follow-up to Liberal
leader Stéphane Dion’s visit to
Huron County just one month ago,
Dion’s top advisor, Gerard Kennedy
spent last Friday touring Huron
County and speaking to its top tier of
government.
Federal Liberal candidate and
North Huron councillor Greg
McClinchey escorted Kennedy on a
three-stop tour that included a
luncheon with the Blyth Business
Association and tours of the
Regional Equine and Agricultural
Centre of Huron (REACH) in
Clinton and the Gateway to Rural
Research facility in Seaforth.
Kennedy then was the guest of
honour at the inaugural Huron-
Bruce Mayor’s Council meeting.
Kennedy, a former Ontario
Minister of Education and business
leader in Toronto was asked to
Huron-Bruce to provide a unique
and experienced point of view on the
area’s current state and challenges.
When asked about the outlook in
Huron-Bruce, Kennedy said it
looked optimistic. After the meeting
with the Blyth Business Association
and the two tours, Kennedy said he
was pleased with what he saw.
“Despite the fact that our
manufacturing sector is getting
clobbered, despite the fact that
agriculture is not getting the support
from government it deserves and
despite the crumbling infrastructure
that we’re trying to work on, here
was a community in Clinton with
REACH that was really seeking to
pull itself up,” McClinchey said.
“They wanted to do something great
for everyone in and around the
community. If we could bottle that
somehow, it would be a pretty
amazing thing, and I think he was
very encouraged by that.”
For the meeting, McClinchey
welcomed 11 local mayors, reeves
and wardens to North Huron’s
council chambers where they could
share ideas and concerns with
Kennedy on a very casual level. The
idea behind the meeting,
McClinchey said was a union of
government, where several top tiers
of Huron-Bruce government could
come together and address their
collective concerns and issues
together.
From that meeting, McClinchey
said, came many issues, but there
were four concerns that were voiced
by nearly every official in
attendance. The four major issues
were economic development,
infrastructure, long-term predictable
government funding and
government process hurdles, red
tape at higher tiers that held up
projects at lower tiers.
North Huron reeve Neil Vincent
host the meeting and Huron East
mayor Joe Seili, Morris-Turnberry
mayor Dorothy Kelly and Central
Huron deputy-reeve and Huron
County warden John Bezaire were in
attendance.
“Working with upper-tier levels of
government is essential. North
Huron is committed to exploring
every possible opportunity for
economic development,
infrastructure renewal assistance and
taxpayer relief that might be
available,” Vincent said.
“I am very pleased that we have
been invited to give our thoughts and
ideas, unfiltered, to Mr. Dion and
Mr. Kennedy. On behalf of the
mayors of Huron-Bruce, it is
certainly my hope that Mr. Dion
listens and then acts quickly to
ensure that real solutions are placed
on the table.”
McClinchey knew Kennedy would
be the right person to help Huron-
Bruce, given his dual roles in federal
politics and local politics.
“Speaking as a municipal
councillor myself, I can say without
hesitation that our local councillors,
mayors, reeves and wardens are on
the front line of public
administration. The lower tier levels
of government are struggling to deal
with mounting infrastructure costs,
out of control regulatory burdens
and a shrinking pool of resources on
which to draw,” he said.
“As the leader of the official
opposition in the House of
Commons, Stéphane Dion came to
Huron-Bruce and asked to speak
with the mayors directly. He wanted
to hear from them; to draw from
their experiences in the municipal
field. As a follow-up to that meeting,
Kennedy, one of the Liberal party’s
brightest and most-experienced
minds is here to show the mayors
that we are serious about
collaborative problem solving.”
The last thing he wants now,
McClinchey said, is for this to be a
one-off exercise, and for the
information gathered at the meeting
and throughout the whole day to fall
by the wayside. While no exact
timeline has been defined,
McClinchey hopes to work with
Kennedy to address concerns and
come back to Huron-Bruce’s mayors
and reeves within a month with at
least further information and follow-
up work.
McClinchey is currently
compiling the meeting’s minutes and
they will be available to the general
public soon. This process, however,
is something that McClinchey says
he believes very strongly in. He said
it provided a forum that is rarely
seen, bridging higher and lower tiers
of government and it also provided
CitizenTh
e
$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008
Volume 24 No. 32SPORTS- Pg. 8Local brothers play incelebrity hockey match REVIEW - Pg. 19 Truscott story gets tellingin BlythWINNER- Pg. 2Lucky duck gets $1,000 fromLions fundraiserPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 PAP Registration No. 09244 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Dion’s advisor meets with heads of council
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 6
Walton
off to the
races