The Citizen, 2000-12-06, Page 1Citizen
Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County
Volume 16 No. 48 Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2000 75 Cents (70c + 5c gst)
Inside this week,
Highlights of the
Blyth parade
MOH urges public
to get flu shot
High school
teacher, board
ratify agreement
Santa makes
annual visit to
Brussels
Shorthorn Club
hears from OCA
speaker
Seaforth
wants
gym work
delayed
By Stew Slater
Special to-The Citizen
The group which successfully
fought to save Seaforth District High
School (SDHS) from closure made
its first formal presentation to the
Avon Maitland District School
Board since the closure issue wound
down last spring.
At the final regular meeting of the
current slate of trustees, Tuesday,
Nov. 28, Seaforth Student Success
Foundation representative Carolanne
Doig spoke directly to outgoing
Seaforth-area representative Abby
Armstrong, urging her to bring
forward a motion delaying possible
maintenance work on the high
school’s gymnasium floor.
“We are concerned that the board
is prepared to spend $60-70,000 on a
band-aid solution to the gym floor
problem, that will not be of long
term benefit to the Seaforth District
High School students,” Doig
explained.
A small section of the floor, on
which the board holds its twice-
monthly meetings, has already been
patched with plywood this fall. Doig
said the group .is worried that more
piecemeal repairs will be carried out
over the coming Christmas holidays,
meaning the gym could remain
operable over the short-term, but not
require the type of complete
overhaul which would signify the
board’s commitment to retain SDHS
as a fully-functioning secondary
school.
“We don’t know about the $60-
70,000 figure (for short-term repairs)
for sure, because we don’t have the
numbers,” Doig said in an interview
following the meeting. “But we’ve
spoken to some people who would
have a good idea. So we’re not
pulling (the numbers) out of thin air,
either.”
She said the Success Foundation
wants to see a long-term plan.
Continued on page 9
No big deal
Little Tyler VanderMeer, with his mom Patty, really doesn’t see what all the fuss is about as he
gets some coochey-cooing from Santa Claus, following the annual parade in Brussels on
Saturday. It was a busy weekend for Old St. Nick as he was guest of honour in Blyth the night
bef O re. (Vicky Bremner photo)
Ambulance fight
For the 20 departing members of
Huron County council attending
their last meeting Thursday, the
acrimony over the downloading of
the ambulance service continued
until the bitter end.
While wives of some paramedics
who have not been offered jobs with
the county service watched from the
public gallery, councillors took part
in a tension-filled debate over the
location of the four new ambulance
sites. Then during question period,
union representative Cathy Carroll
blasted councillors for the hiring
practices of the new service which
will result in five to seven
paramedics not being hired by the
county.
“I think it’s just a travesty,” she
said. The displaced paramedics have
25 years experience and now they
have only the option of bumping
someone in a hospital from their job,
she said. They deserve more than
mopping floors and it’s also unfair to
the people who will be bumped from
their jobs.
When the county agreed to take
over the service from the province,
there were promises that the current
paramedics would be offered jobs.
Carroll said but “they weren’t even
given reasons why they weren’t
offered jobs.”
The wives of the paramedics had
asked to make a presentation at the
meeting but were told they’d have to
appear before the Agriculture, Public
Works and Seniors committee on
Dec. 6 before they could speak to
council. Unable to make her point at
the meeting, Linda Hickey, wife of
Rod Hickey, circulated a thick file
to councillors and the media filled
with letters of support. She said the
paramedics had been told the
aptitude tests they had been asked to
complete by the county’s ambulance
consultant would have no bearing on
whether or not they would be
rehired, but when the workers were
told they weren’t being offered jobs,
the aptitude tests were used as a
reason they weren’t rehired.
Meanwhile, council approved the
four interim sites that will house new
ambulance stations when the service
is taken over by the county on Jan. 1.
Leases for the sites, which include a
two-bay garage plus crew quarters,
are expected to range from $24,000
on to bitter end
to $28,800 per year.
The Wingham station will
continue to be located at Wingham
and District Hospital for the next
five years with some renovations
being made to upgrade the building
to today’s standards.
The Clinton and Seaforth stations
will be combined in a new
temporary site east of the junction of
Hwy. 8 and County Rd. 15. The
county is considering a permanent
site on one of three properties closer
to the junction of the two roads.
Goderich’s ambulance station will
continue in its current location for
the time being but the site is
inadequate and two other sites, one
across from the hospital and one
north of the town, are being
considered far construction of a
long-term site.
The new Seaforth-Clinton site will
offer 24-hour ambulance staffing,
replacing the current system where
paramedics are “on call” from 6 p.m.
to 8 a.m.
The county will lease a building
from Smith-Peat Roofing at the west
edge of Exeter for a temporary site
for the southern part of the county.
‘’Citizen’
records
small
profit
Seven shareholders attending the
annual meeting of North Huron
Publishing Company in Brussels,
learned Thursday night that the
company had recorded a small profit
in the year ending Sept. 30.
Company president Keith
Roulston reported that the company
had turned around a $15,339 loss in
1998- 1999 into a $6,234 profit in
1999- 2000. Sales of the community-
owned company increased to
$470,500 for the past year, up 5.6 per
cent, while expenses increased by
less than one per cent. Costs had
been reduced by adoption of the
latest in digital technology, creating
the newspaper on computers and
even taking photographs with a
digital camera.
The bulk of the profit, Roulston
said, came from the company’s farm
publication The Rural Voice which
held its own despite increased postal
costs. Sales volumes for both The
Citizen and Stops Along the Way
visitor’s guide were down for the
year.
The company has embarked on an
electronic publishing venture which
he hopes will add to the bottom line
in the future. Though income will
not be high, expense is also small.
A book sales division of The Rural
Voice has been started selling books
on rural themes both by mail-order
through the magazine and through
the Blyth and Brussels offices.
October marked the 15th
anniversary of the founding of the
company owned by nearly 50
shareholders in northern Huron and
beyond.
combining the former Dashwood
and Zurich stations. The same
location, plus two sites on County
Rd. 83 near Airport Line are being
considered for a permanent station.
The recommendation on the sites
was accepted by a 43-17 count in a
recorded vote. Among those voting
against the proposal were Mason
Bailey of Blyth, Lin Steffler of
Seaforth and Rob Morley of
Usbome. Morley and Steffler had
tried to move a motion to consider
the recommendations of each site
separately but Warden Carol
Mitchell said the administration,
finance and personnel committee
had agreed the entire
recommendation should be voted on
as one item and refused to accept his
motion.
Morley had argued that the
savings in rent between the original
Dashwood site and the Exeter site
would more than cover the extra cost
of fuel for several trips a day to
Exeter.
Steffler had made basically the
same point regarding keeping the
temporary site for the Seaforth-
Continued on page 8