Huron Expositor, 2005-11-23, Page 3News
future
No decision madeyet about daycare's
Deputy -Mayor says Tuckersmith daycare will be 'hot topic' until 2006 budget discussions
start doing the budget properly and not charging
such an exorbitant amount of rent - $34,000 is
nothing short of robbing the daycare to keep the
deficit of the rec centre down," he said.
Steffler said he is against closing the Vanastra
daycare and listed the Tuckersmith municipal
office and the elementary school as two losses the
community has already absorbed.
"Vanastra is a very important community to
Huron East and we as elected people cannot let
services keep slipping away," he said.
Tuckersmith Coun. Bill DeJong added that
with the changes to administration at the day-
care, Huron East should allow the new staff to
prove themselves.
Grey Coun. Mark Beaven, repeated his
longheld position that funding a municipal day-
care is unfair to ratepayers in the north end of
Huron East who do not use the service.
"I will always be against the actual owning of a
daycare by the municipality. If we want to set
aside funds for the whole municipality for day-
care, I'd be in favour of that," he said.
The' Huron E po`sitor'• November 23; 2005 Page 3
Susan Hundertmark
While no decision has been made yet about the
future of Tuckersmith Day Nursery, it will
remain a "hot topic" until the 2006 budget delib-
erations, predicted Deputy -Mayor Bernie
MacLellan.
MacLellan reported to Huron East council on
Tuesday his perspective on discussions around
daycare at a recent county council meeting.
"Joe and I fought hard to keep the funding
pulled back by the county," he said, adding that
they lost the support of Goderich and North
Huron, the only other municipalities in Huron
with a municipal daycare.
The county decided two weeks ago to remove
resource consultants from the three municipal
daycares to be able to offer more service to chil-
dren throughout Huron County. That decision
took close to $20,000 in annual funding away
from the Tuckersmith Day Nursery.
"We all agreed based on the same reasons that
daycare was costing too much and that it was
unfair to the ratepayers of the municipalities
that offered that service," he said.
"I'm not sure why their opinions changed but
they did," said MacLellan, adding that the coun-
ty made presentations to councils in Goderich
and North Huron but not to Huron East.
He said he was particularly upset by
Bluewater Mayor Bill Dowson's statement that
Huron East was misusing the funds from the
county.
"His municipality doesn't even offer a daycare
service. Close to 50 per cent of the people using
Tuckersmith (Day Nursery) come from his
municipality and they (the municipal govern-
ment) don't put any money towards it," said
MacLellan.
Seaforth Coun. Lou Maloney expressed sur-
prise that Dowson would vote to take funding
from Tuckersmith Day Nursery when his
ratepayers are benefitting from it.
Tuckersmith Coun. Larry McGrath asked
Huron East administration to find out what per-
centage of the county's daycare budget goes
towards county administration.
"If I found out that 35 per cent was going to
administration, I'd have a problem with that,"
said McGrath.
"It comes down to who can manage money the
best. We all know the province is the biggest
waster of money, followed by the federal govern-
ment and then the county," he said.
But Seaforth Coun. Joe Steffler questioned if
Huron East is revealing
the true costs of provid-
ing a facility to
Tuckersmith Day
Nursery with its
$34,000 rent.
"I think it is time we
Ann Wood admits she
doesn't often slow down
From Page 1
she doesn't slow down very often.
"My family gets a little cross but
you have to keep active. Age is only
a number," she says.
Along with running the Legion,
Wood goes lawnbowling and alley
bowling, quilts during the winter,
helps out at Town and Country,
helps out at Northside United,
caters with a local catering company
and can still be found helping out in
the kitchen with the Legion
Council replacing
14 chairs
Huron East is calling for proposals
to replace the 14 council chairs at
town hall in Seaforth.
A report to council said the eight
cloth chairs now in use were pur-
chased in Grey in 1994 and the six
wooden chairs were previously used
by the former Seaforth council.
"Beyond the fact that the chairs do
not match, the wooden chairs are in
poor shape and are damaging the
table," said the report.
As councillors voted to replace the
chairs, Deputy -Mayor Bernie
MacLellan jokingly complained that
those voting in favour were the ones
with the worst chairs.
Auxiliary.
"I always thought if I'm going to
belong, I should do my part. And, if
everyone would work together, it
wouldn't be much of a problem," she
says.
Wood says the Legion's involve-
ment in Come Home to the Country
also benefitted the Legion by
attracting more young people as
members.
"This ye 'r opened up a lot of
doors. I don't think the young people
realized what we do here and every-
thing they can get involved in
through the Legion," she says.
Municipality of
Huron East
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for the final installment of
property taxes is November
30'h, 2005
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