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Times Advocate, 1991-11-20, Page 1Car Wing By Appointment Exeter Collision 235-0411 am - CC Gaiser-Kneale Insurance Service Experience & Value 235-2420 Serving South Huron Inside Election All the results page 2 Appreciation Exeter honours its best page 15 Tournament Minor hockey's big annual event held Second front Pro hockey team at Huron .Park HURON PARK - The Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hock- ey League will be having a practice today from 1-2 p.m. at the Stephen Township Arena in Huron Park and again on Thursday beginning at about 11 a.m. Spectators are welcome to come and watch the Black Hawks who took on the Detroit Red Wings last night. Heading into the game in De- troit, Chicago was 10-7-5. They are staying at the Oakwood Inn near Grand Bend for a couple of days. RIDE check turns up three impaired drivers EXETER - Town Police set up a RIDE (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere) checkpoint in Exeter this weekend and ended up charg- ing are motorists for impaired .riving. Police chief Jack Harkness said the intention was to set up the checkpoint on a random basis and not just for holiday weekends. However, he said he was a little shocked to find that three drivers were caught in the check. "I thought we had really curbed the problem," said Harkness. "But obviously this is showing people are careless." The chief pointed -out -that— not only do impaired drivers risk acci- dents and their lives when heading out on the road after drinking, but . they also face a criminal record if caught. But Harkness said the RIDE pro- gram will continue to be operated on a random basis and it will be conducted with a "zero tolerance" for those caught over the limit. "If I'm out driving, I'd like' -to know the headlights I meet are go- ing to stay on the right side of the road," said Harkness. This Christmas season, the RIDE program is likely to be stepped up to coincide with holiday revelry, but it will also bring back the re- wards for sober drivers, or desig- nated drivers. Motorists who are stopped can expect to receive a lit- ter bag, an insurance card holder, or a red ribbon to promae sober driv- North Middlesex & Lambton Since 1873 Wednesday. November 20, 1991 75 cents Future of Exeter development charges plan uncertain as developers delay bylaw EXETER - A bylaw that will prove crucial as to how the town will fund upcoming serving expan- sions was put on hold Monday eve- ning, mainly to give developers more time to respond to its propo- sals. At a public meeting held before council Wayne Caldwell , senior planner with Huron County plan- ning department, explained that the concept of the two-year old legisla- tion was to allow municipalities the right to charge new developments with the servicing costs associated with growth. Included in those costs are "hard" services to the property line such as water and sewage systems and sidewalks, and "soft" services such as recreation facilities and programs. Exeter is the first municipality in the county to get to the stage of ac- tually ding a development Virus KO's S EXETER - Students at South Huron District High School were advised to take various precautionary measures Friday morning by principal Joe Wooden, following an outbreak of a yet undetermined virus. Vice-principal Keith Allen said over 250 of the school's 1,000 students have been affected by the out- break, but that the school will remain open. "The Huron County Health Unit has informed us that the numbers are not high enough to warrant the closing of the school," said Allen. According to Dr. Maarten Bokhout, medical officer for the Huron County Health Unit, the virus is not county wide, although there is information which sug- gests it is spreading north of London. "The county may become blessed with it in the near future," said Bokhout. "But for right now, it seems to be confined to that one school." The virus causes various respiratory symptoms such as coughing, runny nose and fever but, unfortunately, Bokhout said they don't know what kind it is. Students have been advised to wash their hands, es- pecially when handling food, and try to remember to cover their mouths if they feel like sneezing. "And if they feel sick," said Bokhout, "the best thing is to stay home." The Health Unit suspects that the virus may last a week. Seaforth in. Zurich out CommunityLiving concerned local councils stalling program to get people out of group homes ZURICH - Community_ Living South Huron, the Dashwood -based organization for the mentally handi- capped, is not too happy with coun- cil's rejection of their request to make it easier for the group to pave the way for Supportive Independent Living (SIL) in the village. The organization has already made plans to develop its program in Seaforth instead. John Grey of CLSH attended a council meeting in August, asking for council to allow S_programs to operate in resideupat toned R2, such as a semi-detached house. Grey argued the SIL program was ing. quite different from a group home in operation and funding. No full - Song books time staff members would be on the in this issue EXETER The ever -popular Times - Advocate Christmas Songbook returns once again with its inclusion in this is- sue. The books were made possible with the advertising support of Hu- ron Tractor of Exeter, the Hensall and District Co -Op, Oke Wood - smith of Hensall, and W.G. Thompson and Sons Limited also of Hcnsall. A limited number of additional copies are available at the above businesses and at the Times - Advocate office. premises. Council however disagreed and decided that group homes will still be only allowed in Zurich in R1, single family, zoned residences and that SIL residences are still defined as group homes. Grey sent a letter to council ex- pressing dissatisfaction with their decision on SIL housing and coun- cil briefly discussed it at Thursday's meeting. Council said CLSH was interest- ed in purchasing an R2 zoned home for some SIL residents, but is reluc- tant to apply for a rezoning because that would require a public meet- ing, possibly to the detriment of the program. Reeve Bob Fisher said he was satisfied council's decision was cor- rect, and he said he agreed with councillor Doug Thiel's position that the increased safety risks, espe- cially fire, might not be compatible with multiple -unit R2 residences. "SIL homes and group homes are virtually the same," concurred Keith Semple, and added that was his reasoning for turning down the Community Living request. Clerk Maureen Simmons noted that while Community Living is hoping a small, R1 -designated home will come up for sale for use in the SIL program, but the prob- lem is that only "huge" homes are coming on the market in the vil- lage. Grey, when contacted at his Dashwood office said that the Zu- rich council decision had quite an impact on the SIL program, and in fact led his organization to relocate the former group home residents to Seaforth. He said that the Zurich decision only contributed to "limited options in an extremely tight housing mar - Please turn to page 3 charges bylaw, even though the deadline for existing impost fee by- laws renders them invalid after No- vember 23. "I would expect all municipali- ties across the county, especially the urban ones, will be considering a bylaw to cover the costs they might incur," said Caldwell. Caldwell also said that "very con- servative" estimates suggests the community cost of growth is about $2,000 per lot in Seafonh and $3,500 in Goderich. Caldwell said Exeter's proposed bylaw is for a lesser charge than many which oth- er municipalities are charging in the province. Rick Hundey, town administra- tor, said his study took a five-step approach to determine how much growth Exeter could expect, the services needed to be funded by the development charge, the capital costs involved after grants, and the development charge itself. "We set a target on what our growth ought to be and we came up with a population of 7,000," said Hundey, who said the next ex- pansion of the town sewage system is expected to cost $3.75 million before 60 percent provincial grants. Some subdivisions in which the town will have to install sidewalks can expect to pay a slightly higher development charge under the pro- posed bylaw. There will, however, be no ser- vice charge for commercial or in- dustrial development. Developer Len Veri spoke out against the bylaw saying the in- crease from the existing $750 to the $2,284 proposed for his subdivision was too sudden. "When do we have to keep up with London or Toronto," he said, saying some consideration of the re- cession and building slump should be made. He also said the proposed $1,300 impost fee for mobile home park is very high, since there is a high per- centage of retired people who buy those units. "You have people on fixed in- comes and that's too high," he said. Joe Darling asked whether new fees applied to existing subdivision lots that have not yet been devel- oped and was told that it did. He also said he had less than a week's notice on the proposed by- law. Please turn to page 3 Bank employee charged with four counts of fraud EXETER - While few details are available, the Exeter Town Police have wrapped up a two-month investigation into a banking fraud scheme and laid charges this weekend. Police chief Jack Harkness would not discuss how the fraud was carried out, nor the exact amount involved, However, a former Commercial Ac- cisurs,yrpprt officer with s Bank of Montreal hia4Chas been cbaiged with lbw. mints of reefing $1,d - The bank assures that all customer accounts that may have been affected by fraudulent transactions have been reimbursed by the bank. Leona Faye McIntosh of RR4 Parkhill will be appearing in Ontario Court in Exeter on December 10 to answer to the charges. The investigation involved one full-time,town officer "exclusively dedi- cated" to the case. The OPP Anti -Rackets Branch was also brought in to assist with the investigation which started when bank officials notified the police of their suspicions. "Certainly the bank has acted very responsibly in this matter," said Hark- ness, who also said he was pleased the OPP were able to assist even though the organization is facing severe cutbacks across the province. Middlesex to look at landfill creation LUCAN - There is a possibility . see the closure: Of all other landfills that the landfill in-Biddulph Towtr-- in the county: • ship, which was closed in May, could be re -opening. But taxpayers of Biddulph, Lucan and Parkhill who use the C.H. Lew- is site, shouldn't get too excited yet. Thursday at Middlesex County Council, it was recommended that the new council consider setting money aside to look into creating a new landfill. Lucan reeve Larry Hotson said the county could be considering putting funds into the C.H. Lewis site, which was closed by court over environmental concerns. "I would fully expect the Lewis site would be one of the sites they look at," said Hotson. Huron County is currently in the process of selecting a site for a latfjll which, in the future, could "They (Middlesex) just can't look at one site," said Hotson. "It's the process that takes so long and it costs millions." He added that under the Environ- mental Assessment Act, it could take quite some time before the county decides to open another landfill. The Lewis landfill was closed, and neighbour Peter Nippa was awarded $100,000, after an Ontario judge said there was a "callous dis- regard for the environment." The throe municipalities have been trucking their waste to a site near Blenheim in KentCounty and their budgets for waste manage- ment have had to be extended con- siderably. • There was a roundup of 87 head of cattle on County Road 5 early Sunday morning as the herd, owned by Larry Ryan of Cre- diton got loose. The Kinsman brothers of Hensall area came in with their horses to help round them up. 4 A