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Times Advocate, 1993-05-19, Page 1;prnmission fid mavisinontaainana waste of money Science West Making science fun pages 12-13 '�htldBt�ld j*nnuel: oderich %vase ,:)t Highway 4 protestgains suppr3tt council EXETER - Town councillor 'Ben Hoogenboom said he agreed with last week's Times Advocate editori- al that Highway 4 is in a "deplora- ble" condition. He .said he hoped some residents would take advan- .tage of the T -A's offer to forward any letters of complaint about the highway's condition to the Ministry of Transportation. While councillor Dave Urlin said Highway 4 is in much better shape than some American highways, reeve: ilia .Mickle said our local highway doesn't compare with the standard of other Ontario high- ways. "-Of .all the toads I've travelled, number 4 is::the worst," said Mick - le. "Leave it -long enough and Mr. Klopp can take his plow ito it]." Anyone with a comment about the condition of Highway 4 is wel- comed to write. to the Times Advo, cate at Box 850, Exeter, NOM 1S6. Who will Tiffl'GB parking? GRAND BEND - With the first long weekend just a few short days away. it is still undecided who will operate .Grand -Bend's two munici- pal parking lots. The May 24 weekend which is the start of the festive hoopla in thc resort community, will see thou- sands of pullers and their cars come to the village. "The PLE (Parking and Law En- forcement Committee), strongly recommended the lots be run by the village if no service club wants to take them over," said Grand Bend councillor Cam Ivey. Grand Bend has two lots, one at Municipal Drive and the other on Albert St. Ivey suggested that the village, rather than the service clubs run the lots. He said either one service club in *articular or the village should operate them insd of juggling the job b►ck-and-f h. Minute of ice held for two elected officials EXETER - Monday's session of town council began on a sombre note as council members held a minute of silence for two elected officials who passed away in the past two weeks. Councillor Tom Humphreys and PUC commissioner Harry Devries were beth paid their respects by count i I . Mayor Bruce Shaw noted dem both deaths were most unexpected and both town council and the PU(' would miss their presence. Humphreys died two weeks ago. Devries died Sunday, and a funeral is planned for Wednesday at the Bethel Reformed Church. At the recommendation of the ex ecutive urnmittee's May 10 meet ing, council agreed to plant a tree at the Exeter Cemetery,in,khpqpittey's memory. essiling pas pals* hearing on hoN EXETER -'ltte'ISIltttriotivil- ian Commission on Police Ser- vices has agreed to postpone further testimony of the inquiry into Exeter's policing until the proposed OPP take over of po- lice services is known. After more than an hour of discussion on Monday moming, lawyers representing chief of police Jack Harkness, the police board and the Ministry of the Solicitor General agreed to post- pone the hearing until June 29. "It is not in the public interest to spend public funds on an is- sue that might become moot," said police board Iawyer'John Judson. Commission co-chair Doug- las Drinkwalter explained to the public on hand that if the Exeter police department is abolished then, "the present problems be- tween the police services 'board and the chief would disappear." The OPP is expected to present a contract proposal to town ebtititil-ter this week. if Council decides to accept the "tproposal, said Drinkwalter, a public meeting would be held at 'which the Commission would Review the proposal and decide Inn severance packages if re- quired for town police officers. The town of Exeter'kas been :considering for several years ;disbanding its police force in fa- Vour of a contract arrangement with the OPP. The issue 'tteached a peak last summer when budget=ites and rising policing costs prompted council to make an official request to the ministry for an OPP cost es- timate. That estimate is expected this Thursday, and may contain three separate plans to police Exeter: a low cost, minimum requirement contract, dubbed a "drive through" approach; a mid -cost plan to meet most of the town's needs; and a top-of- the-line plan to equal or exceed -Of Hensall Public School held -azar on a car wash on Saturday to raise funds for an upcoming Cass trip. Making the most fun possible out of their nark are Kris .l-eppington, getting soaked, who is helped by Scott and Phillip 1frgram, bilintr2;down, social contract Exeter to make Flo wi 9104,000 less EXETER - The town of Exeter can expect about $104,000 less in provincial grants this year, reeve Bill Mickle warned council Mon- bers aren't yet available to munici- day evening. palities, he offered that number as Although Mickle said exact num- an estimate of what Exeter can ex - Decision next week OPP contract certain to be cheaper than running tower force, mayor telly council EXETER - It now appears almost certain the town police force will be little more than a memory by the end of the year. Mayor Bruce Shaw advised council Monday eve- ning that the OPP contract offer to police Exeter is on its way and it promises to be far more economical than running a separate town de- partment. "We arc told the costing will come in at a substantial saving," said Shaw, adding it is already ex- pected council will approve it. Should council approve the con- tract then a public meeting will have to be held, not to debate, the merits of OPP coverage, but tui dis- cuss publicly whether she service being offered is adequate for Exet- er. "Mr. Drinkwalter has said he will expedite everything so we will have OPP service in here as soon as humanly possible," said Shaw. Shaw said the public reason for postponing the hearing into the ac- tions of the police services board and the chief was that the OPP esti- mate was on its way. The mayor would not elaborate on what other reasons there were for stopping the inquiry. Councillor Robert Drummond asked why the prospect of an OPP contract should have affected the hearing at this late date. "They knew a long time ago we were applying for an OPP costing, why the hell did they go ahead with this hearing in the first place?" said Drummond. Shaw did not offer any answer, but told council to be prepared for a special meeting next week to dis- cuss the OPP proposal. The current cost of running the town police force runs in excess of S500,000 a year. Council had ex- pressed hopes that an OPP contract could meet the town's needs for less than $400,000 a year. Attendance droning Zu ricli bk imetser, organizers seat Ali ki brathe new lif. Woo /Mr ZURICH - The Thursday evening bingo that has be- come a major source of revenue for Zurich community organizations, may be on the ropes, village council leanied Thursday. Councillor Marg Deichert, representing the village recreation board, told council that Zurich's bingo hasn't been making any money for about four months. She said the bingo bas been subsidized to some extent by sales of Nevada draw tickets, but if attendance at the bingos doesn't improve, they will have to be cancelled. "That will be a lot of lost revenues to,the„wasa bingos fail," noted reeve Bob Fisher. I)eichiert said the bingos have only drawing about 120 people each Thursday evening in past weeks. She said the event needs about 150 people just to break even. A possible rear for the emetic could be that Gode- rich now has a hursday evening bingo, which orga- nisers believe is drawuig people away from Zurich. Deichert said finding a new regular evening for Zu- rich's bingo may not be possible, due to conflicts with other arena events and competing bingos in the region. Other plans to save the fundraisers,are being consid- ered, she said. The bingos arc run with vol from the Zurich Minor Athletic Association, theh Figure Skating Club, the Chamber of Curntnerce, and the Lions Club, which all rotate the duty. Profits from the events .are shared between the organizations and the village recre- ation centre. A pect to see missing in provincial revenues. this year. after cuts to un- conditional grants and the social contract are totalled. The province, said Mickle will be expecting the town to find ways to trim the salaries of employees, ei- ther through unpaid days off, or wage cuts. Although, noted Mick - le, staff working for $25,000 or,less are exempt from the ciawback. "So they leave us with flow we're going to deal with our s(aff,",said Micklc. In addition, said the reeve, the recreation grant has been cut $6,000, and the blue box subsidy is also expected to drop, maybe as (much as 516,000. "So you can look at a fair chunk iof money from this year's budget," !said Mickle, noting that the year is !getting late and the time available Ito accommodate the cuts is geeing tshon. "i would like the staff to sec if Ithey can look at a budget soon...to see if they can find ways to make cuts to keep the mill rate increase down... and 1 mean everything, throw everything out on the table," said Mickle, calling the situation a "horrendous cut in support money from the government." "Before anyone starts to talk to the staff, would you be thinking of offering early retirements...or would you be looking at layoffs?" asked clerk Liz Bell. Mickle said the idea of taking one unpaid day a month is being coisidered elsewhere, but Bell pointed out that would conic no- where near the 5104.000 to be cut, to which Mickle agreed. Mickle said the province seems to be unaware that small municipal- ities do not have the same flexibili- ty in dealing with staff as do the large ministries, but either way, Ex- eter has little choice. "They've got the upper hand on municipalities because they can say 'we're taking it out of your grants'," said Mickle. "I would hope we don't have to lay anybody off, and I would hope we don't have to cut salaries in any way shape or form," said mayor Bruce Shaw. "But we'll have to take a look at it and see." the current level of policing pro- vided by the town force. The decision to postpone the hearing until the OPP issue is resolved came after four days of lengthy testimony from only two of several witnesses sched- uled for the stand. Mayor Bruce Shaw, the town's representative on the police services board, took the stand last Monday and was questioned by ministry law- yer Dennis Brown, Harkness' lawyer J.R. Caskey, and thc po- lice board's own lawyer Judson. Police board chairman John Stephens took the stand Thurs- day, and was questioned by Brown. He would have re- turned for cross examination Monday if not for the postpone- ment of the proceedings. The hearing was called to set- tle accusations of wrongdoing against both the police board and chief Jack Harkness. Much of the testimony revolved around the firing of Harkness on September 7, 1992 and his re - tum to duty that November. The board never fully disclosed its reasons for removing Hark- ness from duty, and only said they questioned his ability to lead the force. -Seetestimony summary on page two. Energy programs saving cash ffiatr Exeter 'EXETER - -Energy saving pro- grams at the South Huron Recrea- tion Centreare paying off. In fact, town councillor Dave Urlin pointed out that utility bills at the recreation arc now lower than they were a decade ago. The facilities report for the recre- ation centre this year noted that the building's electricity and gas bills are the lowest they have been since 1981. Urlin said it looked like "some retrofit programs ate paying off," referring to energy saving plans to computerize heating and cooling programs, and to replace motors and lights with more efficient de- signs. Ontario Hydro subsidized most of the upgrades. When asked by councillor Robert Drummond, Urlin noted that it was the actual dollar amounts of the utility bills that were down to 1981 levels. With utility rate increases factored in, the actual consumption is down considerably. auditor says village books still o n good shape ZURICH - Despite some heavy spending on the Zurich arena, the village's books are still reasonably well balanced, concluded Zurich council after reading their auditor's report Thursday evening. Revenues and expenditures in- creased sharply between 1991 and 1992, revealed the report, largely due to the arena projects and in- spections and repairs of the sewage system. Tax arrears, however, are down, almost 57.000 from the year before. The village's long term debt is up, again because of the 580,000 loan taken out on arena repairs. But re serve funds have increased as the village increased sewage rates to cover upcoming work on the sys- teril . "I think the village is still in good financial shape," village auditor Ted Thorn told council Thursday. Councillor Marg Deichert said she was surprised that the arena ex- penses hadn't made a bigger dent in the financial report. "S80.OQ0 isn't a lot to have over our. heads right now," commentod Deletion.