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The Goderich Signal-Star, 1987-01-14, Page 1MJ ter. r_-, ' ._..;., �� ; T:.•:,.,. 139 YEAR - 02 GODERICH, ONTARIO, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 14, 1987 60 CENTS PER COPY County accepts ilir By Alan Rivett After five months of ongoing private negotiations between lawyers. for County Chief Librarian William Partridge and Huron County, the Huron County Library Board will accept the resignation of the chief librarian, effective June 30. Mr. Dan Murphy, the county's solicitor, made the announcement in the afternoon session of the county. council meeting on January 8, after some confusion as to the status of Mr. Partridge's resignation arose in the morning session of council. "As for. the Partridge situation, the mat- ter is solved," Mr. Murphy told council. At a : meeting of the Huron -County Library Board on December 4,' Mr. Mur- phy made a number of recommendations to the board as to the settlement with Mr. Partridge. The recommendations included the resignation of Mr. Partridge be accepted effective June 30, 1987 and it will continue to pay Mr. Partridge's salary' for a three month period. Mr.' Partridge will also receive a letter of reference from the board and if he obtains employment before June .30, •he will be free to accept. the. employment and his salary will cease, ex- cept for,the three months salary after the resignation date. --....---- In'correspondence between Mr. Murphy and Scott Ritchie, the solicitor for Mr. Par- tridge,.on December 10, Mr. Ritchie said Mr. Partridge had accepted the recom-' /S resignation mendations and a letter of resignation would be in the mail. However, at the January council meeting, Bayfield Reeve Dave Johnston questions council's acceptance of the recommendation of December 4, as there was no formal resignation tendered by Mr. Partridge as yet. "We can't accept the resignation if has not been tendered," said. Mr. Johnston. Tuckersmith Reeve Robert Bell asked Mr. Partridge directly if there was a letter of resignation•or not, to which Mr. Par- tridge replied: "There has been no letter of resignation." Mr. Partridge declined further comment. Mr. Murphy said, in a telephone conver- w Sanna Landenpera, an exchange student visiting Goderich from nual competition, Saturday, Jan. 10, at the Goderich arena. Sauna Finland, performs a stylish spin while competing in the Senior was one of over 70 skaters who participated in the eve& photo by Open Freestyle division of the Goderich Figure Skating Club's au- Patrick Raftisl Lack of snow results in savings This weekend's heavy snowfall provided lie first real test of the season to snow plowing crews across southwestern On-' tario. Prior to Saturday, area road workers had found it neccessary to call out the plows on only a few occasions. The unseasonably mild weather, and consequent lack of snow, over the past few months has substantially reduced. the amount of snow plowing activity done by both the Town of Goderich Public Works Department and the Huron County Roads Department. This .results, in a roundabout Way, in a saving of money in road budgets, said Gotier'ich Public Works 93nrimissioner Ken Hunter. �a - `The town doesn't actually save any , money, it just gets spent somewhere else," said ° Hunter. Since Works department employees are not plowing ano' , they are able to work on other projects, such as in - stallation of sewers in the Industrial Park, which they would normally not be"able to work on -at this time of year. "We've saved all kinds of money in over- time," Hunter pointed out, estimating the town is probably "about $10,000 to the good," as far as the road maintenance budget is concerned. Goderich road -plowing crews have been out only twig :all winter, whereas they would normally have been plowing twice a week for the past month or so. The 11 works department employees have been busy cutting down dead trees, fisting road signs, salting and sanding roads and sidewalks and" doJng a nu ibel' Of other jobs. - "There's oever any shortage of work — jusi dome things 'have mire priority than others and snow, of course, is number one," Hunter said. • "The big saving is on fuel," said Bob Kluff, of the Huron County Roads Depart- ment. County road employees work on a shift system, so th't workers are available to plow around the clock. Therefore, whether it snows or not, county workers don't put in any overtime. doe-Steffler, of. the ljiuron County Patrol Yard at Auburn, said crews have only done about 10 per cent of the plowing this year, that. they would done 'by this point in an - average year. The main county roads, he said, have been •plowed only about a dozen times. Even then, "Nobody was ever going W get, stuck," plowing was done simply to clear roads so they could be sanded, .said Steffler. County road 'employees have beet work- . Ong mainly on trim ring trees, hVprepar.a- tion for a 1987 construction project aimed at widening'naads in Huron County. t cation with Mr. Ritchie prior to the after- • noon session of council, he confirmed that there was a letter of resignation and that Mr. Ritchie and Mr. Partridge had ac- cepted the county's recommendations. "I can't explain why he (Mr. Partridge ) made that statement," said Mr. Murphy. The situation leading to Mr. Partridge's resignation arose after he threatened to resign after two letters signed by Huron County Library Headquarter's staff citing mismanagement at the headquarters by" Mr. Partridge were presented to! then - chairman of the Library Board, Tom Cunningham. • Mr. Partridge was employed as the chief librarian for Huron County for the past 14 years. • Committee will discuss salt emission e ge f Bows court ruling A controversial ruling, which calls into dispute the power of provincial court judges, was behind the decision of Judge A G. Guthrie not to accept a plea from a Clinton man, facing charges in Goderich Provincial Court on Monday. Judge Guthrie, along with about half the Provincial Court judges in Ontario, has decided, to follow the ruling made by Pro- vincial Court Judge John Si Lith, in a Brampton Courtroom on Dec. 22, 1986. Judge Smith disqualified himself from . Wring a case on -the -grounds -that provin- cial court judges are not Constitutionally empowered. to hear cases involving indic- table offenceso Judge Guthrie remanded the case of the Clinton man, charged with five counts in- cluding robbery and theft under $200, until Mid-Feburay, by which time it is expect the Court of Appeals will have made a decision on Judge Smith's ruling. The Court of Appeal will consider the matter during the latter part of this week.. If the ruling is upheld, it would mean Pro- vincial Court Judges lack the authority to handle the ..bulk •of their everyday workload, causing a considerable backlog in courts until the matter is sorted out. Council ou� cil s - rt mail resolution Goderich Town Councl has endorsedthe resolution of the City of Hamilton opposing the abandoment by Canada Post of door - .to -door mail delivery to new subdivisions • in favor of community mailboxes. Although the resolution is 'directed at municipalities with populations over • 25,000, council'felt it pertains to Goderich because the town has door-to-door .mail delivery service. • - The resolution also applies here, because of the situation on Leonard Drive, en which residents must pick up their mail, at a community- box located at the end of the street, rather than having it delivered to their -door. • '`People down th-ere.have as much right to door-to-door delivery as t people living anywhere else ih town," said Deputy Reeve John Doherty. The possibility of excessive salt emis- sions' from the Domtar Silo Salt urine and the subsequent effect on surrounding• waters, particularly inthe area of Snug„ Harbor Marina, will be discussed at a - 'meeting of the Goderich Parks and Water- front Committee today. Ministry of En- vironment representatives and Domtar Mine . Manager Gaston Brousseau have been invited to attend the committee meeting, which will take place at noon today. - Goderich Town Council has referred to the Parks and Waterfront Committee a copy of a letter from the ministry to Dom-• tar which contends emmission• testing. done by Domtar may have been inade- quate to accurately determine salt levels. "It is felt from reviewing the report (submitted by a Domtar, quality control. technician) that too few samples were col- lected downwind -of the mining operations to be making meaningful comparison to this ministry's 24-hour criterion Jor total 'suspended particulate," the letter states. . The ministry is currently conducting its own high volume dust sampling in the vicinity of Snug Harbour. "At this stage -of the investigation, there. appears to. be two options open to the in- dustry to resolve the matter.' It would ap- pear that either an engineering approach to change and -or control the rate of ernis- sio�is necessary, or consideration could be given to changing the adjacent land • use." said the letter signed by Southwestern Region Senior Environmen- ' tal Officer P. E. Bye. Goderich Administrator Larry McCabe said the matter was initiated because of a recent drastic decline in the number of boaters making use of Snug Harbour facilities,' which harbour patrons contend is .largely due to damage done to boats by. high salt content in the water. Ministry denies m runway funding Project Rattail gets on track ,y Goderich Town Council has- given its support to Project ReRail; an organization • attempting to offer an alternative to aban- donment of unprofitable rail lines by Cana- dian National and Canadian . Pacific . railway companies. At their Jan. 12 meeting, council passed a motion made by Counc. John Stringer, to support the group in their endevours. In addition to opposing the abandonment of rail lines, Project ReRail and the On- tario Midwestern Rail Services ,,proposes to aassume ownership and -or operations of •CN and CP.'s und'e'sired rail lines. Propos- ed new regulations for the rail transport industry will permit abandonment of any rail line that the rail companies do not feel' provide a high enough profit to be main- ' tained. CP has announced that its mandate will be to eliminate branch lines with an- . nual traffic levels of less than 500,000 tions. CP's - Owen Sound line, for example, generates about 125,000 tons annually..The Goderich rail lines may also fall within the criterion for abandonment. Project ReRail proposes to take over the operation of the local. Imes and through them provide connecting service to the lines of the two major rail companies. Initial attempts by the Town of Goderich to obtain government financial assistance to build anew runway at the Goderich Air- port have met wjth resistance from 'the Ministry of .Transportation and Communications. Transporation Minister John Crosbie, in . a .letter to Huron -Bruce MP Murray Car- diff which was forwarded to Goderich Town Council at their Jan. 12 meeting, said traffic Levels at the Goderich Airport do not warrant the construction of a. new runway. "The existing and future traffic levels do not indicate a requirement for a second 5,000 -foot runway. Approximately 75 per cent of the traffic is classified as local. Air- craft within this category -are primarily training aircraft with no operating restric- tions. Furthermore, none of the local air- craftt operators have indicated any safety- related problems or operational restric- tions with regard to the existing runway," Crosbie said in his letter. ,However, the minister also said the plan could be reviewed at a -later date "depen-,, dent on increased traffic levels and any safety-relatd issues." Cardiff, it/ his letter, suggested the minister might seriously consider an ex- tension and repaving of the existing run- way, : if an obstruction zoning problem could be solved. The Town of Goderich" was recently awarded a $100,000 settlement from On-, tario Hydro, for potential disturbance"at the airport caused by the proposed new Bruce to London Ontario Hydro power cor- ridor. However, the settlement is condi- tional on a new runway being built at ,the Goderich Airport within 10 years. If the runway -is not'built within that time, under the terms of the settlement the town must return the money plus accrued interest to Ontario Hydro. ra Goderich Adminstrator Larry McCabe said the financial otetinre Tor the proposed runway could' change in the future. "At any given time the rants can ' become available or traffic at tie airport could increase," making the,project feasi- ble, he yid. A INSIDE- G HF SIGNAL -STAR Vikings defeated The GDCI Junior Vikings advanced to the semi-finals of the annual Blue and White junior boys' basketball tournament held Saturday in"Goderich. Sarnia St. Clair won the tournament. For details, see inside the Sports section. Skaters compete The Goderich Figure Skating Club held its annual Competition Day on Saturday w4th more than 70 local skaters par- ticipating. For pictures and a list of the winners, see the front page of the Com- munity section. • UCW celebration Special worship services were held in United Churched across Cara'da Sunday celebration of the 25th anniversary of the United Church Women (UCW). For a pic- ture ' and story on the North St. United UCW celebration, see inside this .eption, '% 'a