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The
THIS WEEK
Citizen
Huron County’s most trusted independent news source Volume 39 No. 14
Friday, April 7, 2023
$1.50 GST included
Publications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 429, BLYTH, ON N0M 1H0
BMGCC seeing overages By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen
Drama queens (and kings) Last week and through the weekend, Blyth played host to the annual National Theatre School Drama Festival at Memorial Hall and satellite locations like Trinity Anglican Church. The provincial theatre extravaganza welcomed 140 students from Listowel District, South Huron District, F.E. Madill, Owen Sound District, St.
Michael Catholic, Stratford District and St. Anne’s Catholic Secondary Schools to the village to learn, act and create. In the end, it was St. Anne’s that won the Spirit of the Festival Award, in addition to individual awards for some of the students. The school’s award-winning play will be on stage at St. Anne’s on April 13, 14 and 15. (John Stephenson photo)
On Tuesday night, Huron East Council received an update on the ongoing renovation and expansion of the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Centre, which has seen a number of unforeseen issues resulting in cost overages that will deplete the $280,000 contingency for the project. Chief Administrative Officer Brad McRoberts prepared a report for council which he was due to present at Tuesday night’s meeting. Coverage of the meeting will be included in the April 14 issue of The Citizen, as it will be held after this week’s deadline. However, McRoberts’ report outlines a number of the issues. “The project has been posed with unforeseen challenges, due to either unknown and undocumented existing conditions or undocumented construction methods used in the existing structure,” McRoberts wrote in his report. He outlined five outstanding issues for council. First is the exterior storm drainage lines, which have cost the project an additional $104,527. “Early on in the project, it was Continued on page 6
U15 Rep Crusaders make provincial quarterfinal By Shawn Loughlin The Citizen The Blyth Brussels U15 Rep Crusaders made it to the quarterfinals of the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) Championships over the weekend in Barrie - an impressive showing and a heartbreaking end to a successful season for the team. The locals won their first game of the tournament on March 31 by a score of 2-0 over the Norwood Hornets, followed by a 4-1 victory that night over the Tillsonburg Tornadoes. The Crusaders finished first in their group with their two wins, which earned them a game against the Ilderton Jets, who won their play-in game against the Durham Crusaders on April 1 by a score of 3-0. The Crusaders would open the scoring in the second period, but the Jets would pull even in the third period. The two teams played through three scoreless overtime periods, making for a 75-minute game, and the Jets would win in a shootout,
ending the tournament for the locals. The Jets would go on to lose in the semifinals to the Essa Eagles, who then played Six Nations in the final - after Six Nations defeated the Walkerton Capitals in their semifinal match-up. Six Nations took the title with a 3-2 win. Blyth Brussels Minor Hockey Association President and team coach Brett Fischer said losing in a shootout after so much evenly-
played hockey was gutting. No one, he said, wants to lose a game that way, especially after the season the Crusaders have had. It was around the Christmas holidays, Fischer said in an interview with The Citizen on Monday, that he and the rest of the coaching staff felt the team had greatness in it and set a goal for the players and the parents to end their season at the OMHA Championship tournament. He said
the players’ work ethic, raw ability and enthusiasm for doing “the little things” that progress teams and win hockey games made the coaches see something special in their team. Then, after that conversation and setting that goal, they saw gameover-game improvement that they hadn’t seen in previous seasons. When the team would fall behind in a game, he said, the players always seemed to find a way back to salvage something from the
contest, whether it be an all-out win or a tie that would earn them a point. There was just no quit in the team, he said. So, when the Crusaders booked their ticket for Barrie for the tournament, he said he wasn’t surprised and knew the team had a good chance of winning some games there, perhaps even going all the way. The support from the community Continued on page 9
NH budget passes despite crucial concerns By Scott Stephenson The Citizen The Municipality of North Huron Council passed its 2023 budget at a statutory public meeting on Monday, April 3, despite the noted absence of Director of Finance Chris Townes, who was out sick. Councillor Chris Palmer motioned for the statutory budget meeting to be deferred until April 17 due to Townes’ absence, saying that “if there’s an error we find, it
only takes one person to answer that, and they’re not here.” This comes after council learned at its most recent budget meeting that over $180,000 in salaries and benefits had been left out of the recreation budget, a gaffe that has since been dubbed by Palmer as “Salary-gate”. The motion was seconded by Councillor Mitch Wright. Councillor Lonnie Whitfield joined Palmer and Wright in voting in favour of deferring the statutory public budget meeting, but
the motion was defeated, and the meeting continued as planned. Chief Administrative Officer Dwayne Evans stood in for Townes and read the Powerpoint presentation of the revised budget aloud, but was unable to answer several specific questions raised by Palmer and Wright about cuts to the recreation budget and the controversial use of funds from the Westario reserve for the Howson Dam decommissioning project. At the previous budget meeting,
council instructed staff to investigate other ways to pay for the dam’s demolition. Evans, reading the report, stated that, “staff investigated and feels that this is |the most appropriate reserve to draw from.” Wright expressed displeasure about the lack of an explanation regarding the use of Westario reserve funds for the project, an issue he brought up at the budget meeting on March 27 with the expectation of receiving an Continued on page 7
