Picture about our Family Business

We never know what is going to arrive in our post office mail box, our email box, or at our front door. There are very few weeks in which we fail to receive at least one surprise - a contribution to our collection of Blyth memorabilia. This week was no exception.

The above picture of a wedding cake came this week by surface mail. At first I ignored the cake and was trying to identify the people. I soon realized that the cake was the main feature since I did not recognize the ladies behind it.

This cake came from Vodden's Home Bakery in Blyth for a wedding taking place in 1947. That was my family's first business up to 1953. My parents were Harold and Myrtle Vodden. Their bakery in 1947 was located in the building now occupied by Sharon's Miniature Museum on Queen Street.

The picture was sent to us by the bride of that wedding that took place 64 years ago. What a kind and thoughtful gesture!

She sent the following note with the parcel:

"Dear Brock and Janis:

I am slow to mail this picture.

Your Mom was sick with an infected tooth at this time, but she did a great job."

My mother did all the cake decorating for their business as well as most of the pastries. 

DEBATE WITH STEVE HOWE

MY DEBATE WITH STEVE HOWE, Director of Communications, AMDSB

On March 27, 2012 I was invited to be interviewed on the CKNX Talk Show about the replacement of our Blyth Public School and  the new Maitland River School at Wingham.

I indicated that Blyth was not properly represented in the meetings of the Accommodation Review Committee and the meeting were not properly advertised. The Communications Director of Avon Maitland District School Board came on afterwards and stated that there was no truth in what I had said. He went on at great length saying that all the communities were fully involved and consulted according to the Guidelines that the ministry required the board to follow. He said that every meeting was fully advertised in all the local papers (He mentioned The Citizen in particular.)

The truth is very different. Only one advertisement appeared in The Citizen through the entire ARC process. A small ad appeared in the December 4, 2008 Citizen,  the week before the second ARC meeting.  None of the other ARC meetings were advertised in The Citizen – not even the first meeting.  As the guy who places the ads, I guess Steve was assuming that no one would go back to check on the“facts” at the source fro 2008 an 2009.

I did!

The Ministry of Education Guidelines state that the board is responsible for recruiting a representative cross section of the community to the ARC meetings. Obviously they failed miserably at this task. Placing a tiny ad in one issue and hoping for the best does not constitute "recruitment".

One would almost think that they wanted to avoid involving people who might see what damage would come to a community losing its only school. A sort of “Mis-Direction of Communication” function.

Steve Howe said that all the meetings were reviewed in the press. Actually very few reports appeared in the Citizen. Most of the reports came from parents in letters to the editor.

Steve Howe said that the board followed all the Guidelines. The guidelines state that the community consultation must include representation by parents, educators, and business and municipal leaders from the community.  There were no Blyth business people or municipal councillors in attendance at the meetings, and the minutes of the ARC committees contain no presentations or comments by either of these groups.

Steve Howe said that there was a large attendance at all of the meetings. A parent’s letter to the editor of The Citizen on December 4, 2008 asked the question “Why aren’t people coming out to show support for their schools?” Poor attendance was consistently reported by concerned citizens.

Steve Howe said that in his opinion loss of the school may be “inconvenient” but should not create any serious problems for the communities. He further indicated that there are many communities in Huron County which are thriving despite the fact that they have never had a school. I would ask Steve to name a few of these communities.  How about Jamestown, Belfast, Bluevale, Bodmin, to name just a few?

Steve Howe said that the board adopted all of the ARC’s recommendations except the move of Grades 7 and 8 to Madill High School and the K to 6 school instead of K to 8. He forgot to mention the placement of the school in Wingham instead East Wawanosh. Also the Maitland River Elementary School is not even remotely the same as the envisioned Center of Excellence.

Steve Howe said that the new school will have many special programs with specialized teachers which would not be possible in our current schools. I would like Steve Howe to be a little more specific: Tell us what specialized programs and what specialist teachers are going to be hired, and what current teachers are going to be replaced by these new hires?

Avon Maitland has had a program for many years aimed at instilling values in all the students, values such as honesty, truthfulness, respect for others, dependability, etc.

Perhaps the Avon Maitland board and staff could acquire some of these values by joining the kids as learners!

Brock Vodden  

April 24, 2012

EMPLOYEES AT WORK

Some time ago I was shopping at a retail outlet in this area. One of the employees in that store who knows that I am a councillor, came over to me to tell me about one day when he called in at our office in Wingham. As he was being looked after at the wicket, he noticed two other employees standing off to one side having a conversation. He reported that this conversation went on for several minutes, two employees standing there not doing any work at all. Imagine how much that is costing the tax payers! I asked what they were talking about. He said that he couldn't hear what they were saying. I suggested that they might have been discussing township business. "Oh, no. One of them was laughing about something." Then I asked if both of the people were employees. Could it be that one of them was a resident getting help from a staff member? He said he had no idea whether that was the case, but it looked to him as if they were enjoying the conversation - not doing business.

Finally, I suggested that the situation he was telling me about was quite similar to the situation he and I were in. "You are hired to work in this store, but you have taken some time off to tell me abut something completely unrelated to your job. what's the difference in this case?"

I guess he had never thought about the fact that when we point a finger at someone else, there are three other fingers on the same hand pointing back at us!

SAVING BLYTH PUBLIC SCHOOL

We are coming down to the wire. Our only school in Blyth is slated to close at the end of June 2012. Most people are sure that nothing can stop this terrible event. They may be right. But I am not prepared to give up yet.

We still have two possible stoppers. Our petition with 631 signatures has been presented several times to the Ontario Legislature. It calls for a moratorium on ALL contested school closures in Ontario as well as legislative changes which will prevent rogue school boards like Avon Maitland DSB from indiscriminate closing of schools, and force school boards to adhere to the community planning principles that protect us from such destructive groups. The Ontario government must answer to us and to the legislature by early June.

The other iron we have in the fire is an appeal to the Auditor General of Ontario to review the joint and separate actions of Avon Maitland District School Board and the Ministry of Education for Ontario in the Accommodation Review process which has led to school closures and school consolidation plans in North Huron. This appeal points to the many wasteful expenditures by both bodies to support ineffective processes, the construction of a new school for which there is no educational justification, for the economic and social damage being inflicted on the community of Blyth, for the board's improper conduct of the Accommodation Review in violation of the Ministry guidelines, and the lack of vigilance of the Ministry of Education by not enforcing its own guidelines.

The collusion of the AMDSB and the Ministry left our community utterly defenceless, and both of those bodies continue to use falsified documents to justify their actions and positions. The most egregious example of this is the report prepared by the independent facilitator, Margaret Wilson and edited by the Ministry, claiming that the school board's process in the accommodation review was beyond reproach. We in Blyth know that that is absolutely false yet that is the weapon being used by the board and the ministry to beat us down. This false defence cost thousands of dollars to construct and that in my mind is not an example of positive value for dollars spent.

This kind of duplicity has been occurring in many jurisdictions across Ontario. It is a "can of worms" that I believe needs to be opened wide. We need to get back to the principle that our elected bodies such as councils and boards are to serve the best interests of those who elect them. They are not there to be co-opted by the provincial or federal government to deceive us, to beat us down, to tell us what to do or how to behave.

We citizens of Blyth have been denied our democratic rights. We are subjected to taxation without representation. Our school is about to be taken away from us. We are left without the right to appeal the decision to those who have made the decision. To add to the disgrace is the fact that our elected bodies, the school board and the provincial government are both using false and misleading information to justify what they are doing.

I do not know whether the Auditor General for Ontario will take on our case and give us some justice. I will be disappointed if such is not the case.

However I would be even more disturbed if the AGO looks at our situation and decides that no action is required. That would mean that public servants don’t have to be honest. school boards don’t need to be accountable to the public, small rural communities don’t matter. It would be saying that it’s OK to hold expensive public consultations that will never be listened to. It would mean that the Ministry of Education is within its rights to send people out to investigate school board procedures knowing that these people will always find the board blameless and the community at fault regardless of what the reality is.

That would be a hard pill to swallow.

Brock Vodden

WINGHAM FREE PRESS APOLOGIZES FOR LYING

This is the headline that we are all waiting to see in the Wingham Free Press.

It would be a positive sign that they have realized the errors of their ways, no longer acting like spoiled children, taking some responsibility for their community instead of making false accusations that make all of us look bad.

Perhaps it would be a sign that they have taken a course in Journalistic Ethics and now realize how they have been a largely negative force in North Huron.

They may also recognize that they have been successful in attracting only a few correspondents who are functionally literate.

Having attracted a group of people who missed school on the days that they taught spelling and civics , they could have explained to them that the school board and North Huron Council are two different bodies that do not share the "Town Hall". They could have been careful to help them understand that the consultant hired by Huron County Council was not hired by North Huron Council. They might have even got these poor souls to recognize that North Huron Council does not control the North Huron Police Force. Of course before they could get some of these finer points across to their correspondents, they would have to brush up on these matters themselves.

Well we can always hope that there will be brighter days ahead.

Brock Vodden

April 12 Comment of the day

Wingham Free Press and some of its correspondents continue to rant about Wingham being shunned by potential home buyers and the dearth of businesses willing to come here.

Our taxes are fairly high here, and all members of council agree with this. To reduce taxes some programs and services would need to be cut back. The problem is identifying those services that the population as a whole are willing to give up. The key phrase there is "population as a whole".

In the Citizen Survey that was conducted late last year, we learned that while there are many people hoping for reduced tax rates in all wards, there are many who want services and programs increased, and many who say that they moved to Wingham because of the services offered.

The vast majority of people responding on the survey approve strongly of nearly all of the services offered by North Huron. This includes some of the areas that some WFP correspondents want to cut.

While there may be some who stay away because of the tax rate, the present status is actually attracting people. One of the attractions is the low initial cost of the housing. Low assessment base is the result of that, and that also contributes to higher taxes.

Reducing taxes is not an easy process.

There are some very positive signs for future growth and when they occur, the tax rate could be modified considerably

I believe that the trash talk of WFP contribute more to driving people away than high taxes.

Brock Vodden

Second Comment ---- April 11

Wingham Free Press criticisms of North Huron council this week are completely unfounded.

They are saying that we have "abandoned fire contract negotiation". How can this be? There are no such negotiations going on. We have almost two years remaining on our current contract. There are no negotiations to abandon.

WFP saya that NH actions "guarantee that no compromise will be reached". To make a compromise you have to have two sides each with their own position and both sides have to search for a blending of the two positions to reach a situation  agreeable to both. Morris-Turnberry keeps changing its position so that NH has no idea where M-T stands.

NH council was offended by the Mayor's criticism of us at the County Council meeting, but that is not why we cancelled the meeting (at least in my estimation). The Mayor is launching a campaign to develop a county-wide fire service, and although I think that is a very good idea, it is not something that we and M-T need to discuss.
Separate fire department, new fire board, county fire department? What are we discussing?

Wingham Free Press, why don't you present the whole picture instead of criticizing NH for issues manufactured by others?


WFP accuses North Huron of fabricating and denying facts. WFP is constantly making up things and we could never hope to keep up denying those so-called "facts".  That's the kind of problem that gutter journalism creates.

Brock Vodden

Wed. April 11 Comment

WFP criticizes  North Huron for cancelling the  meeting with Morris-Turnberry.

We agreed to meet with Morris-Turnberry, then later at County Council we hear Mayor Gowing coming up with a completely different scenario: He called for a county-wide fire service. In proposing this he states that they cannot get North Huron to negotiate.

We think there is no point in holding a meeting if we have no idea what  M-T wants to discuss.

Back in February we got  together to coordinate all of our many areas of cooperation most of which are functioning quite well. They said they weren't prepared to go along with a joint Economic Development process.

Next day, M-T announces they are going to create their own fire department by 2014. That told  us that they don't want to negotiate; they are going on their own. We thought, that's fine! Good Luck! They have every right to do that!

Then out of the blue they sent us a letter giving us three options. The letter says that this is their last effort at trying to negotiate with us. (We had not received any indication that they had asked to negotiate. We already have an agreement which runs for two years.)

The options amount to going back to a form of the old fire board system which NH pulled out of because it was failing to provide consistent and compliant fire service. In my view none of the options were acceptable.
Fire boards are no longer recognized by emergency authorities except for "grandfathered" boards.

Their plan would leave North Huron with high standard of service out of Blyth station for Blyth and M-T offered by FD of North Huron ; and a limited service out of the proposed Turnberry station to cover the Wingham and Turnberry areas provided by M-T Fire Dept. North Huron will never accept again two different level of service for our citizens.

We were prepared to meet with them to discuss matters at that point, although some councillors were skeptical about the value of discussing a set of really bad ideas. I think the main reason we thought that meeting should be a closed meeting was that we needed to sort out the question of what M-T really wanted to talk about. We all favoured an open meeting once we clarified the questions on which we could negotiate.

Then we heard the Mayor saying that he can't deal with us and that he wants to take another completely different tack: a county-wide fire service.

It just made no sense to have that meeting when we don't know what Morris-Turnberry wants to talk about and they don't seem to know either!

The Ongoing Attack on Rural Ontario

Attack seems like a strong word, but it helps to describe the situation we in rural Ontario find ourselves.

It's a war. We have propaganda coming out of the mouths of Ministers of the Crown. We have fifth columnists in the guise of school boards sinking ships with their overworked lips. We have weapons used against us such as the hated and feared funding formula. We have traitorous groups made up of Mayors, Reeves, Councillors whose municipalities are getting fancy new schools to replace the perfectly good but about-to-be-closed schools of their neighbours. We have secret war plans worked out by sleazy school board administrators which suddenly explode onto the scene creating havoc in the community. We have local propaganda in voice and print spewing from communication officers to mislead and abuse the local people who elected their boards.

And we have victims. Children dragged away to another community like displaced persons. Local school bus businesses deprived of their livelihood by foreign infiltrators. Home owners whose property values began to subside as soon as the school closure was announced. Children losing the exercise they used to get from walking to school.

Perhaps the biggest loser in all this is the social contract which we have enjoyed in this country: the contract by which we have the opportunity to choose who will be our representatives in all levels of government and boards that do their best to represent the people they serve.

Complaints about politicians have always been a normal part of life, but in rural Ontario it seems that everything the government is doing is contrary to our common interests. Few of us feel that we have any influence on any government policy or actions.

The McGuinty government has brought about this change. It seems that everything that we in rural Ontario want from them is denied; everything that we absolutely do not want is being forced on us. Our rural way of life is being laid waste. Our communities' best features are being held against us. Our greatest achievements are being treated as failures. Our major vital contributions to the society at large are treated with scorn or ignored.

Nearly all the ministers in the McGuinty cabinet have taken to denying that there is a rural-urban divide in Ontario. They are saying that we are all the same, working together, even though at the same time they are conspiring against us just as if they were laying land mines on out pathways.

 Even our own local school board has been co-opted to undermine us. A spokesperson for the Avon Maitland District School Board proclaimed that the Accommodation Review process conducted in this area of North Huron was conducted in complete and total compliance with the Ministry Guidelines and the board's policy. Everyone in this village of Blyth knows that is completely false, and yet that false position is what is held by the Ministry of Education to be true and accurate. A lie becomes the official position about our community!

The social contract is so important but a very fragile thing. It depends on trust, goodwill, integrity, transparency, competence. When any of those qualities are missing, the social contract collapses. The Avon Maitland District School Board lacks all of those qualities just as the Ministry of Education lacks them. The social contract is in really jeopardy.

Surely there are some trustees who have the character and fortitude to stand up for a higher standard of leadership than we have seen from this board.

Brock Vodden