WHERE TIRES ARE A SPECIALTY, NOT A SIDELINE. Farm - Auto - Truck - Industrial - Lawn & Garden - On The Farm Service
35 Howard Ave., ELMIRA, ON | 519-669-3232
09 | 21 | 2017 VOLUME 22 | ISSUE 38
RESTRUCTURING SEES RETURN OF RURAL POLICING LIVING HERE PAGE 24
COMMENT PAGE 6
NOTHING WRONG WITH ENVIRONMENTAL SKEPTICISM
St. Jacobs neighbours want township to act on suspect pit bull-cross STEVE KANNON SUSPECTING THE DOG THAT came with a new family in their neighbourhood is a pit bull-cross, some St. Jacobs residents want quick action from the township. The dog attacked a rabbit hutch on the property next door, with one of the animals having to be euthanized. Owners Todd and Melissa Metzger had contacted Woolwich officials in the spring when the new neighbours moved in, expressing concerns the dog appeared to be a pit bull-cross. Pit bulls have been ostensibly banned in the province since 2005. Melissa Metzger said her concerns were dismissed by the township. Since the attack in August, Woolwich bylaw enforcement staff has launched an investigation, but has not been responsive to the couple’s request for an update. Nor is the township following its own guidelines that seem to indicate the owners should be forced to muzzle the dog even while the investigation continues, she added. She and other neighbours who were out in support appeared at Woolwich council Tuesday night to express fears the dog might harm one of their children. The Metzgers, for instance, have four kids, foster others and run a home daycare. DOG | 28
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MAKING A PLAN / GREENING INITIATIVE
Looking for input Community group working with Woolwich to develop a 20-year greening plan for Elmira’s trees
Susan Bryant (left) and fellow committee member Igna Rinne will be taking part in a public meeting Monday about the Elmira Greening Initiative.
FAISAL ALI WHEN THE LAST OF the ash trees that lined Elmira’s main thoroughfare fell prey to the emerald ash borer and were cut down in 2015, the core may have lost a portion of its charm and character. There have been a number of tree-planting programs by a variety of community groups to help make Elmira greener, but now one group is working with the township to create a single unified plan for the town that will guide these disparate projects over the next 20 years. In drafting that plan, the group is asking for the public’s
input at a meeting Monday night at Trinity United Church. “This is people’s chance to contribute ideas that anyone who lives in this community I’m sure at some point or another has said: ‘Why don’t they blank, blank, blank?’” said Susan Bryant, chair of the committee behind the project, the Elmira Greening Initiative. “They say it to us,” added Inga Rinne, a fellow committee member. “Or, ‘why did they?’” said Bryant. “So this is their chance to say, ‘OK, here’s what I feel I’m missing in this community, or that I think will enhance life in this community.’”
[FAISAL ALI / THE OBSERVER]
Bryant and Rinne are members of the Township of Woolwich Environmental Enhancement Committee (TWEEC), a volunteer group that’s an official committee of township council. The group hired an environmental consultancy firm, Natural Resource Solutions Inc., to create a plan that the community can work towards in Elmira over the next 20 years. The hope is that once the plan is drafted, it will be officially adopted by the township. It’s still early to say what a final plan might look like, but there are a number of questions for the public to consider. Where would people like to see trees
and green spaces, parks and benches in Elmira? What are the priority locations? What varieties of trees and plant life do people want to see? One of the disadvantages to the uniform ash trees planted along Arthur Street was that they were all susceptible to the same disease as well. Removing the stricken trees back in 2015 was estimated to cost the township $6,000. With limited resources available to devote to green infrastructure projects in the town, Bryant and Rinne say a plan can help avoid unnecessary expenses like that, and encourage INPUT | 2