Exeter, Usborne and Stephen amalgamated 25 years ago

South Huron was created 25 years ago through the amalgamation of Usborne and Stephen Townships with the Town of Exeter. To mark the milestone, Rob Morley, the first mayor of South Huron, spoke during the April 16 council meeting. In front from left are Morley and current Mayor George Finch. In middle from left are Coun. Marissa Vaughan, Coun. Milt Dietrich, Coun. Aaron Neeb, Drew Robertson (former councillor for Ward 1), Barb Robertson, Laurie Dykstra (former deputy clerk), Jane Brown (spouse to Larry Brown, South Huron’s first CAO). In back from left are Deputy Mayor Jim Dietrich, Coun. Ted Oke, Keith and Sandra Strang (former clerk), Jamie Parker (son of former Road Superintendent Ken Parker), Mag Urlin (spouse of former Deputy Mayor Dave Urlin), along with her daughters Tracey Urlin-Whitesell and Jodi Urlin-Kukulaand, and Coun. Wendy Mcleod-Haggitt.

By John Miner

When the Ontario government first started suggesting that municipalities should look for partners to merge with in order to cut costs, Rob Morley said councils didn’t take it seriously.

“We listened to them, but we didn’t really care. We were okay,” Morley said in a presentation to South Huron Council marking the 25th anniversary of the amalgamation of Usborne and Stephen Townships with the Town of Exeter.

Two events changed that attitude, said Morley, reeve of Usborne Township prior to amalgamation and the first mayor of South Huron.

One was the move by the Ontario government in 1998 to collapse 23 local governments covering the townships, villages, towns and city in Kent County into a single municipality called Chatham-Kent.

“Believe me, they weren’t really happy and the rest of us got real scared, real fast. All of a sudden everything they had been telling us was starting to look for real,” Morley said.

The second event that convinced remaining skeptics that change was coming was the Walkerton water tragedy.

“That really woke a lot of us,” said Morley. “We knew there was going to be change then.”

A South Huron amalgamation committee was formed with Morley elected chair and Larry Brown, clerk of Stephen Township, elected secretary.

Meetings were held with neighbouring municipalities, including Grand Bend, Bosanquet, Village of Thedford, Hay Township, Blanshard Township and the Village of Lucan.

While Grand Bend was keen to join with the South Huron group, it was in another county. Some municipalities simply wanted to stay the way they were.

In the end, it was Usborne, Stephen and Exeter that agreed to join.

The amalgamation agreement stipulated that each municipality would maintain their own work sheds with only one road manager. It was also stipulated that the financial assets of Exeter, Stephen and Usborne would be put into separate reserves to be used in those former municipalities.

The fire departments were merged under one administration, along with the arenas, sports fields and community centres.

In the first election of the newly created South Huron, Morley was elected mayor, Dave Urlin deputy mayor, Drew Robertson and Harvey Ratz as councillors for Stephen Ward, Ken Oke for Usborne Ward and Pete Armstrong and Joe Hogan for the Exeter Ward.

Larry Brown was the new CAO, Sandra Strang clerk, Laurie Dykstra deputy clerk, Ken Parker road manager and Jane McPherson treasurer.

Morley said it took a lot of hard work to make the new municipality function over the next few years. The credit belonged to the staff more than to the elected council, he said.

“Council wasn’t the major ingredient when this municipality was put together.”

Morley said Larry Brown as CAO was amazing.

“He could talk you into buying snow on a wintry day. He was good at his job. What he said was gospel, he was smooth and he understood people.”

One of the biggest setbacks for the new municipality was the receivership of the contractor rebuilding the library and municipal offices in the adjoining town hall.

As a result, staff were jammed into a few offices, working elbow to elbow for two years before the library and town hall project was complete.

Morley praised the current council for the Main Street reconstruction project and obtaining the funding from the province. That was something that was on council’s plate back in 2001.

Asked by Mayor George Finch for his advice on obtaining funding from upper levels of government, Morley said to go after them for everything, absolutely everything.

“You never get anything unless you ask,” he said.