Change Your Clocks – Change Your Batteries

It’s that time again! Fall has arrived and it’s your reminder to change the clocks and change the smoke alarm batteries as well.

Fire Chief Brent Marshall says, “We change the clocks back one hour on Sunday November 6th, and this couldn’t be a better reminder to change your smoke alarm batteries”. Smoke alarms without batteries or with dead batteries, will not sound and give you the warning and precious seconds you need, to escape a fire.

Once the batteries have been changed, test the alarm to ensure it will sound. One easy way to test the alarm is to hold a lit incense stick 10 – 12” below the device and let the smoke drift upwards into it until it sounds. Once the alarm sounds, fan the smoke away and consider giving it a quick vacuum to remove any dust and contaminants that may have accumulated over the past few months.

Keep in mind as well, that smoke alarms do not last forever. The fire service suggests that smoke alarms between 7 and 10 years old, be considered for replacement. Manufacturers’ specifications may also indicate the expiry date or life span, however, in general terms the life of a smoke alarm is 10 years and replacement is due.

Unfortunately, the Fire Service continues to find residential occupancies without working smoke alarms. With the minimal costs of smoke alarms today, it is difficult to understand why there are not working smoke alarms in every home. Since March 1, 2006 the Ontario Fire Code requires a working smoke alarm on every level of the home, including the basement and outside all sleeping areas.

It is well known that properly installed and maintained smoke alarms prevent injury and saves lives. Let’s have everybody do their part and ensure they have working smoke alarms in their home. Halton Hills has not experienced a fire fatality since 2004, let’s continue being successful in keeping these tragedies from occurring in our community.

In keeping with this years’ Fire Prevention Week theme “Protect Your Family From Fire”, everybody should have a well rehearsed home escape plan. The development and rehearsal of a home escape plan can ensure a quick, safe evacuation of family members.

More information on the purchase or placement of smoke alarms is available at the Information Centre in the Georgetown Market Place, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11:00 – 2:00. You may also call 905-877-1133 and ask for the Public Education Division for any additional information.

YOUth Matter!

Weigh in on the findings at the Youth Needs Study Public Open Houses November 2 & 3

Town of Halton Hills has under gone a Youth Needs Study (YNS) to ensure that the Town’s provision and management of recreation programs, facilities and services continue to meet the needs of youth between the ages of 13 and 19. For the past year, YNS has been gathering the thoughts, feedback and comments of youth in Halton Hills. The data has been tabulated and the results are in!

Community members are encouraged to come out to the YNS Open Houses and weigh in on the findings! There will be snacks, music, and prizes (including the iPods). To be entered in the draw for an iPod youth must simply ‘like’ YNS on Facebook.

YNS Public Open Houses
November 2nd
Acton District High School, 6:30-8:30pm

November 3rd
Civic Centre, Georgetown, 6:30-8:30pm

Transportation is available; please contact youth@haltonhills.ca or 905.873.2601 ext. 2276 for details.

“The YNS is an opportunity for youth and their families to have a say in what is provided for youth in our community” says Mayor Bonnette. “I encourage everyone to come out to the Open House to provide their feedback and ensure that the youth voice has been heard”.

For more information visit the Town’s website at www.haltonhills.ca/youth or Facebook/yns.

It's the time of year.

What is October without a few good days of heavy rains and high winds. Seems we have had our share lately. Last week the G.T.A. had experienced close to 100 k winds. Now today and tomorrow the G.T.A. are expecting anywhere from 25-35 mm of rain in the next 24 hours with more high winds. This can cause power shortages and creeks and rivers to flood. Let's hope not.
The Conservation authorities have already issued water warnings so be careful and use caution. Now if we are going to get a storm and real miserable weather I for one don't mind it during the week as long it is passed before the long weekend.
It doesn't look too bad for the weekend. Let's hope so.

Buy American v2.0

Here we go again! The Americans two weeks ago introduced the American Jobs Act. If this passes, Canadian manufacturers will once again feel the squeeze of the Buy American rules. Have the Americans not learned from their “Buy American” from a few years ago? Protectionism was one of the leading causes of the “Great Depression”. Trade barriers hurt both countries.

It is exasperating that Canada may be back in the same position it was in 2009. Led by Halton Hills, municipalities from across Canada took a stand and said enough of Americans shutting out Canadian companies from bidding on these infrastructure projects. Meanwhile US companies were allowed to bid on Canadian infrastructure projects. We have local jobs to protect. Last time around the Federal Government was very reluctant to get involved. This time around, Minister Fast was quick to criticize the new American Jobs Act. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities will be keeping a close eye on these latest developments.

Roz Weston Lane and Acton

I wrote earlier about Lord Johnny Acton visiting Acton who gave our Town a lot of publicity. It was a summer of positive advertising for the Town of Acton thanks to former resident Roz Weston of 92.5 KISS FM fame and also a regular on ET Canada.

Roz and Mocha are two radio personalities on KISS FM and they started to call me in June and July as Roz wanted a street named after him. It was a lot of fun and to hear him speak so positively about the Town he grew up in. He is a small Town kid who did well. I came up with an idea to name the “unnamed” laneway behind Tim Horton's to the Beer store “Roz Weston Lane”. The radio station called me one more time to see if I had found anything. Of course this is all in good fun and very whimsical. Roz would brag to me on the air how famous he is. This is show biz and he is not that conceited. So I announced on the air about this dirt lane way with its own dumpster.

He loved the idea along with “Damn it” Maurie (his producer) and of his other half Mocha. Hence the radio station went into high gear promoting Acton leading up to the Acton Fall Fair. The played a great jingle on air, poking fun at Roz and promoting Acton. KISS FM did a live feed on Saturday September 17th from the Tim Horton’s. Tim Horton’s joined in as part of the promotion and gave out free coffee mugs to the first 100 people. They also promoted the Acton Fall Fair at the same time.


On Saturday, before the Fair we had the official unveiling of the Roz Weston Lane. The sign was covered by a potato sack (how fitting). Roz made a great speech about his time growing up in Acton. He jokingly said, "He got this by bullying the small town Mayor." Unfortunately, some with no sense of humour took this to heart once they read this in a local paper. It was all in jest fun. People who know me, know I don't get bullied. Roz road with me in the parade along with my wife Josey, DJ Climax, Maurie and Mocha. It was great to see his mother Diana who came back to town to see this. Diana had a fabric store in Acton.

The positive publicity for the Acton was unbelievable. For instance, never mind the countless times Acton, Tim Horton's and the Acton Fall Fair were mentioned by KISS FM. It was also on 680 news, CTV, the Metro newspaper and ET Canada gave Roz and Acton 30 seconds of fame. Not bad for what started out as a joke.

People from Acton should be proud of Roz for his accomplishments and I personally would like to thank Maurie Sherman who was relentless. All in all, I cannot think of another week where the Town of Acton, with Halton Hills has so much positive publicity by hosting Lord Johnny Acton and Roz Weston.

Lord Acton Visits Acton

These past couple of weeks have really put Acton on the map! We had the announcement of Lord Johnny Acton and Lady Lucinda was coming to Acton. This news made the Toronto Star and as late as Friday, the front page of the Glove and Mail.

The Acton Town Hall was the place to be on Sunday night as Johnny spoke to a packed house about his family tree. He is a very interesting character.

Lord Acton of Glouscestershire, England has written 13 books. Many of them off beat topics from soup to comedy and even hot air ballooning.

He had quite the Canadian experience. He canoed. Attended the Halton Regional annual farm tour. He was a judge for Miss Acton at the Fall Fair. He and Lady Lucinda better known as Percy were at the Acton Fall Fair eating varieties of Fair Food as well as looking at all of the various animals.

His speech at the Acton Town Hall was very interesting as he spoke about his family tree. Many of his relatives were scoundrels and rogues. He was quite open about it. Mind you, as I said, at the dinner if we all looked into our family tree there would be a lot of monkeys in it as well.

He will be making sausages at the Acton Farmer's Market on Thursday. That is his specialty. He is very down to earth and very engaging. Congratulations to those who went on Facebook to invite him to Acton.

Goderich Tornado Serves as a Wakeup Call

Have you ever thought of a Tornado coming to your Town? I am sure that like most communities in Ontario we think that it can never happen to us.

I remember the day the cluster of Tornadoes hit Arthur, Grand Valley, the Orangeville Race Track and later devastated Barrie. It was such a humid day you couldn't breath. I was working at my travel agency in Acton at the time and I remember going outside and the sky was black, I was dripping with perspiration yet there was a breeze. I came into the office and told my empoyees that we could get a tornado. Immediately they scoffed replying we don't get tornadoes here. One hour later Barrie was devastated and I believe 8 people perished. Probably the worst tornado in Ontario's history.

In 1979 Woodstock was also hit with a Tornado as was Perth in 1995. The reality is Ontario gets has many as 15 - 20 tornadoes a year. Most are in the F0 to F1 category so their damage is limited.

Could one come to Halton Hills? You betcha, last year it was thought that a Tornado it downtown Milton but it was later confirmed as a wind burst which did considerable damage to the down town.

Our Fire Emergency Services had a Tornado simulation exercise earlier this year. I can tell you that as much as you can never be fully prepared for a tornado the Town does have a plan for such an emergency. Let’s hope we never have one and give our thoughts and support for Goderich as they have been devastated.