The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Volume 72, Number 35 GST Included $1.25 Wednesday September 16, 2009 Publications Mail Registration No. 09301 Agreement No. 40012366 Serving Kendal, Kirby, Leskard, Newcastle, Newtonville, Orono, Starkville and Tyrone since 1937 Fair attendance smashes all records Attendance at the 157th Durham Central Fair was the best on record. On a normal year, between 22,000 and 23,000 people go through the gates, according to Gate Manager Bill Tomlinson. This year's attendance was 28,000. "Saturday's attendance blew the roof off," Tomlinson told the Orono Times on Monday night. Attendance on Saturday alone was 70 percent of last year's total attendance, he said. Last year's fair was plagued with inclement weather, whereas this year's fair enjoyed four days of bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Thursday evening's wrestling show, a new event for the Fair, drew the largest Thursday night crowd ever at the Fair. "The mood was good," for a number of the changes made to the fair this year, according to Fair Manager John Conrad. A provincial government grant allowed the Fair Board to purchase a big tent, in which they ran the new General Store this year. The General Store concept will grow, but the tent will better equip the Fair to survive a bad year, according to Conrad. Amid the good mood, there were a few bad incidents. On Thursday afternoon, one of the food vendors pulled into the fairgrounds with his trailer on fire and the fire department was called to extinguish the blaze. In the FAIR see page 4 Seven-year-old Kaitlyn Hoogeveen (left), with her calf Star, and nine-year-old Michael Hoogeveen, with his calf Medusa, wait for their turn in the ring Friday morning during 4H Dairy Club Day at the Orono Fair. Snow Clearing Program may be re-instated Clarington councillors are looking for some way to keep the Senior Snow Clearing Program alive. The program was cancelled by councillors at the July 20th council meeting as they could not provide the service throughout the entire municipality, and because it was not a core service the municipality is mandated to provide. No suitable bid was submitted for the three-year snow clearing contract which the Municipality put out for tender in the spring of this year. The only contractor who was qualified to submit a bid for the tender entered a bid only for the Bowmanville portion of the contract. As councillors knew they were facing budgetary constraints, and the service could not be provided to all qualified seniors and disabled persons, they voted to cancel the program for the 2009/2010 season. At Monday's General Purpose and Administrations Committee meeting, Councillor Adrian Foster raised the subject again, and suggested councillors "think outside the box" for a means to re-instate the program. Councillor Ron Hooper suggested the municipality look at using high school students needing to fulfill their 40-hour community service requirement to provide the service. Mayor Jim Abernethy suggested that a registration fee be initiated so the program could be operated with a cost recovery component. "Sure there are a number of people who took advantage of the service because it was free," he stated. The program might be saved through a combination of a registration fee, and using high school students to provide the service, according to Abernethy. Of the $85,000 allocated to the Senior Snow Clearing Program in the 2009 budget, $27,491 has been spent removing snow in the first half of this year. When the program was eliminated from the 2009 budget in the August 31st special council meeting dealing with the budgetary shortfall, a savings of $20,000 was absorbed into the budget. Councillors asked staff to take a second look at the program and create a report suggesting ways the program could be reinstated with minimal impact to the budget. Fair Results See page 5