On time

Posted December 1, 2011 by ThunderBayClassifieds.ca in News | No comments yet

Construction crews will be working through the holiday season to ensure the consolidated courthouse meets its 2013 deadline.

Crews were up and working by 7 a.m. Wednesday as they continued to work toward this target. Graeme Silvera, vice-president with Plenary Justice, said it is what they have to do to ensure they meet their fall 2013 deadline.

“We’re on schedule for a Sept. 1, 2013 finish,” Silvera said on Wednesday.

“I don’t think they will be giving any of these guys any holidays. They obviously have a very difficult schedule to meet to finish this courthouse. We have about 22 months left before opening so it’s going to be pretty intense. I really feel for these guys working in this weather and starting at 7 a.m. every morning.”

Construction for the courthouse started in January 2010 with a total cost for the project at $148.9 million. Silvera said the courthouse, which will replace the Arthur Street Ontario Court of Justice and the Camelot Street Superior Court of Justice, would deliver efficient justice to the city.

Silvera added that the colder temperatures wouldn’t be a problem for continued construction, and said he didn’t expect any complications.

“We now have the steel erected and pretty much all of the stair cores and the elevator shafts completed,” he said.

“The part of the reason we decided to use steel was it can be constructed and built over the winter with minimal delays. There isn’t a lot of concrete to be poured. We don’t anticipate any delays.”

Silvera added that they were going to be in Thunder Bay for the next couple of days to give an update to the courthouse.

 
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Time to vote

Posted October 6, 2011 by ThunderBayClassifieds.ca in News | No comments yet

An Elections Ontario spokeswoman urges voters to remember to bring the proper documentation before they exercise their right to vote in the provincial election.

There are two ridings in this city – Thunder Bay – Superior North and Thunder Bay – Atikokan. Go here to find out what riding you will be voting in.

Ontario polls officially opened at 9 a.m. Thursday. Voters have four candidates running in the Thunder Bay – Superior North riding: Liberal incumbent Michael Gravelle; Progressive Conservative candidate Anthony LeBlanc; NDP candidate Steven Mantis; and Green Party candidate Scot Kyle.

The four candidates for Thunder Bay – Atikokan are: Liberal incumbent Bill Mauro,;Progressive Conservative candidate Fred Gilbert; NDP candidate Mary Kozorys and Green Party candidate Jonathan Milnes.

Alicia Fowlie, a communications co-ordinator with Elections Ontario, said they want to ensure that voters bring the proper documents when they come to vote but they don’t have to bring photo ID.

“What we want voters to do before they leave their homes is make sure they have the right documentation with them,” Fowlie said.

“Either their notice of registration card or identification that proves name and residents in the electoral district. They can also bring their Ontario driver’s license or permit, a utility bill or any document issued by the government of Canada, Ontario or by a municipality.”

The polls are open until 9 p.m. but the peak hours range from the morning when the stations first open, lunch hour and after work around 6 p.m. Fowlie said if people were pressed for time they should go during the off hours such as around 2 p.m.

Elections Ontario gave 29 days for people to vote. Fowlie said that strategy has paid off and more people have voted in the advanced polls compared to the 2007 election.

“As of Oct. 1, preliminary figures indicate that just about 625,000 electors casted their ballots in advance,” she said. “That’s an increase from 2007 where about 450,000 electors cast their ballots in advance. That’s also because we offered more days and more ways to vote for this election. People could start voting by Sept. 8 and by the end of tomorrow, we will have had 29 days to vote.”

“We’re just happy that people have taken advantage of the alternate choices to exercise their democratic right,” she said.
She said voters could visit the Elections Ontario website and put in their postal code to find out what riding they are in as well as the nearest voting stations.

Voting stations will be available for the Thunder Bay – Superior North riding at the Oliver Road School and 110 Redwood Avenue West for Thunder Bay – Atikokan.
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Miller time

Posted June 22, 2011 by ThunderBayClassifieds.ca in Sports | No comments yet

The Thunder Bay Border Cats modest one-game winning streak is over. Lefty Nate Smith saw to that, pitching a gem for the Alexandria Beetles at Port Arthur Stadium on Tuesday night, allowing just four hits through seven innings, the driving force behind his team’s 7-0 whitewashing of the Cats. Not that Thunder Bay’s Zak Miller, making his first start in seven appearances, was anything to complain about. Miller, in arguably his best outing after a disappointing start to 2011, went seven strong himself, allowing just five hits and a run. Miller, who will start the rest of the way for the Cats, said he never found his comfort zone in the bullpen, and heading into his first year at Arizona State, the White Rock, B.C. native said he wanted to try something different. “I just kind of wanted to stay fresh. I was struggling out of the bullpen and I asked if I could get a start to just get back to my comfort zone. Clearly from the first pitch I felt comfortable and everything was working,” said Miller, who struck out four and walked one. It was a wasted effort, though as the bullpen collapsed in the eighth and ninth, surrendering six runs as the Beetles sent nine men to the plate in both innings. “Tonight we kind of fell a bit short, but there are always positives to bring out of a game and we’ll move forward from here,” Miller said. “It came down to walks. Not to toot my own horn, coming into the seventh inning we didn’t have any walks. All those six runs that scored on the last two innings were on walks. So that’s something we’re going to have to cut down on.” Cats manager Mike Steed said there’s no doubt now the role Miller, who went undrafted by all 30 major league teams earlier this month, will play going forward. “We’ve already decided that. I thought (the start) was going to be a positive for him. There’s always that little doubt, because he’s had some hard luck, but after tonight, that’s the spot he needed to be in. He started all year at school, and we were more looking at the number of innings he’s going to throw,” Steed said. “But he’s so regimented with his six days off that I think this is a better spot for him.” Unfortunately for Steed, Miller wasn’t able to complete this one. He might have stood a better chance of getting a victory had the youngster been able to go another couple of innings. The wheels fell off the Cats wagon in the eighth, with Miller giving way to Alec Smith. Nick Gumm walked to start the Alexandria rally, then stole second and took third on a fly ball to centre off the bat of Ben Magsig. After Chris Fritts struck out, Jeremy Boyd, the leading hitter in the Northwoods League, singled hard to centre, plating Gumm. Rick Devereaux followed with a walk, then Kevin Grove doubled deep to centre, allowing Boyd to score with the Beetles third run. They weren’t done, though Smith was for the Cats. Back to back walks by Reid Rooney, Thunder Bay’s third pitcher of the night, extended Alexandria’s lead to 4-0, before Bobby Martin, the ninth Beetle to come to bat, grounded to short to end the inning. Thunder Bay’s best chance came in the fourth, when they loaded the bases with one out, trailing 1-0 at the time. But Smith responded, striking out David Fallon and inducing a grounder to third from Ty Wosleger, the weak-hitting Cats top hitter this season. Alexandria added three insurance runs in the ninth off Rooney, who only retired two batters, walking four and giving up two hits. Steed said he’d like to see a lot better effort out of the bullpen from here on in. “Our bullpen, straight up, we told them that was there responsibility tonight. We caved in in the last innings, and that’s not our strength. We’re a strong bullpen, and we didn’t show up tonight. Hopefully it’s an anomaly and it’s a one night thing,” Steed said. Cat tracks: Outfielder Andrew Ruck has left the team for the season after injuring his wrist. The Whitby, Ont. native hit .143 in five games. He was replaced on the roster by catcher Kyle Mossbarger, who hit .154 in eight games with La Crosse … Friday’s game against St. Cloud is an 11:05 a.m. start.  The team is offering free admission to its July 3 matinee against Duluth … Only 443 fans showed up to watch. View full post on Tbnewswatch.com – Sports

Extra time

Posted March 3, 2011 by ThunderBayClassifieds.ca in News | No comments yet

More four-year-olds can expect to spend added time in the classroom starting this fall.
On Wednesday the province announced its latest round of schools that will offer full-day kindergarten. Two local schools, Ogden Community Public School and St. Elizabeth Catholic Elementary School, will add the program next fall. Seven others will join the fray in 2012-13, two years ahead of all schools being provincially mandated to offer it.
Agnew H. Johnston, Hyde Park and Woodcrest public schools are the Lakehead Public Schools chosen, pushing their total to nine of 25 schools offering full-day kindergarten. St. Margaret, St. Pius X, Holy Family and St. Francis Catholic elementary schools will join from the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board side, pushing their total to seven of 15 schools.
Reaction has been mostly positive, said Sherri-Lynn Pharand, LPS’s superintendent of education, whose board has offered full-time kindergarten at several schools since 2002. And though the benefits have yet to be fully realized at the other end of the education scale, preliminary results seem to suggest they will be good.
“I think because the philosophy is learning through play, kids get to be inquisitive about their environment and what’s around them,” Pharand said. “And like anything, the more time we spend doing something, the better we are at it.”
Pharand added her board did a research study a few years ago which showed children who participate in full-day kindergarten are better prepared for Grade 1.
“They have the foundational skills that are necessary in all language development to become good readers, good writers and good at mathematics,” she said.
Tom Mustapic, the associate director of education at the Catholic board, said the feedback they’ve received has been excellent, despite only having 120 students taking part to date.
“It’s a little early for us to know if there are any significant educational benefits, but the feedback from parents is fantastic. They like the full day part of it and it stands to reason that if kids are spending twice the amount of time in school, they’re going to do better in terms of performance,” Mustapic said.
Both boards have added staff because of full-day kindergarten, and will continue to do so as the program expands, he added.
“For next year It’s going to be another position and then in 2012-13 it’s going to be four more positions,” Mustapic said.
Both boards also received significant cash injections from the province to pay for the program. Mustapic said the Catholic board is getting $500,000 for 2010-11 for operating costs, plus $400,000 in capital costs to make classroom improvements.
“For the upcoming year we’re looking at about another $150,000 and we’re expecting upward of a million dollars in extra funding incremental in 2012-13. That will make about $1.6 million in additional operating funding. On top of that we’re looking at getting about $1.5 capital funding by the end of (2012-13),” he said.
Province-wide about 900 additional schools are being added to the program, representing about 120,000 students.
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Letter – Time for a change

Posted October 4, 2010 by ThunderBayClassifieds.ca in Thunder Bay News | No comments yet

To the editor: With the municipal election upon us, it is time to review the actions of the mayor and city councillors.  As we look at the destruction of Marina Park, several questions arise.  To start with have the members of the waterfront development committee really served the citizens of Thunder Bay?  The waterfront development committee has stated that the infill of the harbour expanded the recreation area by 9,000 square metres at Prince Arthur’s Landing.   But did Marina Park really get bigger? In July 2009, the City of Thunder Bay officially sold 2.65 acres (10,724 square metres) of land in the middle of Marina Park to the developers for the purpose of building a hotel and condominiums A little math shows that the public space in the park actually shrank by over 1,700 square metres.  The recreation area in the park will be smaller, much smaller, when you add the loss of several hundred more square metres of land along the new fence line.  If you look closely, you will notice that the fancy new fence was built about a metre inside of the existing fence line, apparently to keep it on city property.  The total loss of recreation land at Marina Park is over 2,000 square metres.  This is a conservative estimate, as the new settling pond required for the hotel/condo development will take out another few hundred square metres of parkland and the CN Station has been leased for 99 years, taking it out of the public domain. There are more questions to be asked about the cost of the waterfront redevelopment.  A little more math shows the real costs of this so-called development on taxpayers.  In August, 2009, city council approved a contract for the infill of the waterfront and covering up of the docks for $8,414,164.  A couple of weeks later, city council approved a tender for the sewer and water servicing for $2,542,861.  That’s a total of $10,957,025.   The city is to be paid the paltry sum of $662,500 for the land in the agreement with the developers.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the net cost to the taxpayers. The fact is that taxpayers will have paid a net amount of over $10 million to create and service land for developers not to create additional recreation land.  This travesty continues. Marina Park is on a known brownfield – land contaminated by over a century of toxins from being a terminus for the railway and shipping. On Oct. 4, council will debate the costs of an additional tender for the remediation of this land, which is rumoured to be over $1 million.  Will the councillors do their job and question why the city is paying the costs to remediate this land?  Will they ask why this particular hotel development land is the city’s cost, when the council refused to pay for $300,000 to share the costs of remediating the land for a proposed Marriot Hotel at the corner of the Harbourview Expressway and Carrick Street?  Why is one hotel developer being favoured over another one?    Where were the voices of our elected representatives in these decisions?  Why did they not do the math before squandering millions of taxes on the Mistake by the Lake? City council members of the waterfront committee are: Mayor Lynn Peterson and Couns. Mark Bentz, Aldo Ruberto, Brian McKinnon, Joe Viridamo and Andrew Foulds.  Only Couns. Larry Hebert and Linda Rydholm have questioned this dubious use of tax dollars in a depressed economy. All citizens need to think carefully about our choices for mayor and councillors in the next election.  Can we afford to re-elect the incumbents who have saddled us with a massive new debt and given away public land that was developed for our city by previous councils?  What kind of councillors do we want next time?  Make sure your vote counts for a mayor and councillors whose decisions make sense, not nonsense.
 

Heather Woodbeck, Thunder Bay

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A time to remember

Posted June 14, 2010 by admin in Thunder Bay News | No comments yet

After losing a loved on be gentle with yourself and expect the unexpected, says a spiritual co-ordinator with the regional hospital More than 160 attended the memorial service held at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre on Sunday. The ocne annual service, now held twice a year, offered families and friends a chance to remember loved ones who had passed away in the hospital within the year. Rev. Wendy Stone, coordinator of Spiritual and Religious Care, said it is a chance for families to mourn as well as celebrate the life of those they lost. She said it was important to have memorial services so families and friends could find closure. “There is no doubt when someone loses a loved one they’re grieving,” Stone said. “They’re in a state of shock usually and disoriented and putting one step in front of the other. Some time between the death and a service like this can allow for some healing to take place.” Stone said she wanted to help in the healing by providing comfort and acknowledging the life lost. The regional hospital hired three chaplains who over look bedside care. Stone said herself and the other two chaplains support patients while they’re ill and assisting people who distance themselves from their religion or faith and added that the hospital operated with a multi-faith belief. While attending many sick and dying patients, Stone said she overcame those challenges through training and believing in her faith that she could make a difference. The regional hospital originally held the annual memorial service only once a year. Stone said the increase of people attending the service assisted in the decision to host another one during the year. “It seems to be necessary to hold the memorial service twice a year and we’re pleased to do so,” she said.

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