Little Falls - St Marys Ontario

In a letter to the St Marys Independent last week Alice Lloyd wrote:

Just wondering why the Town of St Marys that has money to spend on things that are not needed, but can’t find the money to put up a proper monument for the Men who gave their lives for their country and home town. Instead there is a couple of plaques on the town hall wall that you need a magnifying glass to read the names.

This election year something to give thought to what should have been done a long time ago.

She included a pictures of the little plaques on the town hall and the giant stone sign recently put up in front of the Garage Mahal then made the comment ‘look at these photo’s and think what is most important’.

The plaque on the left was put up in 1995 to include names of the men left off of the original plaque.

St Marys Council and St Marys Presbyterian Church have managed to subvert Habitat for Humanity.

With regular taxpayers footing the bill, the holy members of St Marys Presbyterian got St Marys Council to give away a $50,000 lot.

Wasn’t the idea of Habitat for Humanity to help people help themselves? How does St Marys Presbyterian surrogate St Marys Council giving away a $50,000 do any thing but bring out the worst in people?

The rich folk at St Marys Presbyterian should be asking themselves how to undo the mess they have created at Habitat for Humanity on James Street, St Marys, Ontario.

A 3 day festival of Canadian music begins today in Stratford. Located at Lorne Ave at the foot of Romeo Street, general admission tickets are $45 plus handling for a day pass $99 plus handling for a weekend pass

Today gates open at 4pm with Stabilo, Hedley, Sloan and Nelly Furtado performing.
Tomorrow gates open at 4pm with acts Bobnoxious, Controller.Controller, Hawksley Workman and The Tragically Hip.
Sunday, September 10 gates open at 1pm performing are Dayna Manning, Brittlestar, Jacksoul, Ron Sexsmith, Jim Cuddy Band and Bachman/Cummings.

The opening acts will start about an hour after the doors have opened. The headliners for each night (Nelly Furtado, The Tragically Hip and Bachman/Cummings) will be hit the stage at about 9pm. Earlier sets are roughly 30-45 minutes and set lengths will get longer as the day progresses with headlining artists performing for 90 - 120+ minutes.

The headline in the August 31 Stratford Beacon Herald screams ‘New ethanol plant hangs in the balance’ a week later the September 6 St Marys Journal Argus gets around to making their lead story ‘Ethanol plant urges vote on annexation’ in between the St Marys Independent front page story is ‘New ethanol plant hinges on their decision’.

The story is about whether Perth County will approve St Mary annexing land from Perth South so First Nations Ethanol Development can build an ethanol plant on the land. St Marys and Perth South have agreed and Perth County needs to give the final go ahead.

The problem is Perth County have asked the questions - What difference does it make which municipality owns the land? Wouldn’t the plant have a greater chance of long-term success if it pays Perth South’s much lower taxes? Wouldn’t Mitchell be a better location anyway?

All good questions. It shows Perth County is doing its job so I wonder why the newspapers are painting them as bad guys.

San Jose Sharks forward and St. Pauls, Ontario native Mark Bell was arrested in San Jose on Monday for drunk driving and felony hit-and-run after rear-ending a pickup truck at a stop sign then taking off. The police found Bell a short distance away, he was arrested and booked into the San Jose County Jail and released on a 35-thousand dollar bond later that day.Bell is scheduled to appear in court on September 18th, three days after the Sharks open training camp. Bell was acquired by the Sharks from the Chicago Blackhawks in July. As a junior he played a season in Stratford before moving up to the Ottawa 67s. While playing in Ottawa Bell was charged with assaulting a cab driver and as a result performed 50 hours of community service.

Monday’s editorial in the Stratford Beacon Herald on the St Marys Pyramid Centre showed they don’t have a clue about the project but they did make one valid point.

Most of the editorial could have been written by St Marys Council. Reading the piece you might think the process for the Pyramid Centre has been an open and above board when of course St Marys Council and Staff have bobbed, weaved and deceived to get the thing approved.

The only valid point the editorial made was how late in the day some opponents have been in coming forward. There have been many vocal opponents especially after consultants Monteith Brown recommended against the project but it is only in recent weeks people like Andrew Atlin and Robby Smink have make their views known.

Its nice that Andrew Atlin has finally come to the party but as Library Board head, former councillor and a Chartered Accountant he might have had more influence if he had voiced his opinion 6 months ago. Likewise, Robby Smink’s letter to the editor would have been more effective when he was on the Downtown Revitalization Committee and had the ear of Council not now that he has quit.

Just as I decided Frank Doyle was the area’s worst reporter along comes Bill Snowden.

In his story ‘Groundbreaking For Pyramid Recreation Centre’ for ‘Inside Stratford/Perth’ he writes:

“The Ontario Strategic Infrastructure Financing Authority, overseen by the Ontario Ministry of Finance, has allocated $12.5 million towards the (St Marys Pyramid) project, according to Pyramid Recreation Centre fund-raising head Kelly Deeks”

Snowden obviously thinks that the province is paying for the project so he missed the real story which is that St Marys taxpayers are paying the huge cost of the project and are beginning to revolt.

Instead of hanging around Kelly Deeks, Bill Snowden should have looked over the shoulder of Debora van Brenk of the London Free Press, Donal O’Connor of the Stratford Beacon Herald or Andrea Macko of the St Marys Journal Argus who got the real story. What those reporters wrote is at www.freewebs.com/stmaryspyramid/press.htm.

UPDATE: The July 28 issue of Inside Stratford/Perth again covered the Pyramid Centre this time with a story, an editorial and even Andrew Atlin’s Open Letter. This go round the paper got all the facts right probably because editor Richard Roth wrote the story and editorial.

Jeff Taylor came up with the phrase ‘Garage Mahal’ in a letter to the editor this week. He is referring to the $2.2 million + replacement of the town barns currently being built. Councillor Dave Cunningham, who apparently forgot he voted for the project, has referred to it as the Taj Mahal in a St Marys Council meeting.

Jeff Taylor’s phrase is funny but rest of his letter is not much of a rib-tickler. You can read his letter here.

In April Mayor Tony Winter threatened to sue Jeff Taylor over his last letter to the editor. You can read that letter here. Of course it would take an army of lawyers to sue everyone who thought Mayor Winter was incompetent.

It turns out the death of a Kitchener man near Bayfield over the weekend was not suspicious after all. The Ontario Provincial Police were looking into the death of 54-year-old Robert Schneider after his body was found at a farm house on Sunday. Huron O.P.P. say Schneider had tied a hammock to a tree with a rotten trunk and was lying in it when the tree broke, hitting him in the head. He managed to get into the home but died of his injuries.

Today Fr Tom Mooney is being honoured for his 50 years as a priest at the Holy Name of Mary Roman Catholic Church, 149 King St North. The celebration will be held in conjunction with the parish family picnic and starts with the 11 am Sunday Mass.

Fr Tom spent 7 years in Peru and in southwestern Ontario has served at St Martins, London, Precious Blood, Windsor, St Marys, Simcoe, St Josephs, Stratford, All Saints, Strathroy, St Marys, London and St Marys, Woodstock.