Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Local Sports Round Up

St. Thomas Aquinas' girls hockey team lost on the road yesterday to the Dryden Eagles. The final score was 4 to 1.

Elsewhere, the Fort Frances Muskies boys hockey team defeated the Beaver Brae Broncos 12-1

On the court, the Fort Frances Muskies junior boys basketball team defeated Kenora's Beaver Brae Broncos 30-18

The junior Beaver Brae Girls volleyball team beat the Muskies in four-sets.

Hospital Board New Committee

The Lake of the Woods Hospital board is looking at the future of health care in Kenora.

The hospital board formed a committee recently to deal with health services and facilities in the community.

Chair Debbie Baldwin says they're looking for as much input as they can get about how to go about building a new hospital.

Baldwin notes they'll be meeting with representatives from the NW LHIN and the Ministry of Health.

Group Home Funding


Kenora-Patricia Child and Family Services is getting almost 1.5 million dollars from the federal and provincial levels of government tobuild a new group home in the City of Kenora.

The facility will be located beside the former Our Lady of the Valley School and replace the Birchcliff Group Homes on Coker road.

Bob Onysko is a spokesperson for the local children's aid society and saysthey have met with local residents about the project.

The total project will cost 2.2 million dollars and will include two, six bed units.

Kenora M.P. Greg Rickford announced funding for the project earlier this week.

Kenora Catholic School Board Executive

The Kenora Catholic District School Board will be staying the course for another year.

Darryl Michaluck was re-elected chair during the board elections heldlast night.

Michaluck says now that they have completed work on a couple of key capital projects, they can now focus on plans to move their board offices.

Michaluck beat out Frank Bastone for the chair position.

He'll be joined one the executive once again by Mike Favreau, who was elected vice-chair.

Ontario Colleges Strike

A walkout looms now that talks aimed at forging a new contract for Ontario's nine-thousand community college teachers have broken off.

OP-SEU says the breakdown leaves it no choice but to plan for a strike vote on January 13th.

The union says it had modified its bargaining position, but says college negotiators insisted OP-
SEU pull 69 demands off the table.

No further talks are planned.

OPSEU is the union for Confederation College staff in Kenora, and the rest of its campuses in Northwestern Ontario.

Northwestern Ontario Grandparent Scam

OPP want area residents to be aware of a scam that has been reported in Northwestern Ontario.

Police say there has been a marked increase in the number of complaints regarding the so-called Grandparent Scam.

Officer say a grandparent receives a phone call from a con-artist claiming to be on of the grandchildren.

The caller goes on to say they are in some kind of trouble and need money immediately.

The person goes on to say they don't want any other relatives to know and they are scared what will happen if they can't secure the funds.

Mill Ownership

The idled plywood and waferboard mills at Longlac Wood Industries have been acquired by a group including the Municipality of Greenstone, Ginoogaming First Nation and private investors.

The new company is to be called Kenogami Industries.

There is no word yet on when the operation, which made furnitureproducts under Kruger, might go back into production.

About 130 workers were laid off in January when it stopped operating.

In their heyday, the two mills employed up to 400 people.

Another Drug Bust NWO

Another major drug bust has occured in Northwestern Ontario, this time at the Thunder Bay Airport.

The OPP, and Nishinawbe Aski's joint investigation resulted in the seizure of 55-thousand dollars worth of Oxycodone pills.

20 year old Nicole Shoomin of Big Trout Lake was intercepted on her way back to Big Trout from Thunder Bay and has been charged with puirpose of trafficking in Oxycondone.

Highway 17 Accident

The Special Investigations Unit has released the identities oftwo people killed in a head-on collision near Sturgeon Falls.

The S-I-U says 20-year-old Angele Penasse of Sturgeon Falls and 23-year-old Ghislain Gareau of Verner died in Sunday night's collision.

The O-P-P have said they were making an arrest at a RIDE checkpoint when Gareau fled the scene, then used a spike belt to stop the vehicle.

But the driver kept going and hit an eastbound vehicle on Highway 17.

Both drivers died at the scene.