City Council Ready to Take the Wraps off the 2011 Budget

Kenora City Council will be taking the wraps on the 2011 municipal budget.

A public meeting is being held this afternoon to go over the fine print in this year's fiscal document.

Council has been meeting over the past few months to try and whittle down both the operating and capital budgets.

The budget meeting will take place at 2:30 this afternoon prior to the committee of the whole meeting.

The actual budget won't officially be passed until next week.

Hospital Hoping for Funding increase in 2011

Lake of the Woods District Hospital says it still isn't sure exactly how much money it will have to work with in the 2011 fiscal year.

The provincial government promised a 1.5 percent increase in health care spending this year.

But CEO of the Hospital, Marc Belcaen says there are indications that the funding will be tied to performance related data.

Last year, the hospital had a budget of about 45 million dollars.

Allan Cup Ready to Roll

Two years of planning comes to fruition this week with the Allan Cup tournament taking center stage in town.

The week long event gets underway this afternoon with the first game at the Thistle Rink.

Judy Bain is chair of the Allan Cup Committee and says they are pleased with ticket sales so far.

Bain says their goal is to basically even, but expects they should be able to post a small surplus.

LOWBIC Lending up in 2010

The Lake of the Woods Business Incentive Corporation has a profitable year in terms of small business loans.

LOWBIC held its annual general meeting on Friday and its balance sheet showed about 1.2 million dollars lent out to 12 businesses in 2010.

Ryan Reynard is the Executive Director of LOWBIC and says there is some optimism in the tourism sector, despite a downturn in that industry in recent years.

LOWBIC says it also offered one on one, in-depth business councilling to 167 clients last year.

Hospital Bed Shortage Continues

Lake of the Woods District Hospital is seeking another two week extension to its 1-A crisis status.

The status gives patients in alternate level of care the first shot at a long term care bed when one opens up at either Pinecrest or Birchwood.

Director of Patient Care Leslie Brown says they currently have 16 patients waiting for long term care beds, which is the same, when the 1-A status was approved by the Northwest Local Health Integratin Network one month ago.

She says the 1-A status is due to expire on April 11th, but they are hoping to extend it beyond the Easter Long weekend.

Hospital CEO Marc Belcaen adds that they still haven't heard any word as to if or when Pinecrest will be able to open up 10 interim long term care beds.

Canadian Military Plans Forest Fire Training Exercise

The Ministry of Natural Resources is working with the Canadian Military in a 7-day firefighting training excercise.

About 100-military personnel and helicopters will be participating with MNR waterbombers, helicopters and firefighters.

Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Hill says the Military needs to fine-tune their policies in the event of an emergency.

'Trillium Response' will take place in Bon Echo Park near Trenton the first week of May.

Hill was one of the keynote speakers at the Northwest Response Forum in Dryden.

Teams gearing up for Allan Cup

All the teams in this weeks Allan Cup have arrive in town and are getting ready to start play today.

The round-robin begins this afternoon, with Fort Frances taking  on the South East Prairie Thunder from Steinbach.

Tonight's feature game has the host Kenora Thistles taking on the Ontario champs, the Dundas Real McCoys.

Thistles Fordward, Jeff Richards says even though they don't know much about these teams, their game plan is pretty straight forward.

The Opening Ceremonies take place at 7:30 this evening, with the puck drop in the Thistle Game at 8:00.

The other game between Fort and Southeast will start at 2:00.

OCN wins 22nd Annual NAFN Tournament

The OCN Penguins proved to be the team to beat at the 22nd annual North American First Nations tournament of Champions.

The Penguins cruised to the A-Side final and easily dispatched Norway House 8-2 in last night last in the championship game.

OCN also claimed the first prize money of 20 thousand dollars.

In the B-Side final, Shoal Lake edged the Whitedog Falcons 3-2.

In the old timers tournament, Rat Portage reclaimed the title with an easy 11-3 victory over Whitedog.