After a nearly 35-year career with the St. Thomas Police Service – the last five at the helm – Chief Chris Herridge, this week announced he is retiring.
“It is time for a new journey,” noted Herridge.
Speaking with Herridge minutes before the official announcement on Thursday, he confided, “It is a personal and professional decision.”
He continued, “My family, Kim and the girls, have given up so much for my career in policing.
“The time has come, I have 34-plus years when it is all said and done and it’s time to give back to them. I’m a grandfather now.”
Like an athlete hanging up the cleats or skates, Herridge stressed, “It’s time.”
Herridge observed, “People always say you will realize it. I still love this job but as much as I love it, it’s time.”
To use another sports analogy, you are best to go out on a winning or high note.
“We have made tremendous strides in transforming into one of the most professional, advanced and transparent police services in Ontario,” noted Herridge.
“Leadership is about preparing, empowering and inspiring others to lead. Continue reading
Category Archives: Health Care
For Devon Church, what St. Thomas municipal council needs is a candidate with ‘lived experience’
As he campaigns for a seat on city council, Devon Church confidently proclaims when elected, not if.
Specifically, “When elected, I will be accountable, dedicated and propel council towards innovation and positive change.”
Church is a registered nurse at Southwestern Public Health who bemoans the lack of lived experience on the present council.
Church feels members of council “were mostly folks from a higher income level trying to figure out what to do with folks from lower incomes.”
Every candidate points to the need for solutions to issues plaguing the downtown core.
Church offers alternatives.
“I believe we need a downtown drop-in space that is accessible to all, that includes food and beds.”
But it is not the existing emergency shelter known as The Inn.
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‘Accountability, integrity and trust, where are those these days?’ – St. Thomas council candidate Shawn DeNeire
He’s the owner of DeNeire’s Gallery of Fine Art in downtown St. Thomas and now Shawn DeNeire is plunging into the fine art of municipal politics.
As of yesterday (Aug. 12), NeNeire was one of 10 individuals seeking to fill eight councillor seats at city hall.
DeNeire was born and raised in St. Thomas and was a Central Elgin Collegiate grad although he also spent time at Arthur Voaden Secondary School and Parkside Collegiate Institute.
Ask why he is eager to sit around the horseshoe in the council chamber and DeNeire will relay the following observation.
“I’ve talked to several businesses on Talbot Street and they haven’t had one council person come down in the last four years and say, ‘Hey, how’s it going? I’m so and so and have you got any concerns?’
“Not one. And that bothers me. Who are we being paid by? The taxpayers.
“Who should be in our best interest? The taxpayers.”
I am sure there are members of council who will challenge the above and they have been seen patronizing downtown establishments.
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STEGH is facing capacity challenges and hospitals across the province “are having to adjust their services based on the staff that are not available”
It’s not a situation unique to St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital (STEGH) as facilities across the province are grappling with staffing challenges, inpatient overcapacity and stressed emergency departments.
All of which is creating capacity challenges which ultimately impact those requiring emergency care.
In an interview with Karen Davies, STEGH president and CEO, on Thursday (June 30), she confided that the hospital is dealing with a more than 30 percent increase in ER visits.
“In March of this year, we were seeing about 900 patients a week and now we’re seeing over 1,200 patients.
“And so the impact in our emergency department and also our inpatient side where we added 22 new beds in the early days of the pandemic.
“All 22 of those beds are full.”
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Is the revolving door in the chief’s office at St. Thomas Fire Department a case of the tail wagging the dog?
The question begs an answer.
What exactly is going on with the city’s fire department?
We are now working on the third St. Thomas fire chief in under a year, what gives?
First, it was Bob Davidson, who came on board in January of 2018, after serving as deputy fire chief in Chatham-Kent.
Well, he served until July of last year when it was announced he abruptly retired.
Or did he?
Was he pressured into leaving?
Remember, the St. Thomas Professional Firefighters’ Association was more than a little upset when Davidson was brought aboard after the death of popular fire chief Rob Broadbent in August of 2017.
The decision was made at city hall to hire a chief externally, rather than from within the department with then Deputy Fire Chief Ray Ormerod considered a strong candidate.
Word has it Ormerod was not even granted an interview.
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Attempting to avoid an unavoidable reality: Cyberattack directed at County of Elgin network results in a data breach impacting hundreds of individuals
A ‘technical disruption’ that plagued Elgin county through April was confirmed yesterday (May 13) as “a cyber security incident” in a media release.
The attack impacted the county’s website and email system.
And now the county is confirming some personal information has been breached, however, there is no evidence this data was used to commit fraud or identity theft.
We spoke with County of Elgin CAO Julie Gonyou yesterday for elaboration on the incident.
She advised, “From April 1st to the 27th, we were navigating a cyber security incident so we had our network down with the exception of a couple of critical functions for long-term care.
“We brought the network back up and our cyber security experts who we hired as consultants alerted us on May 3 to a data breach with information dumped on the dark web.
“By the time we found out we had resumed normal operations so we do believe there is a connection.”
As to how many individuals have been impacted by the breach, Gonyou responded, “in and around 330 and within that 330, there are two levels of notification.
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‘People should be able to assess their own risk and make their own decisions’ – Matt Millar, New Blue Party of Ontario
Founded in 2020, the New Blue Party of Ontario is led by Jim Karahalios, the husband of Belinda Karahalios, former PC MPP for Cambridge and now the party’s first MPP.
She was turfed from the PC caucus after voting against Bill 195, the Reopening Ontario Act, which she described as “an unnecessary overreach on our parliamentary democracy.”
New Blue identifies itself as “an anti-establishment centre-right political party.”
The party aims to field candidates in all ridings for the June 2 provincial election.
It has put forward Matt Millar, a life-long Lambeth resident, as its prospective candidate for Elgin-Middlesex-London.
A third-generation fruit farmer who also operates a small tech support company, Millar advises the party is all about less government involvement.
“The reason I got into this is I just want people to have more control over their own lives. I don’t want the government to be overbearing and forcing people to do things they don’t want.”
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Over the past two years, ‘We’ve all been on a bit of a treadmill’ – outgoing medical officer of health Dr. Joyce Lock
The region’s medical officer of health spent her last day in that capacity on Thursday (March 31) and we caught up with Dr. Joyce Lock in the waning hours of her tenure at Southwestern Public Health.
With just a day to slip by before retiring, she called the countdown “surreal.”
“Retirement is always this vague endpoint many, many miles on the horizon. And to think I am actually there, is astounding.
“We spend so much of our lives working and having our jobs be a major focus in our daily living, so to make the transition to where it will not be, does bring mixed feelings for sure.”
She was an emergency physician for 25 years in the Burlington area before transitioning over to public health and she spent eight years with the health unit.
The last two years completely preoccupied with COVID-19.
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‘If you want change, you’ve got to be part of the change’ – MP Karen Vecchio
One week ago today, while truck horns blared and tempers flared, Elgin-Middlesex-London MP Karen Vecchio rose in the House of Commons and gave a speech on the Motion for Confirmation of the Declaration of Emergency.
It was very late Saturday night, and yet she delivered one of the more impassioned, albeit reasoned, presentations of all those MPs who stood to relay their message.
So much so that it drew praise from two members from other parties. More on that later.
Whatever your political stripe, Vecchio’s words are well worth pondering on several accounts, not the least of which is her obvious compassion for the constituents she represents.
She began, “I am here because of my family and the families and people across Canada. And I will speak about the reasonable people that I also represent.”
She then focussed on the divisiveness and intolerance that have muscled their way into so many conversations today, whether in person or on social media.
