For 45 years, it has been a fall tradition.
And tomorrow (Sept 14), St. Thomas will join more than 650 communities across Canada in hosting a Terry Fox Run, a fundraiser in support of cancer research.
This year’s event will take place in 1Password Park, notes one of the organizers, Bre Betts.
A St. Thomas native, Betts and her husband have moved back to the city in the past month, and participating in the annual run has been an important family tradition.
And she stresses, “The thing with Terry Fox, like any charitable work, it’s very much reliant on volunteers, so there’s been a very dedicated group here of a few people who have used their might, and who have really chugged it together each year to get something going, so I’m really grateful for that.”
Category Archives: Public transit
Working together ‘on highly collaborative initiatives that support the community’s aim of functionally ending homelessness in the coming years’
A good portion of city council’s attention at Tuesday’s (Sept. 2) meeting was devoted to housing and homelessness initiatives and funding.Which meant Danielle Neilson, Housing Stability Services Manager, fielded a significant number of questions from the mayor and council.
She authored the St. Thomas-Elgin 10 Year Housing and Homelessness Plan: 2024 Progress Report, which sees city staff and community partners “work together on highly collaborative initiatives that support the community’s aim of functionally ending homelessness in the coming years.”
We briefly touched on this report last week regarding the city’s emergency shelter, The INN.
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Contracts awarded and work set to begin at the massive PowerCo gigafactory – ‘We plan to be relevant for a very long time’
Within weeks, construction will begin on what is to become the largest EV battery manufacturing plant in Canada.PowerCo, a Volkswagen subsidiary, announced Thursday the awarding of two major contracts for structural steel and foundation work for the $7 billion gigafactory at the Yarmouth Yards industrial park in St. Thomas.
Meredith Gibbons, Chief Procurement Officer for PowerCo Canada, called the announcement a major milestone.
“We’ve been very busy working hard to get this thing up and running. Today’s major milestone for the St. Thomas gigafactory is the announcement of our two major contracts: structural steelwork to SteelCon and the concrete foundation work to Magil Construction.”
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Is the 2025 City of St. Thomas municipal tax levy relief simply a case of delaying the inevitable?
Ratepayers await a definitive answer on the city’s 2025 operating and capital budgets, however at last Monday’s council meeting some serious pencil sharpening was evident.
The process began with a proposed 4.93 per cent hike to the municipal tax levy next year.
However, after more than two hours of deliberations, that hike has been whittled down to about a 3.8 per cent increase.
This was accomplished by dipping into reserves for an additional $650,000 to soften the hit on ratepayers next year.
Next year’s proposed levy is almost $74.5 million, up from just shy of $69 million this year, an 8.13 per cent increase.
Factor in the estimated additional growth-related tax of 3.2 per cent and ratepayers were looking at a 4.93 per cent hike.
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The consultant’s report calls for an aggressive shift to sustainable travel modes in St. Thomas
Andrew Lawton will represent the new riding of Elgin-St. Thomas-London South as the Conservative Party of Canada candidate for the next federal election. Lawton defeated Central Elgin resident Anthony Shields at the nomination meeting Saturday afternoon at St. Anne’s Centre. As the media was not allowed to attend, we have no indication of how close the vote was or the contents of their five-minute speeches to attending party members.
Kevin Jones of Paradigm Transportation Solutions attended the Nov. 4 meeting of city council to provide an update on the status of the Transportation Master Plan refresh project.
His report offers a sweeping overview of the current transportation picture in St. Thomas and what the road ahead should look like.
He is recommending an aggressive shift in the operation of Railway City Transit that would see a six-fold increase in annual service hours involving 26 buses in service operating 17 hours every weekday.
These figures are based on a city population of 79,500, a couple of decades distant.
We’ll come back to that scenario in a moment.
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‘I’m not sure that it could have gone better, I smiled a lot’ – St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston following this week’s AMO conference
It appears the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference at the beginning of this week in Ottawa proved productive for many communities in attendance.
In the case of the St. Thomas delegation, the gathering had Mayor Joe Preston smiling on more than one occasion.
At the beginning of June, we outlined some of the key meetings Preston and company had lined up with provincial ministers and the link to that item is below.
We caught up with Preston yesterday (Friday) to get an executive summary of what transpired, from a St. Thomas perspective.
“I took a very powerful delegation with me,” praised Preston.
Along with Preston were city manager Michael Bradley and councillors Lori Baldwin-Sands and Steve Peters.
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“We’re not really trying to truly fix blame, we’re trying to fix the problem – St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston on homelessness and housing
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) annual conference begins tomorrow (Sunday) and runs through Aug. 21 in Ottawa.
At the beginning of June, we spoke with St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston regarding which provincial ministers were a priority for the city’s delegation.
At that time, the key meetings would be with the Minister of Transportation, Prabmeet Sarkaria to discuss regional transportation; Attorney General Doug Downey to address concerns facing the St. Thomas Police Service; and the new Minister of Education, Jill Dunlop.
The latter was appointed yesterday (Friday) afternoon after the resignation of Todd Smith, in the portfolio for less than three months after a June cabinet shuffle.
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‘She did it the right way’ – former MP Joe Preston’s take on Karen Vecchio’s representation in Elgin-Middlesex-London
In announcing at the end of July she would not seek re-election, MP Karen Vecchio praised St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston as someone who “will always be one of my confidants.”
And, speaking with Preston this week, he reciprocated with a quip he has laid on me more than once.
“I took five minutes and taught her everything I know.”
While it is generally acknowledged she first got a taste of politics working in Preston’s constituency office, the former Elgin-Middlesex-London MP reminded me that Vecchio’s introduction to political representation goes back even further.
Many years ago she went door-to-door campaigning for Bill Aarts as he sought a seat on St. Thomas municipal council.
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The creative process often starts with a clean sheet of paper, for Andrew and Maddie it begins with an open green space.
Plans are in the works to create a new identity for one vacant downtown lot and rejuvenate a rather forlorn Talbot Street parkette.
The former is the site of the Sutherland Press Building at 606 Talbot Street while the latter is Hepburn Parkette at 446 Talbot Street.
Masterminding the transformation is the team of Andrew Gunn and Maddie King of young & free press in conjunction with city staff and through the assistance of Arthur Lierman Landscape Architecture.
A similar process was undertaken in 2020 which resulted in the formation of Westlake Evans Civic Park adjacent to St. Thomas Public Library.
Gunn points out, “Both sites have incredible potential to be active spots complete with things to see and do, room for special events, and beautiful landscaping, too.
