Steady progress is being made at the Yarmouth Yards industrial park with activity continuing at a hectic pace.
Now, we’ve chosen our words carefully when referring to the 1,500-acre industrial park in general.
That’s because there has not been a lot of chatter of late related to the PowerCo EV gigafactory which will be the primary tenant on the site.
In fact, in Monday’s (Dec. 2) city council agenda package, there is an Industrial Development Update that indicates the majority of work at Yarmouth Yards is progressing on schedule.
Tag Archives: cycle lanes
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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‘It’s oxymoronic to think you can have growth without expense under public safety’ – St. Thomas Police Service Board chair Dan Reith
It’s a simple premise if we agree to use it as a starting point.
The presence of police acts as a deterrent.
To put this into context, St. Thomas department heads are now preparing draft proposals to present to council in November as the basis for the 2025 capital and operating budgets.
With the explosive population growth projected in the coming decades – nearly doubling by 2050 – one critical area will be ensuring the well-being of newcomers to St. Thomas.
You do not attract new industries – and with it, workers to fill those jobs – when they will potentially be located in crime-ridden neighbourhoods.
So, this past week we sat down with Dan Reith, chair of the Police Service Board to discuss what is expected to be a budget ask representing a 14 per cent increase over the 2024 budget.
At first glance, that might seem like an aggressive ask by Chief Marc Roskamp and the Police Service Board.
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For the third time in as many years, St. Thomas is on the hunt for a city manager
Well, that was short-lived.
Heralded as “a pretty good standout” among over 70 applicants, Michael Bradley assumed the city manager post at city hall on May 15.
Exactly five months later, a media release from Mayor Joe Preston announced, “City to begin recruitment for new city manager.”
Bradley has accepted the position of CAO with the City of Brantford – his hometown – and will depart his office at city hall in mid-November.
Before accepting the post in St. Thomas, Bradley had been the Commissioner of Community Development with the City of Brantford.
He also served for 11 years with the County of Brant, including a stint as CAO from 2018 to 2023.
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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.
