The Police Foundations class from the CTS Canadian Career College, attended council's regular meeting to sit in on the discussion about the budget for their politics class.
The Police Foundations class from the CTS Canadian Career College, attended council's regular meeting to sit in on the discussion about the budget for their politics class. Photo by Devin Size
New and innovative projects and ideas are coming from all angles, working towards a brighter future for North Bayites. Last regular council meeting revealed the expansion of the Summer in the Park festival, and with this week’s meeting, figures are out for big projects in the city.
North Bay is fully participating in Earth Hour on Saturday, March 26, and encourages all citizens to participate. The city has declared the official hour to be between 8:30 and 9:30 p.m. as the municipality will shut off or dim all lights possible – without safety conflicts – across the city. Councilor Mike Anthony is excited, as this will be the first year that we measure the impact of the city’s participation in this global event.
“It’s the fourth year this event has taken place, it started in Australia in 2007, with the World Wildlife Fund,” explains Anthony. “North Bay was one of the first cities to hop on board in 2008. The stats speak for themselves. You might think “it’s only an hour.” Not only does it serve as a reminder to conserve energy, but last year, the province of Ontario showed an energy savings of 6% that day, and in Toronto they had a savings of 15% because it’s such a dense urban area. I plan to get to get from North Bay Hydro the estimate of what that one hour of savings means for North Bay.”
Divisions for the 2011 Capitol Budget for the city were discussed Monday night, such as road and sidewalk repairs, water and sewage treatment, police, fire, and even a study to examine indoor recreation facilities. After the Real Assessment Growth program reduced the tax increase by 1.47%, it still left an increase of 2.58% for local tax payers. Deputy Mayor, Peter Chirico says it’s the lowest increase in over a decade.
“I think this council should be proud of that fact,” said Chirico. “The operating budget for the city of North Bay is $124 million. This is $1.8 million. If you look at an average household of an average of $200,000, this will represent about 10$ a month – 120$ a year.”
The meeting opened with a public presentation from the North Bay Baseball Association about the Steve Omischl Sports Complex, regarding the possibility of transforming one of the three fields in to a grass infield for hard ball. President of the NBBA, Chad Lacelle, says this could give kids in North Bay playing baseball, a chance to get a feel for the big leagues, and play a safer game.
“The main reason is safety, once kids get to the bantam level, their pretty big,” explained Lacelle. “They hit the ball really hard. The grass slows the ball down giving the kids a better chance to grab the ball and to keep it in play. This takes away from bad hops and kids getting balls up in the face. Also the clay fields we have now turn the white balls we start with, brown really fast. A lot of the time as a coach, I don’t even see the ball after it’s hit, so I don’t know how the kids can.”
This issue has been presented to council and reviewed prior to this presentation, and although it was never fully disregarded or shot down by council, their reserves lead them to believe that they should wait until after the complex is finished a in use, to see if the grass infield would be required. Lacelle feels that this would take away from the flare this new, professional looking grass infield could provide not only the complex, but North Bay as a whole.
“This complex is going to be a huge showcase for North Bay, why not do it right the first time. By having a grass infield, it would give us better consideration for provincial tournaments and events. The amount of people that would draw in from out of town could provide upwards to $50,000 in revenue for local businesses, restaurants, and hotels. Playing on this caliber of field would also keep kids in baseball longer, giving them a better field for how the pros play – for the next level.”
Ryan McMillan of the Men’s Slo-Pitch League, says this would completely inhibit their use of the field, as a set baseball mound is much further and placed differently than that of Slo-Pitch. The league has a user base of 1600 players, hence why McMillan stated they require the use of all three fields.
“The biggest reason it won’t work, is the 60 foot to 90 foot mound difference,” McMillan said. “The study was based on our field usage, and we represent 80 teams here in North Bay – 1600 people. With these fields we’re able to grow the league and continue to expand.”
Unfortunately there hasn’t been a group consultation yet, but both parties feel that this it is not too late to sit at the round table to have that discussion. This way they can find a solution that will appease all user groups.
