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Canada Day on Inside chopping block at COMMUNITY Osgoode AGM Manotick community leaders are looking forward to a year of progress in 2013. – Page 3
CITY HALL NEWS
A Greely pilot has started a snowsuit drive for needy children in Nunavut. – Page 9
COMMUNITY NEWS
Osgoode Township High School students are selling toques to support the Youth Services Bureau in Ottawa. – Page 11
Emma Jackson
emma.jackson@metroland.com
EMC news - Osgoode residents may lose their Canada Day celebration if more volunteers don’t step up. Osgoode Village Community Association president Lori Daneliak said that only four people volunteer each year, and they are always the same people - members of the association’s executive. To properly run the annual festivities, she said a minimum of 15 volunteers are needed. “The question is: does Osgoode want the festivities as big as they have been?” Daneliak said. “The volunteering has not been reflective of that.” The Canada Day event includes children’s activities, wife-carrying contests and other adult games and a barbecue in the afternoon, as well as a parade and fireworks in the evening. For the four volunteers and their families, the event is a two-day job from set-up to clean-up. With more bodies, the work would be more evenly distributed, Daneliak said. Cancelling the event is one of the main discussions on the agenda for the community association’s annual general meeting on Thursday, Jan. 24. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at Stuart Holmes arena, and Daneliak said everyone is welcome to discuss the issue or volunteer. The other hot topic on the agenda is a proposed two-year pilot project to allow all-terrain vehicles to use trails in Osgoode Ward that are technically unopened road allowances, as well as the shoulders of some roads. At the moment, ATVs are
only legally allowed to cross roads at 90-degree angles – not drive alongside them. The ATV club has proposed a trail and shoulder network that includes shoulders along Cabin Road between Doyle Road and Manotick Station Road, and Manotick Station Road between Cabin Road and Springhill Road, and a few other small links along roadsides. The trial period is still a ways off – city staff must research whether it’s a good idea and talk to residents in the community. But the goal is to allow the Nation Valley ATV Club use and maintain the trails for about two years. After that, city council could make the arrangement permanent. The road allowances would be open for ATVs and recreational users such as off-road cyclists or horse riders, but “specialty vehicles” such as dirt bikes and dune buggies would be prohibited. Adam Brown, with the city’s rural affairs office, will make a presentation about the city’s plans for the trial period. Greely resident and club spokesperson Kris Gough will also speak about his club’s proposal, and will lead a question and answer period. “I think they’ve organized it really well and I think the presentations they’ve put together will quash any concerns,” Daneliak said. She said the association doesn’t support or oppose the pilot project, but is facilitating conversation before the city begins official public consultations. The ATV question came to a contentious peak in late 2010 and early 2011, when the city was deciding who could use the new Osgoode multi-use pathway that follows an old rail bed from Leitrim Road to Osgoode village. See AGM, page 13
Emma Jackson/Metroland
Community police officer Const. Nicole Gorham, lefts, cuts the official ribbon to open her new office with Ottawa police services board chairman Eli El-Chantiry and police Chief Charles Bordeleau on Jan. 10.
Warm welcome for new community police office Emma Jackson
emma.jackson@metroland.com
EMC news - The new Rural South Community Police Centre was officially opened at a packed ribbon cutting ceremony in Greely on Jan. 10. The new centre opened in December at 7010 Parkway Rd in Greely’s old fire hall and library. The building is now shared by the city’s public works department and the community police officer. Const. Nicole Gorham has been the community officer for more than two
years, working out of an office in the old Metcalfe town hall, also a city-owned building. She said her new office is more central for residents in her catchment area, which extends from Riverside South and Findlay Creek all the way south to the city boundary near Vernon. “It’s more central; it’s more in the community,” she said. Gorham added the Greely fire hall is also more accessible since it’s all on one level. The Metcalfe office had stairs to the upper office.
The ceremony attracted a number of VIPs, including police chief Charles Bordeleau to help cut the ribbon. “Community police offices play a critical role in building these relationships with the community,” he told a crowd that included community leaders from Osgoode, Greely, Riverside South and Vernon. Police board chairman and West Carleton-March Coun. Eli El-Chantiry praised the money-saving partnerships the police service has been seeking out since last October. See GREELY, page 2
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ATV trail use also on the agenda