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Proud to be part of your past, present and future since 1887 March 20, 2014 | 68 pages
www.insideottawavalley.com
Inside
By HOWAIDA SOROUR hsorour@perfprint.ca
News - The Smiths Falls Record News has a new Facebook page. The idea is to keep readers up to date on events as they’re happening, as well as pointing you to our website at www.insideottawavalley.com. Please feel free to post community events and ask us questions as this is your forum. Like us and share the page.
NEWS
Photo by LAURIE WEIR
Bears make quick work of Raiders to win series
COMMUNITY
Sports – The Smiths Falls Bears ousted the Nepean Raiders from the CCHL playoffs Sunday night with a 5-2 win on the road. The Bears swept the quarter-final series, 4-0. Above, Bears’ Michael Buonincontri watches the puck fly wide of the net during Game 3 action. For more coverage, please see pages SF 17 and SF 18.
News – It looks like Smiths Falls could regain its lost beach at Murphy Park. Together Smiths Falls has been busy behind the scenes meeting with the town’s parks and recreation department to find out what is needed to revive the children’s beach. “We had a meeting with Gary (Bisonette) and Margo (Loughren) from the parks and recreation department. We discussed the beach area, child side, not deep end, and what it would take to fix it up to the standards that it used to be 15 years ago,” said Tracey Pankow, president of Together Smiths Falls. The beach, off Park Street, has been almost unused for a number of years because of poor water flow, but a new spillway has produced better water flow making the area suitable once again for a beach. According to Pankow, the discussion revealed that the department doesn’t have the budget to make the necessary capital investment it would take. On the other hand, they estimated it would only need about $5,000 in capital for sand, sod and picnic tables and the equipment to do the job. “We have the manpower and in the spring and it’s part of our park maintenance cost anyway,
so it’s great that Tracey has taken on the commitment to raise the capital funds we don’t have in our budget,” explained Gary Bisonette, acting director of parks and recreation. According to Bisonette, the spring would be the best time to take advantage of the manpower available. In the week since Pankow posted her proposal on Facebook, she’s already managed to raise $1,300. “If we can raise the $5,000 by the end of April – snow will be gone by the end of April I hope – we could have a beach this summer,” said Pankow. The plan is to sand the entire area, put in picnic tables, garbage cans, rope/buoys in the water and re-sod where needed. One critical area in need of sod is Turtle Island but getting equipment over to it presents a challenge, although Bisonette thinks that if the water in the spring is low enough, staff could ride a truck over there with sod in it and make the area a beach again. “There’s a lot of support for the beach because everyone remembers it from growing up and we need to invest in our parks and beaches – it’s even in our water revitalization plan,” said Pankow. Donations can be made out to Town of Smiths Falls with ‘beach project’ in the memo line.
Cut hospital beds make brief return to duty over March Break By DESMOND DEVOY desmond.devoy@metroland.com
The Smiths Falls Relay for Life is coming up Friday, June 13. — Page 6
News – A year after 12 beds at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospitals were shut down, three of the beds made a return appearance in the hospital halls this month. Linda Bisonette, the hospital’s president and chief executive officer, said this week that, in the run up to the hiatus of elective surgeries at the Smiths Falls site during March Break, three beds were pulled out of retirement for a total of two days. “That was the extent of it,” said Bisonette. “I don’t expect
it will happen again. We haven’t done it before and I don’t expect we will do it again.” The beds were also brought out of storage because “we had a significant increase in the number of admissions,” and so the beds were pressed back into services to “make it a little more human.” The beds have been kept in the hospital since they were taken out of service in March of 2013, with six beds each taken out of circulation at both the Photo by DESMOND DEVOY Smiths Falls and Perth sites. The Smiths Falls site of the Perth and Smiths Falls District “You can’t always predict,” said Bisonette, though she Hospital saw the return of three previously closed beds to added that, when the beds were service for two days earlier this month.
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rolled out, staffing levels were increased for all three shifts. Some of the rooms on site, where the beds used to be in service, have not been re-purposed, but Bisonette predicts that the “re-purposing” will be done at some time in the future. As of the morning of Monday, March 17, Bisonette reported that there were 10 empty beds at the hospital. John Jackson, president of CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) local 2119, said that the return of the beds makes him “feel like the beds are needed. I feel that it could prove that the beds are needed.”
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Beach at Murphy Park could be revived
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