CITY SHUTDOWN - MAYOR BILL MAURO with John Ongaro
This morning, Mayor Bill Mauro addressed the city's major announcement yesterday - that public city spaces are now closed. Although there are no known cases of Covid-19 in the city, public gatherings in popular spots like the Canada Games Complex, Community Centres, and public rinks are all on hold. The decision has a ...
Mar 17, 2020
The Special Olympics were beyond special....
With the Special Olympics Winter Games wrapping up this weekend, its a good time to take a breath and say....wow... Literally years of hard work went into putting together the games this week that saw 1000 athletes and 1000 volunteers come together in the true spirit of sport...what an experience for all of them. These...
Feb 28, 2020
Thunder Bay's Lead Pipes
There are a lot of questions swirling around coffee shops and social media about the City's efforts to help residents with lead pipes leading into their homes. Does my house have lead pipes? What will happen? How can i fix it? What do we do next? All of those questions lead to answers that are usually not true. So...
Feb 20, 2020
The City of Thunder Bay says customers with lead service pipes will have higher lead levels after sodium hydroxide is phased out of the drinking water supply. Photo: espensorvik / CC
Bluesfest did the right thing. Here's why.
Yesterday the community seemed to be in shock with the cancellation of Bluesfest. The story, as outlined by the auditorium is simple. There simply weren't enough acts to choose from to ensure the success of the festival for this year. It's that simple. Since late yesterday I've made the terrible mistake of reading...
Feb 14, 2020
It's time to start taking notes - The Budget Passed.
And there it is... the 2020 City of Thunder Bay Budget was approved last night by council. Although there were a few further cuts brought forward, and a couple of attempts to add to the budget - the 4 motions that were carried over to last night for council to decide on all lost. With that, your taxes are going up 1.89...
Feb 11, 2020
Hydrant is cleared, where do I send the invoice?
Last week, one of our city council members put out another reminder and plea asking citizens to clear a path to fire hydrants around their property. The message was right - if there was a fire close by, we would rather our skilled fire fighters spend precious time to put out the fire and not spend their time shovelin...
Jan 27, 2020
Why this budget isn't all roses....Coun. Mark Bentz with John Ongaro -
You can read and read and read through pages of information, but sometimes the biggest things slip by. As a fan of Budget season, i thought i did my homework - but i missed something pretty important. The infrastructure gap. That's difference between the money we spend on infrastructure and how much we should be spen...
Jan 09, 2020
The Power Of Radio, The Power Of Christmas
No matter how long I have had the privilege of speaking to you on the radio it never ceases to amaze me how powerful a medium it can be. Monday morning we went on the air to help raise money for the Christmas Cheer fund. There has been a lot of ways this year to support good causes and the Cheer fund was running behind...
Dec 17, 2019
The First Year of Council....Remember that time??
This term of council has been in session for a year. This new council campaigned and was elected on the premise that they would change how council was run, and how fiscal responsibility will be the new norm. A year later, this same council as spent just over $1.9 million dollars outside of the budget that they vote...
Dec 10, 2019
They wouldn't......would they?
We can consider this a friendly, "heads-up" to our City Council... Monday night, council will be presented with a report from administration regarding the painting of the crosswalk at Bay & Algoma to support the 10th Anniversary of Thunder Pride next year. Back in August, Thunder Pride representatives w...
Nov 01, 2019