Business

While the province has announced millions of dollars towards social housing over the past few weeks, what this funding means for local social housing projects in Rainy River District remains to be seen.
The province had made three different housing announcements most recently, noted Dianne Lampi, housing manager for the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board.

Residents
face only a
1.1% jump
Tax bills indicating a slight tax hike for all property classes will be mailed out shortly after town council approved the 2009 budget Monday night.
Several members of council noted how pleased they were that what started out as a daunting budget year ended up seeing only a 1.1 percent tax hike to residential ratepayers.

Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP John Rafferty is reminding all constituents, groups, and organizations in his riding that this Friday (June 12) is the deadline for applications to the federal government’s Community Adjustment Fund.
The $1-billion fund, introduced in the last federal budget, is designed to “help mitigate the effects of short-term impacts of restructuring in communities associated with the economic downturn, by creating employment opportunities.”

Robert Zanette and staff from Thunder Bay presented an open house/information session here May 22 in support of the new condo project proposed for the Town of Fort Frances.
The session was held at the Civic Centre, and was well-attended.
“We are so pleased, we are now planning to come back and do it all over again,” Zanette said.
The next date has been set for Tuesday, June 9 from 4-8 p.m. in council chambers.
“We were well-received by the residents, town administration, and elected officials,” Zanette noted. “It was a pleasure spending the time in town.”

“We’re going to build an abattoir,” Steve Loshaw announced to spontaneous applause last night during the annual meeting of the Rainy River District Regional Abattoir Inc. at the Barwick Hall.
“When we first started this four years ago, Geoff Gillon told me that it would be a long, hard process but I never realized it would be that long or that hard,” admitted Loshaw, who is president of the RRDRAI.
It was not a certainty that Loshaw would be making the announcement since the board only received confirmation of funding on Monday.

After hosting an open house yesterday to answer people’s questions about the proposed La Verendrye Parkway Village condominium project, Thunder Bay developer Robert Zanette now will have to wait and see if enough of them want to buy units in the next few weeks before taking the next step.
Zanette hopes to see at least 20 units pre-sold prior to June 15, he said yesterday during the open house at the Civic Centre, which drew a modest but steady stream of people curious about the proposed building.

Residential taxpayers likely will be looking at a 1.1 percent tax increase after town council approves the 2009 budget at its June 8 meeting.
During a regular budget meeting yesterday afternoon, council voted in favour of a long-term debt financing scenario outlining the following levy increases (shown here with how much each property class will be paying per $100,000 of assessment):
•Residential—1.1 percent ($1,863.78 per $100,000 of assessment);
•Multi-residential—1.2 percent ($4,350.20 per $100,000 of assessment);

The Northwest Catholic District School Board is scheduled to get a preliminary budget update for the 2009-10 school year at its regular monthly meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. via teleconference in the St. Francis School library.
So far, the proposed budget projects a balance with revenues and expenditures of $16,571,617, with the board using a classroom reserve transfer of $6,43,626 to balance the budget.

With “year one” calculations now in, the Rainy River District School Board is reporting success so far with the implementation of its $2.6-million Energy Retrofit and Renewal Program.
The project, in partnership with Honeywell Inc., had the board investing to make school buildings more energy-efficient, with a 10-year payback period to recover the capital upfront costs.

Operations and Facilities manager Doug Brown said the town is putting pressure on the provincial government to approve “Connecting Link” funding for the reconstruction of Scott Street from Reid Avenue to Colonization Road East.
“We’ve got a contract we have in limbo right now because we’ve got no approval,” he noted. “Time is wasting because the construction season is right here.
“It’s a local contractor, so it would mean economic stimulus, and here the government is not giving their blessing on it,” he remarked.