Save Our Prison Farms

The crowd that filled Memorial Hall for a public meeting on re-establishing prison farms at Joyceville and Collins Bay Institutions was unanimous.  It wants the federal government to bring back the farms.  Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Correctional officials hosted the meeting last night.

Goodale added to the hopes of people in favour of the farms by reminding the audience he’s a farm boy from Saskatchewan and understands the values and morals gained by doing farm work.

The town hall meeting is part of a feasibility study that included an online survey.  The meeting was told last night that 6,000 people completed the survey…94% said farm training is beneficial for rehabilitation and 90% said they would hire an offender.

Tragically Hip – Emergency Services

Kingston continues to prepare for an extremely busy weekend highlighted by the Tragically Hip Concert at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.

The city is also hosting the Thousand Islands Poker Run and Fort Henry is hosting the Urban Slide…a 300 metre long water slide.

25 thousand people are expected in Springer Market Square for a big screen broadcast of the Tragically Hip’s final show on their current tour.

Frontenac Paramedic Services will have five additional ambulances in service and a medical tent will be set up on Clarence Street to treat people for minor injuries.

Kingston General Hospital will have extra doctors and nurses on duty as it anticipates a busier than usual time in the emergency room at the hospital.

Recreation Survey

Survey says…if money was no object – people in South Frontenac would love to have an Indoor Pool, Wellness Centre and a Splash Pad.  Close to 700 people responded to a recreation and leisure survey in South Frontenac.  Mayor Ron Vandewal says the results will be used to help form recommendations for a 5 year recreation plan.

The survey found people in South Frontenac are very active – but the barriers to participating in recreation and leisure activities include time constraints and the distance they have to travel to get to recreational facilities.

Motorcycle Training

Kingston Police is hosting the 2016 Great Lakes Police Motorcycle Training Seminar.

It gets underway today in the north parking lot of the Cataraqui Centre.

Motorcycle officers from Canada and the U-S will be taking part in the training and will compete on Friday and Saturday.  The sessions are open to the public to watch at no charge.

Rainfall

People usually don’t wish it would rain – but that was the case in Kingston yesterday.

The region is suffering through a severe drought and the rainfall helped…but it wasn’t as much as many had hoped for.

21.5 mm of rain was recorded at the Kingston airport.  The Environment Canada forecast had called for 15-25mm or rain – so the forecast was right on target.

Filed under: emergency-services, motorcycle-training, rainfall, recreation-survey, save-our-prison-farm, tragically-hip