From Madoc to Belleville for Ice Cream

What someone will do in Belleville for an icecream bar.

City Police responded yesterday afternoon after getting a report of a robbery at the Mister Convenience store in Bridge Street West.

However, it turned out the robbery, which prompted a police search of nearby streets, was actually the shoplifting of an ice cream treat.

A 19-year-old Madoc man was arrested and charged, and was held for an outstanding warrant for Northumberland O-P-P.

Lockdowns continue through the weekend at Millhaven and Warkworth

Lockdowns at two prisons in the Quinte Area are expected to continue for a few more days.

Prisoners at Millhaven Institution have been confined to their cells since a staff member found an unidentified weapon in one of the ranges in the assessment unit on Monday.

Assistant Warden Wendy Smith says all visits and regular programs are also suspended through the weekend, while all the cells are checked.

Warkworth Institution Assistant Warden Anne Anderson says the lockdown, in effect since about 200 prisoners protested on July 21st, and one of them died, will also remain in effect until at least early next week.

Hastings County Council approves motions for housing

Hastings County Council has approved two motions, paving the way for improvements to hundreds of housing units, and more affordable housing.

Chief Administrative Officer Jim Pine says councillors voted, during a conference call today, in favour of the capital work plan to send to senior governments.

That will allow the county to use five-million dollars funding from the provincial and federal governments to spruce up housing units owned or managed by Hastings-Quinte Social Services.

Pine says council also approved an application for 20 new affordable units in Belleville and the same number in Trenton.

Fire in Belleville deliberately set

A small fire behind a Dundas Street east business in Belleville was deliberately set.

Senior Fire Prevention Officer Dave McMullen says there wasn’t much damage from the fire inside a steel building at the rear of  Shoppers Drug Mart last evening. However, there is evidence arson is the cause.

McMullen says other fires have been set inside the building, and action may be taken against the owner to make it more secure.

Also, no one was hurt when a small fire broke out in an apartment above the City Hotel on Front Street at 3-20 this morning. The cause is still undetermined.

Student workers protest at Algonquin Provincial Park

Visitors to Algonquin Provincial Park, north of Bancroft, will be greeted late tomorrow afternoon by student workers angry with the provincial government.

The young people will stop vehicles at the east and west entrances to the park, informing park users vacation and holiday pay is being denied to 34-hundred high school, college and university students working for the province this summer.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents the workers, says it is an abuse of the government’s own labour laws.

Students received vacation and holiday pay in the past, but the government said this year the Crown is exempt from the vacation and holiday pay provisions of the Employment Standards Act.

Ministry of Health official comments on doctor recruitment funding for Belleville and Hastings County

An official with the Ministry of Health has taken aim at how Belleville and Hastings County recruit doctors.

Jeff Goodyear says the city and county get funding from the provincial Underserviced Area Program to attract physicians, even though they have large sums of money to lure medical graduates.

He explained that is part of the reason changes to physician recruitment rules are being considered.

The ministry proposes using a Rurality Index for Ontario scale, under which communities that get a certain score will no longer be eligible for doctor recruitment funding.

Northumberland County flu clinics to start earlier this year

Seasonal flu clinics in Northumberland County will begin earlier than usual this year.

The Health Unit’s Medical Officer of Health, Doctor Lynn Noseworthy, says the decision to start in October was made as a result of consultations among 36 of her counterparts and Ontario’s Medical Officer of Health.

Swine flu clinics would be held in late November into December if they are found to be necessary.

Eighteen people in the health unit area, covering Northumberland, Haliburton County, and city of Kawartha Lakes have had H-1-N-1 since it began in April.

Deseronto man sentenced for fatal traffic accident

A Deseronto man has been sentenced to three years in prison for impaired driving causing death.

Forty-year-old Wayne Wagar pleaded guilty in Belleville criminal court yesterday to impaired, leaving the scene of an accident and driving while suspended.

Sixty-year-old Sylvia Robins of Napanee died from injuries she sustained when her vehicle was hit by Wagar’s truck on Highway 49 at Old Highway two, in Marysville, on February 22nd.

Wagar was also given a ten-year driving ban and was ordered to provide a sample to the national criminal D-N-A databank.

Tyendinaga Reserve company wins contract at CFB Trenton

A Tyendinaga Territory construction company has won a 1.3-million-dollar contract for infrastructure work at C-F-B Trenton.

The 8 wing construction engineering officer, Major Phil Baker, says Buildall contractors will resurface two roads on the north side of the runway as part of the contract.

It will also bore under the runway to connect water lines on its north and south sides to provide proper flow rates for fire protection to new buildings to be constructed just north of the runway.

The projects are part of the hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure work being done over several years at C-F-B Trenton.

Impaired driver arrested on 401 highway in Brighton

A man from north of Toronto has been arrested for impaired driving in Brighton.

The O-P-P stopped an eastbound vehicle going 145 kilometres an hour on highway 4-0-1 at County Road 30 at 4-30 this morning, and the officer noticed the driver had been drinking.

A 44-year-old man from Holland Landing was charged with speeding, impaired, and driving with more than the legal amount of alcohol in his blood.