At Woolwich Memorial Centre 24 Snyder Ave., S., Elmira
Monday February 15th
Skating: 1:30 - 3:00pm Swimming: 3:00 - 4:30pm
Free snacks & beverages will be provided.
For more information visit: MichaelHARRISMPP.ca/MichaelHarrisEvents
MichaelHARRIS MichaelHARRISMPP.ca | 519.954.8679
02 | 11 | 2016 VOLUME 21 | ISSUE 06
WELLESLEY FIREFIGHTERS OFF TO GUATEMALA LIVING HERE PAGE 24
COMMENT PAGE 6
GOVERNMENTS MUST DO MORE TO PROTECT PRIVACY
Plenty of suggestions for redrawing the lines around Woolwich communities STEVE KANNON THE ADAGE ABOUT IT being better to give than to receive isn’t on the radar as Woolwich looks at redrawing the boundaries of its settlement areas: there are plenty of people looking to have their land included inside the new lines, but very few willing to be on the outside. That’s a problem for planning staff, as the exercise requires no net increases in the total size of settlement areas – hamlets, villages and towns – in the township. Some of the requests will have to go unfilled, and everyone wants somebody else to be on the outside looking in. The process, the subject of a public meeting Tuesday night, has been underway since 2012, Woolwich looking to bring its planning documents into conformity with the new regional official plan (ROP). It’s the region that’s decreed no net gains as
the township revises community boundaries in three classes: rural (the small centres such as Conestogo, Floradale and Maryhill), township urban (Elmira and St. Jacobs) and urban, the new designation for Breslau, where much of the growth, particularly industrial, is expected. The designation also applies to the stockyards area south of St. Jacobs on the Waterloo border. Looking to make better use of developable land, Woolwich proposes to rationalize the boundaries of settlement areas. The official plan amendment discussed at council Tuesday night essentially proposes to remove some land from the settlements, replacing it with other properties with great development potential. Of all the areas, the greatest diversity of future change will be found in Breslau, which is earBOUNDARIES | 2
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LACK OF SNOW DOESN’T STOP THE FUN IN LINWOOD
Connor Niven, 7, gets a green lizard painted on his face by Kricket and Krew at Linwood Snofest on Saturday afternoon. The day started with a hearty breakfast served up by local firefighters, and the ever-popular sno-pitch tournament. [LIZ BEVAN / THE OBSERVER]
All rural policing now dispatched from Elmira detachment LIZ BEVAN PASSERSBY WILL BE SEEING a few extra police cruisers sitting outside of the Waterloo Regional Police detachment in Elmira now that the New Hamburg station isn’t dispatching officers. The New Hamburg detachment has changed functions, acting as more of an office front, and is no longer dispatching officers to rural locations. Now,
all rural officers are dispatched from Elmira. There was some question as to whether this would affect response times, or police coverage from both Wilmot and Wellesley townships over the past few months, but Staff Sgt. Michael Hinspberger says that isn’t the case. Along with reducing duties from the New Hamburg station, the dispatch schedule and rural coverage assignments have changed, allowing for
more effective policing. “Basically what we have done is amalgamated the cruisers from both south and rural north divisions and with zone realignments, we have actually been able to decrease the number of required cruisers for the entire rural area,” he said, adding that with the new system, officers are policing more effectively. “Before, because of the resource challenges with holidays, sickness and
everything else, you had to try and bring someone in from the city to cover, oftentimes if they didn’t have somebody, a zone would sit empty. Because of that, we would have to have an officer from a neighbouring zone, if there is a call, to head to that zone, and then of course, when you do that, you are leaving one zone to go to another, there is that bandPOLICE | 2