NEWS |
THE OBSERVER | Saturday, July 18, 2009
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Elmira hosts Western Ontario Drama League fest.......................................»18 local judo practitioner has high hopes
»15 VOLUME 14, ISSUE 28
SATURDAY, JULY 18, 2009
www.ObserverXtra.com
Arthur Street gets the sandy treatment
Breslau sod turning xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sealer temporarily creates unusual road conditions
photo | Joni miltenburg
JONI MILTENBURG
DIGGIN’ IN A groundbreaking ceremony for the new breslau Community Centre was held thursday afternoon. the facility will be joined to the empire Communities sales centre, which will be handed over to the township when the 1,300 home subdivision is built out. on hand for the ceremony were (from left) Woolwich mayor bill Strauss; mpp leeanna pendergast; lisa nadon, president of the breslau rec assocation; Coun. mark bauman; Coun. ruby Weber; Dale and Christine mortimer; mp harold Albrecht; loretta Dunn of the breslau rec association and Coun. murray martin.
Waterloo Region is hoping that the dust clouds hanging over Arthur Street South earlier this week will be a sign of safer roads come winter. On Monday, regional road crews applied a sealer called Reclamite to the asphalt. The sealer adds oil to the asphalt to reduce oxidation and also adds plasticity, which reduces cracking in the freeze-thaw cycles of winter. The region’s transportation department is studying the sealer to see whether it also reduces accidents caused by poor winter road conditions. In 2006, the sealer was applied to Bridge Street in Waterloo between Ebycrest and the Woolwich Township boundary. In the winters following, transportation staff noticed the number of winter accidents on the road dropped significantly. For the four years before application, there See ROAD page »02
Wellesley project among affordable housing grants MARC MIQUEL HELSEN A project in Wellesley Village is among the recipients of $9.4 million in affordable housing grants announced recently for Waterloo Region. Four units will be built in the Pondview area, with the federal and provincial governments contributing equally to the overall investment. Throughout the region, Newo Holdings Ltd., MennoHomes Inc. and Supportive Housing of Waterloo will build 79 units
of affordable housing for lowincome seniors, families and individuals with disabilities. The first wave of funding will lead to construction by September. “We were really pleased. We’re so glad to see these houses approved in Wellesley, because I think it helps to raise the consciousness that this isn’t just a big city problem. And throughout the rural areas there are a lot of houses that owners haven’t lived in for years and that are really not safe,” said Cathy Broth-
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ers, executive director of the Catholic Family Counselling Centre, a full-service, nondenominational, professional counselling agency that in addition to providing individual and group counselling, also provides community outreach to children, men, women, seniors, couples, families and new Canadians. The organization works with families from Woolwich and Wellesley who face challenges meeting their basic needs, like safe housing. “Throughout the region we’re so aware of the huge
struggles the families have with inadequate housing and the lack of good housing leads to so many other kinds of family and social issues, so we were thrilled to see those four homes approved – it’s a real step in the right direction,” she said. “When it comes to building safe and strong communities, it takes the efforts of many to achieve success. It takes partnerships at all levels of government to get real results,” said Harold Albrecht, MP for Kitchener-Conestoga, in a re-
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lease announcing the grants. “We are thrilled for a number of reasons. And it starts with how very important the contribution of the senior levels of governments was and the amount of their contribution,” said Martin Buhr, president of MennoHomes, the not-for-profit charitable organization overseeing the construction of the four new units in Wellesley. MennoHomes is responsible for getting the money together, which consists of See HOUSING page »02