After years of waiting, fundraising, and collecting contributions from kind donors, the Municipality of Port Hope’s Skate Park Development Committee finally broke ground on Wednesday, officially marking the realization of a dream hatched 12 years ago.

Thanks to contributions coming from local residents, businesses, the municipality, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation, the goal of reaching the $365,000 finally came true, helping give birth to the Municipality’s much-awaited skate park. The strong community spirit and local support just goes to show what people can accomplish when they get their heads together, one local official said.

As of writing this blog post, work on the park is now underway. Once completed, the skate park will be open to roller skaters, skateboarders looking for a safe spot to unwind, and everyone in the family.

According to Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson, the local community is to thank for the park’s construction. After years of waiting, she joked that local Moms can now get on their BMXs and ride in the park. It used to be that those on non-motorized vehicles could only safely enjoy themselves in the remote and out of the way parks.

When the skate park finally opens this September, it seems that won’t be a problem any longer.

The Northumberland Mall is proud to host the Community Safety Show, which takes place on the 19^th to the 22^nd of May. The show features amazing displays and a number of local groups coming together to make their presence felt. The Cobourg Fire Department, Emergency Management Services, and Crime Stoppers of Peterborough are among the groups who’ve come to participate in the 4-day event which highlights the importance of safety.

Some of the popular items and equipment put on display include ambulances, police vehicles, fire trucks, and a whole lot more.

One of the show’s biggest highlights took place on the 20^th, with the unveiling of a cutting-edge impaired driving simulator car, designed and put together by the whiz kids of Port Hope High School. Using the simulator vehicle might have been easy for those who came to the event, but building it was a totally different story.

The vehicle was apparently put together by taking a Sony Playstation (we assume it’s a PS3) and placing it in underneath the hood of the car, which had its “innards” taken out. A video game steering wheel was then outfitted into the car, which was complimented by a pair of specialized goggles that gave the “driver” a simulated feel as to what it’s like to drive drunk.

Unfortunately, the simulator was only available yesterday, but there are plenty of other activities to check out before the show ends this Saturday.

The new sewage treatment plant along Lake Street in Port Hope cost $36 million to construct and features cutting edge technologies & other fancy equipment. But like most high-budget projects in the country, this one also has some controversy behind it.

As proposed, both the federal and provincial governments will shoulder one-fourth of the cost, while the ratepayers were arranged to take care of what remained of the facility’s budget, which was originally pegged at $27 million.

According to Port Hope officials, the added $9 million is due to the unexpected cleanup of PCBs or Polychlorinated biphenyls around the old plant in 2008 – something that resulted in a halt of work, fees for hauling toxic waste, and subsequent penalties coming from the project’s contractor.

But to Sarah Clayton, a resident of Port Hope, this added fee is just plain unacceptable. She notes that the contaminated soil should have been part of the agreement in 2001 between Port Hope and the Federal Government that indicates 40,000 cubic meters of industrial waste in Port Hope to be up for remediation.

She points out that the treatment facility property could possible be contaminated with federal waste.

Municipal engineer Peter Angelo is puzzled as to why Port Hope was unaware of this contamination before entering into a legal agreement, but Mayor Linda Thompson commented that she’s exhausted efforts to fit the material into the federal clean up.

As of the moment, the municipality is concentrating on reducing the financial impact of the new sewage plant on the community.

Cheese may mean different things in French and Italian, but a cash donation of $5,000 is pretty clear – it’s a chance to provide more of this food to students in local schools.

For the 3rd consecutive year, Cameco Corporation has donated $5,000 for the purchase of more cheese products to be used in the nutrition drives and programs of 37 different schools in Northumberland County.

Not many people may know it, but cheese is a vital part of snack programs that are organized in the county’s schools. These programs are aimed at providing balanced and nutritious diets to students and youngsters – food they need to excel in class and everyday tasks.

Susan Greenwood, who works with the organization Northumberland Food for Thought, the group in charge of school food programs, said that Cameco’s recent donation is a big help to their efforts in promoting the importance of nutrition in the county. No matter what language you use, $5,000 is generous enough, she added.

To make the contribution formal, Cameco GM Andrew Thorne will be a guest of honor today in a ceremony and program held at the Ganaraska Trail Public School in the town of Port Hope, where he’ll present the check to NFFT and help out with the feeding efforts.

This week’s Port Hope news was riddled with community issues and the like. Here’s a quick recap of the major stories that happened in Port Hope.

A recent survey that polled numerous residents in the Municipality of Port Hope showed that many still had confidence in the local government’s plants to dispose and manage the town’s low-level radioactive waste. A long-term facility is currently in the works. Most residents who were polled also said that Port Hope is a still a good place to live in.

An issue that drew heated debate was the Port Hope library’s reduction of funding worth $10,000. The move was met with some controversy after chief librarian Barbara Stephenson pointed out that the reduction had to do with their receiving a donation from the company behind the ABC series “Happy Town,” which was shot in Port Hope.

Just recently, a wave of debit card fraud hit some residents in Port Hope, prompting police officials to launch an investigation into the matter. Police have not confirmed the number of people affected due to the lack of facts and details.

And finally, the third annual CanSkate Provincial Olympic celebration took place in Port Hope last week, hosted by the Port Hope Figure Skating Club. Every child who participated in the event was a winner, bringing home their own medal.

Some Port Hope residents were shocked to find out last week that someone had stolen money from their bank accounts. According to Port Hope Police Constable Jim Dunn, someone or some group is responsible for this rash of debit card fraud, but they can’t make any statements as of yet due to lack of details and facts. He admits that they have received a disturbing amount of complaints from people all over town.

Last Friday, February 5, police from the Municipality of Port Hope took action as people began to notice that they had money go missing from their individual accounts.

Port Hope’s police authorities don’t have a final number of the residents affected by the fraud, but their investigation led them to believe that a number of merchants in the Port Hope area had compromised machines. One local bank in the region pointed out that this wave of debit card fraud is the largest they’ve ever seen.

According to Bobbi Lax VP of operations at Ganaraska Financial, there’s a major difference to complaints of credit and debit card in the past and what’s happened now. The marked increase is disturbing he added.

Investigation on the case is still ongoing.

In spite of chief librarian Barbara Stephenson’s and incumbent library board Chairperson Marilyn Marsh’s opposition, the Port Hope library is still set to have a $10,000 reduction in funding from the Municipality of Port Hope, that is if the draft budget remains as it is.

It could have been much worse. In a budget meeting held on the 26^th of January, Port Hope’s council dismissed a motion to reduce the library’s budget by $17,000, changing it instead to $10,000.

According to Councilor Karen O’Hara, the reduction was necessary, seeing as how funding was donated by the library to the Friends of the Library, when it should have been used by the library’s costs like maintenance and the like.  She motioned for the reduction of $17,000.

Stephenson argued that the donation by Stage 49 Ltd, the company behind ABC’s TV series Happy Town, worth $15,000 is responsible for the negative reactions of local media and some in the community. She pointed out that the donation was received in good faith. Stephenson added that she didn’t even know council had an issue with the donation, so she was more than taken aback by the decision to reduce funding.

A next council meeting will be scheduled if councilors deem it necessary.

Last Saturday morning, the Port Hope Figure Skating Club had it its third annual CanSkate Provincial Olympic celebration, which took place at the Jack Burger Sports Complex in the Municipality of Port Hope.

The young skaters were separated into teams named after the different provinces in Canada. Aside from being grouped, they were also tested and evaluated by Sylvia Cappler on specific components with regards to their level of skill.

All of the skaters received a medal on the 6^th, Saturday.

Among those who scored the most points during the evaluation process for individual components include Devon Burli, wining Gold with 11 points; Doriann Blue, who won Silver after getting 10 points; and Nicole Burli, securing a Bronze medal for 9 points.

For team prizes, “Quebec” won the gold medal thanks to performances by its skaters Eva Ritchie, Rachel Madgett, Devon Burli and Caitlin Davies, Jacob Mahaffy and Grace Jenkins.

Team “Ontario” secured silver or second-place with its members Keegan Gunn- Lewis, Carlyle Ouellet, Nikki Bradshaw, Reghan Chadwick, Scout Young and Sein Kim.

Everyone went home a winner though, each taking home a special Bronze medal.

Indeed, these kids proved that they “CanSkate”. One can only imagine the future they will have. Who knows, they might go pro someday.

According to a recent survey commissioned by the Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI) Management Office that involved residents in Port Hope, community members still have confidence in the municipality’s plans to clean up and manage Port Hope’s low-level radioactive waste (LLRW) at a long-term facility that’s going to be constructed in the future.

Bob Neufuld, PHAI’s manager for its stakeholder and communications department, was pleased to find out that confidence remains high in the project, as well as in the quality of life in Port Hope.

The survey, which was done through telephone, indicated that 78 percent of those polled in the Port Hope community were at least somewhat confident that the low-level radioactive waste can be managed in the planned long-term waste management site. 40 percent of Port Hope’s residents on the other hand, were very confident in the upcoming project.

The same survey also found out that over 70 percent of those interviewed, were satisfied living in the community. 90 percent were ‘somewhat’ to ‘very’ satisfied to be living in Port Hope.

Port Hope Mayor Linda Thompson said she is very pleased to see that residents in the community are still very supportive of the project. She promised that the waste management facility will have a positive impact on the community.

If you want to pay Mother Nature back a favor, then why not join a free workshop in Port Hope that educates residents and landowners on the benefits and incentives they can have if they plant trees on their own properties?

The workshop, which is organized by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Trees Ontario, the Ganaraska Region Conservation Authority, the Ontario Forestry Association, and the Northumberland Stewardship Council, will be held on Tuesday, February 23, 2010. The event starts at 7 to 9 in the evening and will be held at the Millennium Building in Port Hope.

Those who get to attend the workshop will be taught how to correctly plant trees, as well as other techniques they can use to make tree planting more effective. Financial incentives for those who plant trees will also be discussed. Planned incentives will be similar to those of Ontario’s 50 Million Tree Program and the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program. Under the programs, those who plant trees on their properties can avail of significant property tax cuts.

But more importantly, planting trees is an effective way of reducing their carbon footprint on the environment.

So don’t forget to mark your calendars, and get your seats reserved. Space is limited so register now.