Peterborough residents will have one last chance to provide feedback on the City of Peterborough’s draft 2023 budget at a public meeting on Monday (January 9).
City council’s finance committee will hear delegations beginning at 6 p.m. on Monday, in advance of a series on finance committee meetings from January 16 to 19 to review the draft budget.
The city’s draft budget proposes a four per cent hike to the all-inclusive property tax rate, which would add $67.61 per year for each $100,000 of residential assessment. For example, a home assessed at $600,000 would see an additional $406 annually in property tax. This compares to a 2.87 per cent property tax increase approved in the 2022 budget.
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The draft 2023 budget includes $131.2 million in capital expenditures including road work, a household organic waste composting facility and collection equipment, flood reduction efforts, facility maintenance, funding for the planned replacement of a fire station, sanitary sewer repairs, construction of the new twin-pad arena at Morrow Park, and police capital projects.
The budget also includes $326.6 million in operating expenditures for programs and services including waste management, road maintenance, wastewater sewers and treatment, social assistance, affordable housing, fire services, policing, and recreation, arts and heritage.
Details about the draft 2023 budget are available on the City of Peterborough’s website at peterborough.ca/budget.
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Residents interested in registering as a delegation for the January 9th meeting can do so online at peterborough.ca/delegation or by calling the city clerk’s office at 705-742-7777 ext. 1820.
Delegates must be registered by 11 a.m. on January 9th to speak at the public meeting, which will also be livestreamed at peterborough.ca/WatchCouncil.
Council approved guidelines for creating the draft 2023 budget at its July 25th meeting following a series of community consultation meetings, a survey, a public budget meeting, and a council meeting where residents presented to council on the budget guidelines. A document summarizing the survey submissions is available at connectptbo.ca/2023Budget.
City council received a presentation on the draft budget at its December 5th meeting, and will consider approving the budget at its January 30th meeting.
Environment Canada has issued a freezing rain warning for the entire greater Kawarthas region for Wednesday night (January 4).
The freezing rain warning is in effect for Peterborough County, the City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton County, Northumberland County, and Hastings Highlands.
There will be the risk for scattered showers across the area Wednesday with steadier rain expected to develop late Wednesday afternoon. The rain is expected to transition over to freezing rain Wednesday night as temperatures drop to or slightly below freezing, with 3 to 5 millimetres of ice accretion possible.
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The freezing rain will transition to snow, at times mixed with ice pellets, late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.
Periods of light snow will linger through Thursday, though any accumulations are expected to be minor.
Surfaces such as highways, roads, walkways and parking lots may become icy and slippery. Take extra care when walking or driving in affected areas.
Peterborough drag performer Betty Baker reacts to supporters after leaving a drag queen story time event at the Peterborough Public Library on September 24, 2022. A protest against the event and against gender diversity was met by a larger counter-protest supporting the event and supporting gender diversity. (Photo courtesy of Jordan Lyall @jordanlyallphotography)
An upcoming children’s story time presentation at the Peterborough Public Library will feature emotions at its centre — inside as well as outside of the Aylmer Street branch.
Billed as Drag Queen Story Time, the January 14th event will feature teenage drag performer Betty Baker reading books to children aged 3 to 8, and lead the singing of songs, all themed around emotions and feelings. But that’s not sitting well at all with a group of community residents who will protest the 10:15 to 10:45 a.m. event, gathering outside the library to express their concerns.
Back in September, a similar event also led by Baker drew an impressive 174 attendees. It also attracted a protest that was met by an even larger number of counter-protesters. Despite that uproar, library staff has opted to move forward with more drag queen story time events.
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“We want to normalize being different,” says community development librarian Karen Clysdale, adding “We’re not just checking a box and acknowledging something once in awhile. We want it to be part of our regular everyday programming.”
“It’s all the things we want from story time. It’s imaginative. It’s colourful. It’s fun. It’s inviting. It’s welcoming. It celebrates literacy, oral and written. It’s interactive. It’s also something that opens people’s eyes to something new and different, giving people a slice of something else.”
For her part, Baker, a 19-year-old Peterborough native now studying performance production at Toronto Metropolitan University, says she’s delighted to be asked back to present the event.
19-year-old Peterborough drag performer Betty Baker. (Photo: Luke Best)
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“It’s always important to feel included in your community and to feel seen,” says Baker, who led a number of story hours this past summer at libraries in other communities.
“Growing up, I really didn’t have anyone to look up to who was like me, whether that was different or specifically queer. I think it’s important to have someone in the community to look up to. It’s not just about the drag. Inclusivity in general is important. We’re all human. We’re all different.”
That may well be, says Ben Inglis, but as the co-organizer of the protest with Paul Lawton, the Hill City Baptist Church pastor points to “the narrative we’re being told to buy into.”
A Facebook event page, titled Drag Queen Story Hour Protest, outlines in full the group’s concerns, referencing particularly “the insanity” of inviting Baker to facilitate a children’s story hour.
“That (narrative) is drag and drag culture is harmless dress-up time. This is just fun for kids. The problem with that is it ignores the origin and history of drag. Drag is inherently a transgressive expression. Its nature is designed to push boundaries. The hyper-sexualized pseudonyms they give themselves, the clothing that it expose … the whole thing is inescapably sexualized. Even if they tone it down for children’s story hour, the nature of drag in itself is designed to be transgressive.”
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While Inglis et al have gone to great pains to urge a peaceful protest, he admits that can’t be assured due to interference by others not involved with his group.
“There’s always going to be an element of unpredictability in these types of things. Not everyone is necessarily willing to be cool and calm and collected. At our last protest (at the September event), I was trying to communicate a simple five-minute statement of our position and there was a counter-protester right in my face screaming at me. You can’t curate a mob. You can’t curate a protest.”
On December 17, a raucous protest and counter-protest took place as the Brockville Public Library held its first-ever drag story time event. While the protest itself was peaceful, library CEO Geraldine Slark told CBC Ontario Morning there was an attempt to light a fire on the library roof before the event, possibly to set off the library’s sprinklers, and the library also received a bomb threat.
That experience is a major red flag for Peterborough Public Library services manager Mark Stewart who is pulling out all the stops to ensure library patrons, event attendees and, yes, protesters are safe.
“The protesters have stated it’s to be respectful and non-violent — they were true to their word last time (in September),” credits Stewart. “The library supports democracy and public discussion. If they want to come and have a protest that is respectful and non-violent, that is their right to do so. We are trusting that they will hold to that.”
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That said, the library is also taking extra steps to prepare for the January 14th event.
“We’ll have extra staff on that day,” Stewart says. “We’ve hired security. We will be notifying the police that this protest will be happening.”
Clysdale notes the event will be held in the Friends of the Library Community Room, not in the children’s department where story time sessions are typically held.
“It’s larger and a little bit easier to control access,” say Clysdale. “We can’t always control what’s going to happen, just as they (protesters) can’t control what’s going to happen. Being a public library, we see wacky things every day. Staff here are so good at being flexible and responsive as needed. We’re all kind of rallying to make it work.”
Asked if she fears for her own safety, Baker is quick to respond “Absolutely,” but adds “I know the library is looking out for my safety, and the safety of all the patrons. We’ve got all of that sorted out already. Of course it’s scary, but I feel safe in the knowledge that the library is there for me and my community, and the parents and families who want to come out.”
Baker notes she was scheduled to host a story hour event in December at Lavender and Play Boutique and Family Studio on Chemong Road but the plug was pulled because of threats made.
VIDEO: Betty Baker announces cancellation of December Lavender and Play storytime event
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“There’s this kind of mass hysteria around drag story times where there’s misinformation being spread and there’s a hateful culture around it, which is devastating to me as someone who loves doing story time,” says Baker.
“The library is here to look out for everyone. We’re working together to make the event as safe and welcoming as possible for everyone. If you don’t like it, just don’t come. This has been an incredibly successful event in the past. The support that I have received from the library, and Lavender and Play, has been absolutely amazing. There are so many parents and kids who want to come out and have a good time and have some fun.”
As disturbing to Inglis as the event itself is the general view of his group’s members.
“There’s a caricature floating around that we’re an angry, frustrated group of people who really don’t have anything better to do. That we’ve got a lot of axes to grind. Just give us an opportunity and we’ll protest. I want to dispel that caricature. I personally tend to not be a confrontational person by nature.”
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“But there comes a point where a threshold is crossed where we, as members of the community, as adults and as parents and, I would say especially as Christians, need to take a stand,” Inglis adds. “We need to say this is inappropriate. That this is not right.”
“There seems something particularly sinister about inviting drag entertainers to be in the proximity of children. That, for us, was a threshold moment where we thought ‘OK, we’re probably going to be in the minority but that’s OK because truth, even if it’s in the minority, is still truth.'”
Looking ahead, Clysdale says plans to present similar story time events with Baker in February, March, and May are well underway.
“The level of support that we’ve had from the community is pretty overwhelming,” says Stewart.
“The counter-protest (in September) was much bigger than the actual protest. It’s a very small group of people who are very vocal about this issue. The number of people who will come to support it is much greater. There’s no comparing the two.”
This story has been updated with a correction. A protest and counter-protest took place at the Brockville Public Library on December 17, not in Belleville in the summer, and Betty Baker did not perform at that event.
Peterborough GreenUP staff share their "green wishes" for 2023, as well as actions we can take in the new year to make 2023 greener. Not only does planting trees reduce stress, but it also improves our local urban environment. Consider choosing a native plant nursery like the one at Ecology Park when planning your 2023 garden. (Photo: Jessica Todd / GreenUP)
For the next two weeks, GreenUP will be highlighting voices from both GreenUP staff and Green Economy Peterborough members in the form of “Green Wishes.”
Each week, GreenUP provides a story related to the environment. This week’s column is by Lili Paradi, Communications Manager at GreenUP.
Alongside the Green Wishes of our staff, we have added Green New Year’s Actions.
We hope you count our actions among your other inspiring and achievable resolutions that will GreenUP the year ahead.
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Tegan Moss, GreenUP Executive Director
“My Green Wish is for the success of our community in taking the practical steps that will allow us to reach our climate change goals.”
“I wish the City of Peterborough, County of Peterborough, and our surrounding townships success in implementing the Climate Change Action Plans. I wish many businesses success in completing a carbon inventory and making an action plan for emissions reductions. I wish many homeowners success in insulating and draft-proofing their homes and moving toward comfort and home electrification. I wish many youth success in learning about diverse ecosystems, climate change, and leadership.”
“I wish that everyone in our community might deepen their love of nature and find new success in taking sustainable action both great and small!”
New Year’s Resolution
Take a friend or family member for a nature appreciation walk in Ecology Park (or another of your favorite naturalized spaces) and name as many animals, trees, and plants as you can.
In the spring and fall of 2022, volunteers and staff from Nourish, GreenUP, and the City of Peterborough planted 65 fruit trees along with some berry bushes and perennials at public parks and community gardens across Peterborough/Nogojiwanong. What is in store for 2023? (Photo: Laura Keresztesi / GreenUP)
Jessica Todd, GreenUP Communications and Store & Resource Centre Associate
“My Green Wish for 2023 is that we are all a little more mindful of the waste we create. I hope we find new ways to reduce our ecological footprint, such as using less plastic, eating less meat, and supporting our local shops and farmers.”
New Year’s Resolution
Make the switch away from products packaged in single-use plastic like shampoo and laundry soap. Choose refillable containers or products with plastic free packaging like those available at the GreenUP Store at 378 Aylmer!
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Eileen Kimmett, GreenUP Store & Resource Centre Manager
“My Green Wish is for the GreenUP Store & Resource Centre to showcase and offer products that are not only sustainable, ethically made, and eco-friendly — but also teach about local knowledge. The products could be a tea, a candle, a salve, art, and they would teach us to respect, help, and nurture our planet.”
New Year’s Resolution
Support skilled local Indigenous makers and learn a few words of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe).
The Shifting Gears Challenge is a prize-incentivized public transportation challenge created by GreenUP. The goal of the challenge is to motivate a shift in daily commutes and errands away from solo car trips, towards more active and sustainable forms of transportation. With the new Bethune Street opening in sight, individuals have incentive to start this challenge and build new habits in 2023. (Photo: GreenUP)
Hayley Goodchild, GreenUP Program Coordinator
“My Green Wish is for a tree or a rain garden (or both) to be on every lawn in Peterborough/Nogojiwanong.”
“My Green Wish is for there to be many more homeowners and community members that register for the new Home Energy Efficiency Rebate Plus Program, launching in January 2023, a partnership between Enbridge Gas and Canada’s Greener Homes Grant. Through this program, current Enbridge Gas customers can receive up to $10,000 in rebates towards eligible retrofits.”
New Year’s Resolution
Stop pesky drafts that leak heat! Then plan to decarbonize your home.
In 2022, Ecology Park offered a summer of engaging camps for children of all ages in Peterborough and region. In 2023, children will have access to Ecology Park’s newly built naturalized playscape, both in and out of camps. (Photo: Jessica Todd / GreenUP)
Lili Paradi, GreenUP Communications Manager
“In 2023, my Green Wish is that new residents to Peterborough/Nogojiwanong are introduced to and connect with their urban environment. I hope to see new partnerships, in-person storytelling opportunities, and local voices in the news, social media, and events that encourage environmental action.”
New Year’s Resolution
Attend the ReFrame Film Festival between January 26th and February 3rd. Check out at least one film about an environmental issue that matters to you and one film by a local director or about a local issue.
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Karen O’Krafka, GreenUP Program Coordinator
“My wish is for a joyful return to a livePeterborough Children’s Water Festival at the zoo in May 2023! I’m thrilled to bring Grade 2 to 5 students, high school activity leaders, local water heroes and community volunteers from Nogojiwanong and beyond for two days of immersive water education.”
“A wish for Ecology Park is for children of all ages to joyfully explore and build their skills on our new naturalized playscape in all seasons.”
New Year’s Resolution
Take your family or loved ones to Ecology Park, located at 1899 Ashburnham Dr and check out the new naturalized playscape!
Registration for 2023 camps at Ecology Park begins in the spring season. One way to foster appreciation for the environment in kids is introducing them to hands-on experiential opportunities, like those in Ecology Park Climate Leadership Program and the Earth Adventure’s Camp. (Photo: Jessica Todd / GreenUP)
Ashley Burnie, GreenUP Program Coordinator
“My Green Wish is that more kids have a safe and fun active commute to school! We want all young people to enjoy their trip to school whether it’s a walk, roll, bike ride, or park n’ stride (parking the car and walking the rest of the way).”
New Year’s Resolution
If you are able to, walk, roll, or ride to school/work/play at least twice in each season of 2023.
Businesses can also make resolutions to be more active in the environmental community. Green Economy Peterborough is a local resource that helps businesses reach their green goals and encourages networking and collaboration events such as this one in November 2022 at Cambium Engineering. (Photo: Jessica Todd / GreenUP)
Natalie Stephenson, GreenUP Director of Programs
“I hope that in 2023, we can make big strides toward replanting our urban forest!”
New Year’s Resolution
Plant a tree on your lawn or boulevard! Visit the GreenUP Native Plant and Tree Nursery at 1899 Ashburnham Dr during the gardening season to pick the perfect species.
A scene from the 1953 production of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" about the 17th-century Salem witch trials in colonial America and an allegory for the anti-communist witch-hunts in the U.S. in the mid 20th century. The Peterborough Theatre Guild production, which runs for 10 performances from January 20 to February 4, will be set in the 1930s. (Photo: Fred Fehl / AP)
The Peterborough Theatre Guild is bringing an updated version of celebrated American playwright Arthur Miller’s classic play The Crucible to the Guild Hall stage for 10 performances in late January and early February.
The Crucible is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692 and 1693, in which more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft and 14 women and five men were executed by hanging. From about 1450 to 1750, witch-hunts in Europe and colonial America resulted in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions.
Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory for McCarthyism — a period during the late 1940s and 1950s when Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy led his own witch-hunt for alleged communists living in the U.S. Ironically, Miller himself was questioned by the House of Representatives’ so-called Committee on Un-American Activities three years after he wrote The Crucible and was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
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First performed on Broadway in 1953, The Crucible received mostly hostile reviews and Miller himself was not pleased with the production. Despite that, the play won the 1953 Tony Award for best play, and a new production the following year was more successful. It was later revived on Broadway in both 2002 and 2016.
In 1961, the play was adapted as an opera and received the 1962 Pulitzer Prize for music. It has been also been presented several times on television and, in 1996, was produced as a film starring Paul Scofield, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Winona Ryder. For his adapted screenplay, Miller received an Academy Award nomination.
When the film version was released, Miller explained in The New Yorker why he wrote The Crucible, calling it “an act of desperation.”
Playwright Arthur Miller sits at his typewriter in New York City in 1949, the same year he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for “Death of a Salesman” and four years before he wrote “The Crucible.” (AP photo)
“Much of my desperation branched out, I suppose, from a typical Depression-era trauma — the blow struck on the mind by the rise of European Fascism and the brutal anti-Semitism it had brought to power,” Miller wrote. “But by 1950, when I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being identified as covert Communists if they should protest too strongly.”
“I am not sure what The Crucible is telling people now, but I know that its paranoid center is still pumping out the same darkly attractive warning that it did in the fifties. For some, the play seems to be about the dilemma of relying on the testimony of small children accusing adults of sexual abuse, something I’d not have dreamed of forty years ago. For others, it may simply be a fascination with the outbreak of paranoia that suffuses the play — the blind panic that, in our age, often seems to sit at the dim edges of consciousness.”
“Certainly its political implications are the central issue for many people; the Salem interrogations turn out to be eerily exact models of those yet to come in Stalin’s Russia, Pinochet’s Chile, Mao’s China, and other regimes … But below its concerns with justice the play evokes a lethal brew of illicit sexuality, fear of the supernatural, and political manipulation, a combination not unfamiliar these days.”
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The Peterborough Theatre Guild production will be directed by Jane Werger, produced by Linda Conway and Elaine Orgill, and brought to life by an 18-member cast. To bring the play closer to our time, the production will be set in the 1930s, according to a media release from the Peterborough Theatre Guild.
“The Crucible … is an ode to courage and conscience; a rebuke of lying and tyranny; a tender love story; a cautionary tale,” reads the media release. “This compelling drama still resonates in our social/political climate today.”
Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. on January 20 and 21, January 26 to 28, and February 2 to 4, with 2 p.m. matinee performances on January 22 and 29. While masking is encouraged at all performances, a special evening performance on February 3 will be available for those more comfortable attending a show with COVID protocols (masking will be required for that performance and there will be limited audience capacity with spaced seating).
Tickets for The Crucible are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors, and $15 for students, and are available online at peterboroughtheatreguild.com or by calling 705-745-4211. Tickets for the the February 3 performance are available by phone or by emailing Yvonne MacDougall at pearlwildmacdougall@yahoo.com.
kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the Peterborough Theatre Guild’s 2022-23 season.
Stratford Festival actor Steve Ross returns to star in the New Stages Theatre Company's restaging of "Every Brilliant Thing", Duncan MacMillan's heart-wrenching, life-affirming, and hilarious play about depression originally performed by Irish comedian Jonny Donahoe. Directed by Linda Kash, the play runs for five performances at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough from January 18 to 22, 2023. (Photo: Trish Lindstrom)
This January, renowned Canadian actor Steve Ross is reprising his starring role in New Stages Theatre Company’s new production of the hit solo play Every Brilliant Thing, running for five performances at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in downtown Peterborough.
Both heart wrenching and hilarious, Every Brilliant Thing tells the story of an unnamed narrator’s journey from boyhood to adulthood while creating a list for his clinically depressed mother of everything in the world that makes life worthwhile — a list that begins when he is seven years old with “ice cream,” “water fights,” and “staying up past your bedtime and being allowed to watch TV” and continues to expand throughout his life until it takes on a life of its own.
Originally written by English playwright Duncan MacMillan as a short story in 2009, Every Brilliant Thing become a theatrical collaboration between MacMillan and Irish stand-up comedian and actor Jonny Donahoe, who used his comedic improvisation skills to help develop the play — which relies on interaction with the audience.
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First performed by Donahoe at the Ludlow Fringe Festival in 2013, the play went on to a critically acclaimed run at Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014, before opening in Barrow Street Theater in New York City later that year, with one of Donahoe’s off-Broadway performances filmed for a 2015 HBO special.
Reviewing the Edinburgh Festival Fringe production, The Guardian called it “one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see about depression — and possibly one of the funniest plays you’ll ever see, full stop.”
A long-time member of the Stratford Festival company, Ross will be reprising the role he first performed in a New Stages production of Every Brilliant Thing in January 2020, just before the pandemic. Directed by Linda Kash, the play had a sold-out nine-show run at the intimate black-box theatre The Theatre on King in downtown Peterborough.
VIDEO: HBO trailer for “Every Brilliant Thing” performed by Johnny Donahoe
“Every audience differs by who they are and what they bring to the table,” Ross told kawarthaNOW in 2020. “It also feels like this show is different with every actor who does it. Because the show is conversational, the line is immediately blurred.”
Directed by Randy Read, the January production of Every Brilliant Thing is being staged at the larger Market Hall Performing Arts Centre, with performances at 7:30 p.m. from Wednesday, January 18th through Saturday, January 21st, with a 1 p.m. matinee performance on Sunday, January 22nd.
“With humour and warmth, Stratford actor Steve Ross is simply remarkable in the lead role, a man who reflects back on his family life, his encounters with depression, and how he’s found a way to keep going in difficult times,” reads a New Stages description of the production. “A perfect play for our times, Every Brilliant Thing is a much-needed reminder of all the little things that make life worth living.”
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General admission tickets are $30 ($15 for arts workers, students, or the underwaged) and are available in person at the Market Hall box office at 140 Charlotte Street from 12 to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday or online anytime at tickets.markethall.org.
Note:Every Brilliant Thing has a trigger warning for themes of suicide and is not recommended for children 13 and younger.
For more information about New Stages Theatre Company, its current season, and for season subscriptions, visit www.newstages.ca.
Steve Ross (right) with director Linda Kash (left) at a rehearsal of New Stages’ sold-out 2020 production of “Every Brilliant Thing” at The Theatre On King in downtown Peterborough. (Photo: Eva Fisher / Public Energy)
kawarthaNOW is proud to be media sponsor of New Stages Theatre Company’s 25th anniversary season.
This story has been updated with the following correction: Randy Read, not Linda Kash, is directing the 2023 production.
87-year-old Ralph Skinner of Cobourg. (Police-supplied photo)
UPDATE Mon Jan 2 10:35 a.m.
Cobourg police advise missing 87-year-old Ralph Skinner has been located.
Cobourg police are seeking the public’s help in locating missing 87-year-old Ralph Skinner.
Skinner was last seen on Parkview Hills Drive in the Town of Cobourg at around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday (January 1).
He is described as a white male with a medium build, grey hair, and glasses.
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Skinner was wearing a beige windbreaker, blue jeans, and white running shoes.
Police and family are concerned for his well-being.
Anyone with information about Skinner’s whereabouts is asked to call the Cobourg Police Service at 905-372-6821 or call Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
As well as fire and emergency response, Peterborough Fire Services provides public fire and safety education and fire prevention, investigation, and Fire Code enforcement. (Photo: Peterborough Fire Services)
Working smoke detectors saved a Peterborough resident and their home from significant damage from a New Year’s Eve fire.
On Saturday night (December 31), Peterborough Fire Services responded to a 911 call by an occupant who woke up to their smoke detectors in alarm at their Mark Street home in Peterborough’s East City.
Peterborough Fire Services responded with 15 firefighters on three pumpers, one aerial ladder truck, and a command vehicle.
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After entering the smoke-filled home, firefighters found the fire in early stages up in the attic and were able to extinguish it quickly and with minimal damage.
According to a media release from Peterborough Fire Services, the origin of the fire appeared to be related to a bathroom fan.
This photo of a sunset over frozen Baxter Creek in Millbrook by Kirk Hillsley was our top post on Instagram for December 2022. (Photo: Kirk Hillsley @kirkhillsley / Instagram)
I think we can all remember days and holiday times in December when we’ve had unusual weather — a bit too warm or very snowy. But this December has taken all the top rankings, from no snow and unseasonable warmth early in the month, to a full-on “snowmageddon” for the Christmas weekend, and an early “January melt” for the new year.
As our top photos this month demonstrate, even when we are dealing with bizarre and changing weather, the Kawarthas are the prettiest place to be.
Do you want to get on our top photographers list? All you need is an Insta account and to tag us using our hashtag #kawarthanow when posting your photo.
We share photos from across our readership area, which is the five-county area surrounding Peterborough which includes Peterborough, Northumberland, City of Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, and Hastings (we sneak in the occasional Algonquin Park picture as well, particularly if it’s by a Kawarthas photographer).
To see our daily shares of photos, follow us on Instagram @kawarthanow and check out our feed’s highlight reels for recaps of every month in 2022.
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#1. Sunset over frozen Baxter Creek in Millbrook by Kirk Hillsley @kirkhillsley
After serving up a brutal winter storm over the Christmas long weekend, Mother Nature is literally throwing cold water on New Year’s Eve celebrations.
Environment Canada has issued a rainfall warning for Peterborough County, the City of Kawartha Lakes, Northumberland County, and Hastings Highlands until Saturday night (December 31).
Periods of rain will ecome heavy at times through Saturday, with total rainfall amounts of 20 to 35 mm.
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Rain is expected to come to an end Saturday night.
The frozen ground has a reduced ability to absorb this rainfall. Heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water pooling on roads. Keep children and pets away from creeks and river banks.
For information concerning flooding, please consult your local Conservation Authority or Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry office.
kawarthaNOW.com offers two enews options to help readers stay in the know. Our VIP enews is delivered weekly every Wednesday morning and includes exclusive giveaways, and our news digest is delivered daily every morning. You can subscribe to one or both.
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