Stuart Betts, currently a deputy chief with the London Police Service, will be the next chief of the Peterborough Police Service.

The Peterborough Police Services Board made the announcement on Tuesday (November 1).

Betts had more than two decades of policing service with the York Regional Police Service, ranging from uniform patrol and criminal investigations to executive services, before joining the London Police Service in 2019. Prior to his current role as deputy chief of operations with the London Police Service, he was deputy chief of administration.

Betts has a Bachelor of Arts degree from York University as well as a Masters of Business Administration degree with a specialty in innovation leadership from the University of Fredericton, and is pursuing a second masters degree in law in alternative dispute resolution at Osgoode Hall Law School.

He is also a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management Police Leadership Program and the Police Executive Research Forum Senior Management Institute for Police. He has served as the co-chair of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police’s Police Information and Statistics Committee.

“I am thrilled and honoured to have been selected to be Peterborough’s next chief of police,” Betts states in a media release. “I believe the chief of police should be a leader in the community, and also serve to support the members of the organization by ensuring they have the tools and resources needed to serve the community at the highest possible level.”

Betts and his wife Michelle have an 21-year-old son named Neal.

“As your chief, I will be dedicated to ensuring we excel in our commitment to professionalism and excellence in support of safety for the community and to one another,” Betts adds. “Peterborough is to be my home, and I am invested in ensuring it is a safe place for my family and yours.”

In February, the Peterborough Police Services Board announced the sudden retirement of Scott Gilbert after four years as Peterborough’s police chief. In March, the board retained the services of an executive search firm to recruit a replacement and conduct community consultations.

“Following a rigorous selection process, the board deemed Chief Designate Betts as the person it felt most appropriate to lead the Peterborough Police Service in the coming years,” states a media release.

Betts will take over from acting chief Tim Farquharson on January 9.

“The board would also like to take this opportunity to express its sincere gratitude to Acting Chief Tim Farquharson for assuming leadership of the organization during this time of transition and for his continued positive presence and commitment to both the (Peterborough Police) Service and the communities we serve,” the board states.

If you enjoy playing the sport of curling — believed to be one of the world’s oldest team sports, originating in the 16th century in Scotland and northern Europe — you can indulge your love of the game while helping to support healthcare in the Peterborough region by registering for the GPHSF Charity Bonspiel.

Presented by GPHSF, Your Family Health Team Foundation in partnership with Imprinted Apparel Store, the fundraising event takes place on Saturday, January 21st at the Peterborough Curling Club at 2195 Lansdowne Street.

“We are really excited to launch this new fundraising event in partnership with Imprinted Apparel Store,” says GPHSF executive director Vince Bierworth. “Funds raised from this event with continue our mission to broaden health equity and access to healthcare for the residents in Peterborough City and County as well as Hiawatha and Curve Lake First Nations.”

The registration fee of $300 per team of four includes a guaranteed two games, breakfast and lunch, and a $60 tax receipt. You can register at gphsf.ca/events/gphsfcharitybonspiel/.

Participants will also have the opportunity to win a share of $1,000 in prizes provided by Imprinted Apparel Store and $500 in prizes provided by Goldline (including new shoes, new brooms, custom team jackets, broom bags, safety head wear, gloves, broom heads, grippers, and more) and to participate in The Ruttle Group $100 Curl-The-Button Challenge. There will also be trivia challenges, raffle draws, and many other opportunities to win prizes.

“Funds raised will support our partnership with the Peterborough Family Health Team, along with many other community organizations we work with,” Bierworth says.

With spots for only 24 teams available, the event is expected to sell out quickly. The registration deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Friday, January 13th.

Participants should have some experience with the game and should also have their own equipment. On-ice training for beginners will not be provided.

Sponsorship opportunities are also available for the event. If you would like to become a sponsor, contact Vince Bierworth at vince@gphsf.ca or 705-740-8074 ext. 300.

kawarthaNOW is proud to be a media sponsor of the GPHSF Charity Bonspiel.

The Ontario government is investing over $30 million as part of a combined $56.4 million funding package to enable Bell and Cogeco to expand high-speed internet access to almost 17,000 households in 50 communities across the City of Kawartha Lakes and Haliburton and Hastings counties over the next three years.

The funding announcement, which was made on Friday (October 28), is part of a partnership between Bell, Cogeco, and the Ontario and federal governments.

“This is great news for our community and for those who have been waiting for high-speed internet connections for several years,” says Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Laurie Scott in a media release.

Cogeco Connexion Inc. will receive up to $1,931,158 to provide high-speed internet access to 836 households in the communities of Greenhurst-Thurstonia, Omemee, and Pleasant Point by March 2024.

Bell Canada will receive up to $23,742,228 to provide high-speed internet access to 6,591 households in the communities of Alpine Village, Bancroft, Baptiste, Birds Creek, Bridgenorth, Buckhorn, Burleigh Falls, Curve Lake, Detlor, Fife’s Bay, Fort Stewart, Highland Grove, Lakeview Estates, L’Amable, Maple Leaf, Maynooth, McArthurs Mills, Mississagua Landing, Paudash, Youngs Point, and Youngstown by March 2025.

Bell Canada will also receive up to $30,764,039 to provide high-speed internet access to 9,329 households in the communities of Alpine Village, Bobcaygeon, Bolsover, Burnt River, Carnarvon, Coboconk, Eagle Lake, Fort Irwin, Gooderham, Haliburton, Horseshoe Lake, Ingoldsby, Irondale, Kirkfield, Lakeview Estates, Lochlin, Lutterworth, Minden, Moore Falls, Norland, Peterson Corner, Rosedale, Tory Hill, Victoria Place, Victoria Road, and West Guilford by December 2025.

A Peterborough woman is dead following a single-vehicle collision in the City of Kawartha Lakes on Monday morning (October 31).

At around 8:30 a.m., Kawartha Lakes OPP and emergency services responded to a vehicle rollover on Pigeon Lake Road east of Lindsay.

The lone occupant of the vehicle, a 51-year-old woman from Peterborough, was transported to hospital where she was later pronounced dead.

Police have not released the name of the victim.

Pigeon Lake Road was closed for several hours from Heights Road to Sturgeon Road while police documented the scene.

Environment Canada has issued a fog advisory for the southern Kawarthas region for Monday evening (October 31) into Tuesday morning.

The fog advisory is in effect for southern Peterborough County, southern Kawartha Lakes, and Northumberland County.

Dense fog is expected with visibility near zero.

With high pedestrian activity due to Halloween, motorists are encouraged to exercise increased caution when driving.

When trick-or-treating, pick brightly coloured costumes that can be clearly seen by motorists. Add reflective tape to the costume to increase visibility.

Give each child a flashlight to carry to make them more visible to motorists and others.

If travelling, be prepared for areas of near-zero visibility. If visibility is reduced while driving, slow down, watch for tail lights ahead and be prepared to stop.

In advance of Remembrance Day, a group of citizen volunteers is hosting a fall clean-up event at Ashburnham Memorial Park in Peterborough’s East City — known to locals as Armour Hill — on Saturday (November 5).

This is the third clean-up event organized by the Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group, founded in June 2021 to advocate for positive changes to the historical park, which features a memorial to local residents who died in World War I.

Because it is the highest point in Peterborough, Armour Hill is a popular destination during the summer (largely because of the commanding views) and during the winter for tobogganing. Unfortunately, these activities also result in a large amount of waste left behind in the park.

Previous fall and spring clean-up events hosted by the Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group have collected a total of 36 bags of garbage, four bags of recyclables, as well as several large items including tires and wheels, signposts, doors, and mirrors. More than 2.5 pounds of cigarette butts have been removed from the park by Donna Reid’s Butt 1 community initiative for charity.

The November 5th clean-up event begins at 10 a.m., rain or shine, with volunteers meeting at the Heritage Pavilion at the top of Armour Hill near the Peterborough Museum and Archives. The event will begin with a land acknowledgement and orientation. Supplies, snacks, and hot beverages will be provided, but volunteers are asked to bring optional work gloves, a mug for beverages, and to dress for the weather.

The spring clean-up event saw more than 50 volunteers participate. The fall clean-up tends to focus on the upper park around the large parking lot where lot of trash seems finds its way into the surrounding forest.

“Ashburnham Memorial Park is approximately 50 acres in size, so the more volunteers that show up to help at these clean-ups, the more widespread our cleaning efforts can be,” the group states on its website.

The traditional territory of the Mississauga Anishinaabeg, the land that comprises Ashburnham Memorial Park became Crown land that was purchased by European settler Reverend Samuel Armour in 1833. Part of Armour’s land (excluding the hill) was later expropriated by the federal government for the building of the Trent Canal.

When Armour’s estate was being settled in the 1920s, 35 acres of land on the top of the hill was offered to the City of Peterborough for purchase. Following much debate — with proponents of the purchase advocating using the land for a memorial for local men who died fighting in World War I — the city declined to purchase the land after a public vote in 1922,

The following year, a group of 35 women known as the Women’s Patriotic League of Ashburnham put a downpayment on the land and, over the next 14 years, raised enough funds to purchase the property. The group also arranged and paid for the planting of thousands of trees and commissioned the construction of the roadway (now known as Museum Drive) and the parking area.

When the group disbanded in 1937, they donated the park to the City of Peterborough to serve in perpetuity as a war memorial.

On June 24, 1959, a memorial cairn and plaque dedication was held on top of the hill of Ashburnham Memorial Park. The inscription reads, “This park was given to the City of Peterborough by the Women’s Patriotic League of Ashburnham in memory of the men of Peterborough who fell in the Great War of 1914-1918.”

In recognition of both the historical and environmental significance of the park, the Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group is seeking to enhance stewardship of the park for positive activities such as bird watching, hiking, astronomy, war memorial ceremonies, school visits, and tourism while decreasing known negative behaviours that happen at the park such as speeding and reckless driving, breaking of bottles, garbage dumping, illegal fireworks, and more.

The Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group meets monthly to discuss issues and ideas for the park and to liaise with the city councillors representing Ashburnham Ward on city council. The group recently distributed 1,000 flyers to East City residents, worked with the city to identify an infrastructure improvement opportunity for the memorial cairn, partnered with Trent University’s School of the Environment to create a gap analysis report, and participated in the public consultations for the city’s Eastside Transportation Study which has the potential to affect the park.

For more information about the Ashburnham Memorial Stewardship Group, and to complete a survey about the future of the park, visit the group’s new website at ashburnhamstewardship.com.

The emergency department at Campbellford Memorial Hospital reopened on Sunday night (October 30) after being temporarily closed for three days due to capacity and staffing challenges brought on by a COVID-19 outbreak in the hospital’s inpatient unit.

The hospital closed the emergency department on Thursday after the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit declared an outbreak on the inpatient unit following confirmed cases of hospital transmission. The outbreak affects two of the three wings on the inpatient unit that accommodate both the four-bed special care unit and 30 acute care beds.

Because of the size of the COVID-19 outbreak, the hospital temporarily repurposed its day surgery wing as an inpatient care area to help alleviate capacity pressures, with staff from other departments redeployed to assist with patient care on the inpatient unit.

While the emergency department reopened at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, the hospital’s capacity to admit new patients is still affected by the outbreak.

“Due to the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak on the inpatient unit, we are only able to admit patients to the day surgery area, which has been temporarily repurposed to accommodate inpatient beds,” the hospital states in a media release. “This creates a significant constraint on our capacity for admissions, and those attending the Emergency Department who need admission may be moved to another hospital.”

“We continue to work with public health in regards to our infection control practices as we continue to have a relatively large number of patients admitted with COVID, As the outbreak stabilizes, we hope to be able to open additional areas of the inpatient unit to further admissions.”

All visitation to the inpatient unit remains restricted to patients in the hospital for end-of-life care.

“We would like to thank our health care partners, in particular our neighbouring hospitals and EMS, for their support these past few days,” the hospital states. “We acknowledge all health service providers are operating well beyond their capacity and sudden closures of this nature put additional strain on an already strained system.”

The 12th annual “Bras Around the Building” campaign in Peterborough has raised $12,603 for breast cancer research.

The campaign, organized by local Bell Media radio stations Pure Country 105 and MOVE 99.7 in partnership with Merrett Home Hardware Building Centre, collected 3,472 gently used bras from the community over the past four weeks — which are now hanging on the radio stations’ building at 59 George Street North in downtown Peterborough.

Merrett Home Hardware Building Centre donated $2 per bra collected, along with monetary donations from local businesses — including Cindy King and Canada Life, Bridget Leslie and My Left Breast, AON, Sobeys Towerhill, Freshco Peterborough, and more — as well as monetary donations from individuals.

The $12,603 raised will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society for breast cancer research.

Drew Merrett, Rob Tinney of Northumberland Crane and Tree Services, the Peterborough Fire Department, and Rapid Lift helped hang the bras on the building, where they will remain until Monday (October 31) as a symbol of support for women battling breast cancer, to honour survivors, and to remember those who have lost their battle.

People are encouraged to stop by and take pictures over the weekend.