Daily Archives: January 23, 2010

By Doug Draper

So what if the commissioners of one of the oldest government agencies in the greater Niagara region – in the wake of years of public pressure – at long last held their first ever meeting in the open and survived?

Oak Hall in Niagara Falls, Ont. was the site this January of the first open meeting the Niagara Parks Commission has held in its 124-year history. Photo by Doug Draper

And survive they did.

More than 50 members of the public squeezed in to a room on the first floor of the Niagara Parks Commission’s stately Oak Hall headquarters in Niagara Falls this Jan. 22 where 10 of its commissioners and about half a dozen of its senior staff were meeting.

There were no outbursts from the public gallery as the commissioners worked their way through the agenda. People sat back quietly listening to the proceedings and taking the odd note. And at the end of it all, Archie Katzman, a longtime commissioner and the NPC’s acting chairman, seemed to have a look of relief on his face as he thanked the people in attendance for being “a great audience.”

It was enough to make one wonder why it took 124 years since the NPC was created by an act of provincial parliament to protect and preserve parklands along the Ontario side of the Niagara River to swing its meeting doors open in the first place! Continue reading →

 By Doug Draper

The Globe and Mail has joined Niagara At Large and other media and residents across Niagara in asking if a Fort Erie teen, who died enroute to a Welland hospital emergency room the day after Christmas, would still be alive today if the emergency room at Fort Erie’s hospital had not been shut down.

This Saturday, Jan. 23 Globe features a heart-wrenching account by Denise Kennedy, mother of 18-year-old Reilly Anzovino, of the circumstances around Reilly’s death from internal injuries following a traffic accident on a stretch of Hwy. 3 in Fort Erie during the late hours of this past Boxing Day.

Reilly’s parents, along with Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor and numerous other residents in southern and central areas of Niagara, have since called on the Ontario coroner’s office to hold a public inquest to determine if a decision by the Niagara Health System  (the body responsible for operating most of the region’s hospitals) to close the Fort Erie hospital’s emergency room this past year may have been a factor in Reilly’s death.

Niagara At Large cannot run the Globe and Mail article in its entirety. But you can read it and reach your own conclusions by clicking on the following link: 
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/teens-death-ignites-debate-over-emergency-room-closures/article1441451/

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