Niagara At Large will either soar in cyberspace or fall on the strength of people willing to contribute content to this site for nothing more than the possibility that maybe – just maybe – we can provide a forum for the kind of informative and engaging news and analysis that has crashed and burned in too many of our chain-owned newspapers.
And when we say “for nothing,” we mean that everyone up to and including the publisher of Niagara At Large is launching this project for no monetary compensation whatsoever, but on a dream that maybe that will come someday if this site proves worthy enough to draw funding from people who believe in it.
Fortunately, there are already good people willing to contribute to Niagara At Large that are willing to accept those terms, and we thank them, in advance, for their passion in trying to get a truly independent news and commentary site for the greater Niagara region off the ground.
There may be more of you who would like to contribute and you can begin to do that by contacting Niagara At Large’s publisher at drapers@vaxxine.com.
Contributing an article or commentary piece to Niagara At Large could mean anything from sharing the odd piece of news and commentary for the site to more regularly producing columns. You may be a young person who is still attending high school, college or university, looking for one more venue for communicating your generation’s concerns about your ups and downs, and concerns for the future. Or you may be someone who has lost a job or is a senior on a fixed income, or member of a not-for-profit organization working for the betterment of our binational Niagara/Buffalo region.
If you have news or viewpoints all of us in the greater Niagara region may benefit from, then this site may be one you agree we can all build on.
Doug Draper, publisher, Niagara At Large, drapers@vaxxine.com.
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12 responses so far ↓
Steve Rowan // December 5, 2009 at 3:36 pm |
Jolly Good Show! Cheers! Your voice catches the essence of excellent reporting and obviously it creates a wonderful newsletter/e-paper. Perhaps you’ll accept some sort of financial underwriting such as a donation ? Even us old 60′s radicals turned capitalists can be stirred into providing support if you offer a venue.
Best of Luck and Thank you. Steve and Michele
Betty Konc // December 7, 2009 at 3:51 pm |
How about an indepth article on the Water/sewer issue in Wainfleet which is going to bankrupt a lot of the homeowners and force them to sell off property they worked hard to pay for for thier retirement years. How fair is this for something that the residents have offered a solution to that won’t cost the rest of the taxpaying base any money, and has the support of the majority of the lakeshore residents.
Any coverage that has been in the local papers has been biased to the regional point of view naturally as they spend a lot of money placing ads in the papers so why would the newspapers question anything the region does?
Betty Konc
President Wainfleet Ratepayers Association
Phyll Pakozdi // December 11, 2009 at 11:21 pm |
“Health care” has become an oximoron in the NHS (better known as the SCHS) and now we have the HIP! How can closing beds and firing much needed staff be an “improvement”? If that bunch (NHS) had to work for their salaries instead of feeding at the public trough) they would all be fired in a heart beat. They will do whatever it takes, including closing all south Niagara hospitals and leaving a token small emergency dept. at Welland, to claw back the stipends allocated to these hospitals for their new St. Catharines hospital (doesn’t that make four in total for that city????). This is greed and theft at its finest; and we get to pay for it from our taxes. When is someone “important” going to have a red light moment and stop the insanity? Never until it impacts them directly.
Re: Letter to The Leader from J. Biro
“Health care” has become an oximoron in the NHS (better known as the SCHS) and now we have the HIP! How can closing beds and firing much needed staff be an “improvement”? If that bunch (NHS) had to work for their salaries instead of feeding at the public trough) they would all be fired in a heart beat. They will do whatever it takes, including closing all south Niagara hospitals and leaving a token small emergency dept. at Welland, to claw back the stipends allocated to these hospitals for their new St. Catharines hospital (doesn’t that make four in total for that city????). This is greed and theft at its finest; and we get to pay for it from our taxes. When is someone “important” going to have a red light moment and stop the insanity? Never until it impacts them directly.
William Lidkea // December 17, 2009 at 6:02 pm |
William Lidkea
310-37 Rykert St.
St. Catharines, ON L2S 3S5
IS THE HST A BAD TAX?
There has been a lot of controversy over this proposed new tax. While there is a lot of detail over what items will be taxed, not much has been said about what the proceeds would be spent upon.
Before I could support such a tax, I would need reassurance that the proceeds would be spent by the Provincial Government on creating new fruit processing facilities in the Niagara Region and other parts of Southern Ontario. I recall that back in the 1960s and 1970s we had as many as 6 canning factories in the Niagara Region providing well paid employment to thousands of our local residents.
I become infuriated whenever I want to buy a tin of peaches and I have to choose between Greece, South Africa and China to buy such products. My anger becomes more intense when I think of the huge amounts of carbon put into our atmosphere to ship those products to our local grocery shelves when we could be growing and processing these products on our own local farms and canning factories.
My perception is that our present fruit processing is far too focused on the winemaking industry. The dumping of 7500 tons of grapes and the continuation of our green space disasters should show us that we have reached the point where we are producing far more wine than our population can possibly consume safely.
In my view, if the expectation is not met for balancing our regional fruit processing production, I would be joining those who firmly oppose the HST as a bad tax that hits most heavily at those with moderate and fixed incomes – with no other purpose than to stockpile a future pay increase for MPPs to be announced shortly after the fall election.
David Boese // December 19, 2009 at 6:47 pm |
Premier McGuinty
I am writing to voice my displeasure at your recent announcements, regarding the sale and privatization of the LCBO, OLG and Ontario Hydro. Even a hint of selling off these publicly- owned assets is tantamount to gifting away, what rightfully belongs to the citizens of Ontario. Haven’t you learned from history the shameful act of our previous government, selling off the 407 and the problems it has created? If you follow through with this, you are bordering on the side of insanity.
I am certain that many Ontarians hope you come to your senses.
Regards
David Boese
2A Wood St.,
St. Catharines, On. L2N 2A9
905 646 9143
Art Klein // January 6, 2010 at 3:04 am |
I am sorry I am such a late commenter and congratulator.
I am so happy that some one who actually knows a lot about the Niagara region can now write about his knowledge.
I look forward to an exiting time in information.
Thanks Doug. We all owe you!
Art Klein // January 6, 2010 at 3:06 am |
I meant “exciting,” of course. You can always tell when I compose on line.
boeseblog // January 7, 2010 at 12:54 am |
Hi Doug
Congratulations for taking this step. With your reputation you should be getting a large following. Something about your site looks familiar and now I see why. We both have good taste in choosing WordPress as our medium. My blog address is http://boeseblog.wordpress.com/ Maybe we can lean on each other from time to time?
Happy writing
David Boese
Gary Page // January 20, 2010 at 10:03 am |
A great new voice for Niagara. Refreshing to say the least.
John Bacher // January 24, 2010 at 12:29 am |
I would like to thank Doug Draper for posting PALS’s brief against the Canadian Motorway Speedway in Fort Erie. Since this time, the proposal has been endorsed by Fort Erie Council, and is expected to be approved by the Niagara Regional Council on February 8th. At this time people should be urging that the province government, following the expected February 8th action of Niagara Regional Council, appeal this approval to the Ontario Municipal Board. Unless this is done the residents of Fort Erie will be forced to engage in a horrible battle of uncertain outcome at the Ontario Municipal Board, similar to that which was attempted unsuccessfully, by the PROUD group against the Port Tower.
The Fort Erie motorway speedway is the biggest threat we are now facing to our environment in Niagara. It is a violation of the Ontario Growth Management Plan, which is intendeed to curb urban sprawl. Attempts to violate this plan in West Lincoln and Niagara Falls have resulted in an OMB appeal by the province which is schedluled to begin on February 17th.
It should be noted that a very courageous provincial civil servant, Victor Doyle, edited a report which indicated that the proposed motorway’s plans to build a bridge over a provincially significant wetland was a violation of provincial policy. This is completely contrary to what the developer’s planning consultant, Rick Brady, told the Fort Erie Council at the meeting at which it approved the speedway.
Roseanne Skinner // February 18, 2010 at 8:17 pm |
Thanks Doug for this forum of discussion. I encourage everyone in Fort Erie to learn more about the Canadian Speedway complex proposed for us.Car racing is dirty, noisy, wasteful, polluting,harmful to health and risky business for a quiet stable town such as Fort Erie. Call Kim Craitor our mpp and object to this development.
George Jardine // May 1, 2010 at 7:09 am |
Dear Doug,you are one of the few voices in Niagara who has any credibility ,I still have articles that you wrote over 25 years ago about the toxic stew pouring into the lower Niagara river,I think you are doing a great service to Niagara and Canada,even though it may seem like a voice in the wilderness,sometimes..