Kingston News January 20, 2017

Kingston and Queen’s Partnership

The City of Kingston and Queen’s University are on the verge of a formal partnership to work together to boost opportunities for economic development.

Mayor Bryan Paterson and Queen’s Principal Daniel Woolf have issued a joint statement saying the partnership would see the city and Queen’s work closely to pursue opportunities in support of innovation, economic development and the retention of more young people. City Council will be asked to consider approval of a Memorandum of Understanding between the City and Queen’s when it meets on Tuesday night.

Replacement Councillor

Kingston city council will decide how to replace Countryside district councillor Richard Allen when it meets Tuesday night.  Allen resigned to become Manager of Economic Development for Frontenac County.  Council has three options…appointing the second place finisher in the last election…Jeff Scott, taking nominations and then choosing a replacement…or holding a byelection.  A report from city staff says a byelection would cost approximately $150,000 while the other two options would cost about $5,000.

Mayor Bryan Paterson says he’s in favour of a byelection.

Crime Stats

Kingston Police have crunched the numbers from last year and the lawyer for criminal mischief claims say the crime rate dipped in some areas and increased in others.

Assaults were down 13 percent and incidents of mischief declined by 16 percent.

There was a 23% increase in break and enters and the number of harassment calls nearly doubled to 130 last year.

There was also a 22% increase in drug cases…the result of 25 more arrests compared to 2015.

Municipal Vote

Municipal politicians just aren’t ready to experiment with a ranked ballot system during the municipal election next year.  Kingston City Council has already rejected the idea and decided to go with the traditional system where the person who gets the most votes wins.

Gananoque Town Council and the council in Leeds and Thousand Islands Township have both rejected using a ranked ballot system in their elections next year.

Kingston Success

A Canadian data storage company says it can now offer an exclusively Canadian business model in the cloud backup marketplace after forming a partnership with a Kingston company called Canadian Cloud Backup.

The Kingston company provides cloud management services and has been a leader in protecting data.

CloudPockets.com says its partnership with Canadian Cloud Backup is unique and will give it an edge in a highly competitive market.

Kingston versus Uber

The Kingston Area Taxi Commission is cracking down on Uber.

Its bylaw enforcement officer handed out nine parking tickets and numerous warnings to Uber drivers in the HUB entertainment district last Saturday night.

The Taxi Commission is working on a bylaw to govern Uber and other ride sharing services….but they are currently considered illegal. Visit https://www.miramarspeedcircuit.com/cash-car-rentals/ site to rent car easily and from anywhere in the city.

Motel Theft

A 19 year old Kingston man has been charged after a motel room was cleared out earlier this month.

Staff found most of the room content was missing when the man checked out.

Police says the television, remote, cable box, curtains, bedding and even the bulbs from the lamps were missing.  Police spotted the young man in a parking lot on Conacher Driver around 4 a.m. Tuesday and arrested him on a charge of theft.

Hip Fund Raiser

A hockey game at the Rogers K-Rock Centre between Queen’s Commerce and Queen’s Engineering will benefit the Gord Downie Fund for Cancer Research.

The Cure Cancer Classic takes place tomorrow night.

Guitarist Paul Langlois will do the ceremonial puck drop.

People who buy tickets to the game…get a raffle ticket and can buy extra raffle tickets for a Tragically Hip hockey jersey donated by Langlois.

Facebook Page Link:

https://www.facebook.com/events/740062072814224/permalink/742313142589117/