Proudly servIng PrInCe edward County sInCe 1830
The Picton Gazette THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 2014
A CLOSE CALL
VOLUME 1 8 3 , N O . 1 4
InsIde
thiS week
Aunt and sister-in-law of Dean Brown’s victims questions his move to Warkworth
Online petition calls for reversal of inmate transfer adambramburger
Staff writer
COLOUR
PeCi performers put their all into upcoming production Page 11
CRATERS
rogers Street residents look for answers Page 19
The Picton Pirates and Lakefield Chiefs provided plenty of entertainment Sunday taking their Game 7 to overtime before the Chiefs’ Travis Brault scored. Here, Brault chases Picton’s Steven Clarke as he fires the puck safely off the boards The Chiefs eliminated the Pirates and will face Grimsby in the semi-finals. (Adam Bramburger/Gazette staff)
Bridge reconstruction moving forward Tender for County Rd. 14 project awarded to Bonnechere Excavating
CARVINGS
east Lake summer residents seek hidden petroglyphs Page 28
seCtIons
Looking back.......6 Weather.............6 Editorials.............7 Letters....................8 Sports....................20 Puzzles.................22 Classifieds...........25 CaNaDa’S OLDeSt COMMUNitY NewSPaPer
Chad Ibbotson
Staff writer
It didn't take long for council to award the tender to reconstruct the bridge on County Rd. 14 at a special council meeting on Monday — it's a bridge badly in need of repair that will be mostly funded by the provincial government. Council awarded the $853,195-contract to Bonnechere Excavating Inc. — which has offices in Renfrew and Belleville — subject to confirmation from the engineering, development, and works commissioner Robert McAuley that all approvals have been received for the project.There are currently outstanding approvals from Quinte Conservation Authority and for heritage. The budget for the project was set at about $1.5 million.
The municipality will pay approximately 17 per cent of the cost of the bridge replacement — which will expand the current crossing of Demorestville Creek. Those funds were included in the 2013 capital budget. The remaining 83 per cent of the cost will come through approved funding under the Ontario Municipal Infrastructure Investment Initiative (MIII) Capital Program. Sophiasburgh councillor Kevin Gale said it's a badly needed replacement. “The bridge is not safe. It was deemed through engineering reports that it was unsafe,” he said. He said the best thing is the bridge replacement will have no tax impact this year. “We've got up $1.4 million so we're well within budget,” he said. Gale said the bridge is
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well used as it sits between the communities of Demorestville and Crofton and is a common route to Hwy. 62. “It gets a lot of truck traffic and school buses,” he said. A report from the engineering, development, and works commission submitted to council at Monday's special meeting says consulting and engineering firm AECOM was tapped to complete a detailed design for the project and to oversee the tender process. The company reported five tenders were received for the project. Bonnechere was the lowest bidder. The report says the contract includes a maximum of eight weeks to complete the project.
See TENDER, page 23
E S TAT E
IT’S TIME.....
When Heather Erickson heard the man convicted of killing her niece and sisterin-law in their Ameliasburgh home in March 2010 was being moved to a medium-security prison, she felt moved to act. On Friday, the Surrey, B.C. resident learned from her brother-in-law Ted Hannah that Dean Brown,, the man who shot his wife Tracey and daughter Whitney in March 2010, had been transferred from a maximum security facility in Kingston to the medium-security Warkworth Institution. Soon thereafter, she put up a petition on the web site change.org calling for the Correctional Service of Canada to reverse its decision. As of Wednesday afternoon, the petition had been signed by 2,675 people. Reached by the Gazette by e-mail, Erickson said that she felt strongly that something should change. “All too often we hear that prisoners receive more consideration than the victims and our family is now experiencing this first hand,” she said. Erickson indicated that her family had no prior knowledge of a move that not only put Brown in a lower-security facility, but it
also brought him closer to the site of his crimes. She said she now fears that her brother-in-law Ted and his daughter Shannon, once a love interest of Brown’s will have to live with a compromised sense of security. “If it fair that my brotherin-law has to go to sleep every night knowing that if Dean did somehow escape he could be at his home again to finish what he started?” she asked. “Was any consideration given to my two surviving nieces? They have lost their mother and their sister and now have to live with Dean in their back yard?” Citing the Privacy Act, Corrections media relations and outreach advisor Kyle Lawlor told the Gazette he could not discuss the specifics of Brown’s case, but he did share policy documents which note that transfers are reviewed by a case management team with input from both of the participating institutions. Erickson said that while someone in Corrections might have thought Brown was suited for a transfer, she pointed out that for the five years the Hannah family knew him, they didn’t see anything to suggest his actions that night.
See PETITION, page 23
on the move Ontario Provincial Police officers lead Dean Brown out of the Picton courthouse during a November 2011 court appearance. Brown recently was transferred to Warkworth Institution. (Jason Parks/Gazette file photo)
S E C T I O N
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