Happy Saturday morning, Nickel City. We hope you had a relaxing Friday night.
Here are a few stories to kick off your weekend.
Video: Footage of brawl at Manitoulin Secondary School shared with Sudbury.com
Video of a brawl involving dozens of students at Manitoulin Secondary School has been provided to Sudbury.com. You can watch the video here, but be warned: it contains violence. However, there's no audio included. The Manitoulin-Espanola OPP continues to investigate the incident that broke out on Friday, Sept. 14 at Manitoulin Secondary School. As of Sept. 20, six people have been charged — one adult and five youths — all of whom are from M'Chigeeng First Nation.
No tolerance for violence, racism: Rainbow Board responds to Manitoulin brawl
The Rainbow District School Board has issued a statement reacting to the brawl in Little Current last week, saying what started as a unrelated fight quickly escalated into a racial indident. “We do not tolerate violence, discrimination or racism in our schools,” board chair Doreen Dewar is quoted as saying in the release. “The incident that triggered the series of altercations that occurred at Manitoulin Secondary School on Friday, Sept. 14, 2018, was not racial in nature. What occurred following the incident, however, was racial in nature and this is most concerning to us."
Read the board's full statement here.
City budget running $2.2M in the red: report
Greater Sudbury is facing a number of rising costs that will make the 2019 budget process particularly challenging, says a report headed to city council next week. Earlier in the year, council directed staff to come back with a budget that maintained services, but kept the property tax hike to no more than 3.5 per cent, with options on reducing it to 3 per cent and 2.5 per cent. “Staff are navigating several significant pressures in 2019 just to maintain the level of service provided,” the report says. “These items place upward pressure on the net tax levy.”
Meet the young Sudburian who dominated the European Union Contest for Young Scientists
Although he took top honours at the Canada-Wide Science Fair last spring, Brendon Matusch said he didn't assume he would win any awards at the European Union Contest For Young Scientists. But on Tuesday, the 15-year-old Grade 11 student at Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School continued his winning streak. He was awarded one of three first prizes worth €7,000 (or roughly $10,500 in Canadian dollars) at the international science fair, held in Dublin, Ireland, which had entries from 135 students from 38 countries. He said when he found out he'd won, it was overwhelming, but he was “extremely happy.” Matusch's project is entitled "Development of an Autonomous Vehicle Using Machine Learning." He built his own self-driving go cart, investigating techniques for the use of convolutional neural networks for autonomous driving.
Video: New clinic the first of its kind to offer fertility services in the North
One in six to one in seven couples have trouble getting pregnant. After years of patient requests, a letter-writing campaign and applications of two local doctors with support from colleagues, the NEO Women's Health Network fertility clinic has opened in Sudbury. It is the first of 50 clinics in Ontario located in and serving the Northeast. Patients have been pleased with the office on Regent Street, on account of its accessibility, ambiance and free parking, said Dr. Jennifer Jocko, who began practicing obstetrics and gynecology in Sudbury in 2014. "We moved from a very small office that was meant for one,” she said. “We were sharing that space, it was very cramped. This office, we've received accolades from patients and the like about how beautiful it is, and how relaxing it is.”
Latest election news
We published quite a bit of election news on Friday. Mayoral candidate Patricia Mills questioned how transparent the city is being in terms of who's paying for what portion of infrastructure work for the Kingsway Entertainment District project. Incumbent Mayor Brian Bigger promised to push for more police officers if he's re-elected. Mayoral candidate Jeff Huska called for site development to stop at the KED site. And mayoral candidate Bill Crumplin laid out his tax plan and released his platform, which included a familiar promise for Sudbury voters: he would open discussions about relocating the downtown railyard. Meanwhile, Ward 11 candidate John Lindsay accused the city of being to "cozy" with KED developer Dario Zulich, while another Ward 11 candidate, Kevin Lalonde, who dropped out of the race a few weeks ago over a Facebook comment he'd made, threw his hat back into the ring.
Catch up on the latest election news on Sudbury.com's election website, which you can find here.
