Good morning, Greater Sudbury! Here are a few stories to start your day on this Thursday morning.
Downtown Mary and baby Jesus statue vandalized yet again
The heads and hands of both Mary and baby Jesus are now missing from a statue outside Sainte-Anne des Pins Roman Catholic church in downtown Sudbury. The statue last made the news in July of last year, when the baby Jesus head was reported missing, which Sainte-Anne Des Pins parish administration board chair Michel Chrétien said at the time accompanied various other acts of vandalism at their property. "The problem is not going away and it seems to be increasing from year to year," Chrétien said last year – a point he reiterated to Sudbury.com earlier today in response to ongoing concerns. In late May, Mary joined her son in facing decapitation alongside additional damage. “I don’t know if the statue itself is salvageable at the moment,” Chrétien said. “There have been so many issues with that statue.” The two heads are in the church’s possession alongside the balance of broken-off pieces, minus some fragments.
Read the full story on the Sudbury.com homepage.
Yesterday marked the 86th anniversary of Sudbury officer’s murder
July 20 marked the 86th anniversary of the murder of Sudbury police officer Sgt. Frederick Davidson. In 2020, the bridge over Wanup Pit Road was named in Davidson’s honour. On July 11, 1937, Davidson, a Welsh immigrant with no family in the city, was conducting a fairly routine check on a pair of men who were switching a license plate off of a vehicle on the street. When Davidson approached the men, one pulled a gun. Davdison, 36, was shot twice in the head and four times in the back, but amazingly he didn’t succumb immediately to his injuries. He lived for nine more days — dying July 20, 1937 — long enough to identify his attackers from photographs. One of the men, Vincent Gray, was killed in a shoot-out with police when officers caught up to the fleeing men near the Spanish River railway bridge. The other man, Tom Ponomanenko, was wounded. After his murder conviction, Ponomanenko was hanged in Sudbury on Jan. 22, 1938. Over the past 133 years, seven Sudbury police officers have died in the line of duty.
Roundabout, 700-unit residential development inches forward
The long talked-about Silver Hills Subdivision has yet to materialize, but still appears to have legs, with city council approving a new cost-share agreement with the developer last week. “In order for Sudbury to grow its population, we need people like this to develop and grow the housing,” Ward 11 Coun. Bill Leduc told Sudbury.com this week. “I think it’s going to be a win-win for all residents of Sudbury, especially if we’re going through a soft recession as they call it, this is an opportunity to keep our economy going … That’s going to spur a lot of new development.” City council greenlit the new cost-share agreement during last week’s finance and administration committee meeting, updating a 2016 plan with fresh numbers and guidelines. The development consists of a proposed 700-unit subdivision south of the Silver Hills Development on The Kingsway. Leduc noted a parcel of land south of Best Buy has also been rezoned to accommodate a grocery store. The development, which received its initial planning committee approval in 2012, will require the extension of Silver Hills Drive southward to Bancroft Road to serve as a collector road.
Wolves owner adds $600K video board to Sudbury Arena
When fans check the scoreboard during games in the upcoming seasons of the Sudbury Wolves and the Sudbury Five, they’ll be checking it on a new $600,000 video board recently purchased for the arena by SW Sports and Entertainment. SW head Dario Zulich made the announcement this week, calling the purchase “one of the biggest improvements to happen to the arena in its more than 70-year history since it was originally built in 1951.” In the release, Zulich stated the purchase of the new video board and plans for another upcoming improvement to the Elgin Street barn has a clear goal. “I believe, more than anyone, that Sudbury deserves world-class entertainment,” Zulich said. “SWSE is in the business of bringing joy and smiles to Sudburians and we are beyond excited to continue to elevate entertainment in the North. “We are also working on finding a solution to improve the sound system prior to the start of our 50th season. We want to give Sudbury fans something to remember during the last few years of our lease.”
NORCAT planning world’s first live underground mining exhibition
Nowhere else in the world can you go to see state-of-art brand new mining technology being put to work in an underground mine so that buyers and investors can check out the goods and services up for sale. The event is called Mining Transformed. That's what is currently being planned for Sudbury from Sept. 26-29 by NORCAT, and already the sellers have bought up all the available exhibition space underground, at the NORCAT Underground Centre, a mine located in Levack. NORCAT says it’s the world’s first tech exhibition in an underground operating mine. Now the challenge is, how do you accommodate 150 visitors to the mine in three and a half days when you have to effectively give each person a whirlwind safety orientation, outfit them with regulation coveralls, safety-toe boots, belts, hard hats, safety glasses and hearing protection? Don Duval, NORCAT's CEO, said safety has to be a key consideration. "Given that we are doing this in an underground operating mine, you can appreciate the nuances around logistics and scheduling where we can't just have everyone underground wandering around. It has to be a very curated, scheduled tour of these technologies, just given the regulatory and safety environment that we know that we adhere to."
Fridays are most dangerous on local roads, collision stats show
There are more motor vehicle collisions in Greater Sudbury on Fridays than any other single day of the week, while weekends are generally the safest on local roads. February is the most dangerous month of the year on city roads, and collisions peak during the morning and afternoon rush hours, with the afternoons typically worse. These and various other statistics fill out the city’s latest road safety assessment for 2021, which was released during last week’s operations committee meeting of city council. The statistics are provided by Greater Sudbury Police Service and exclude collisions in parking lots and off-road trails. There have been progressively fewer motor vehicle collisions in Greater Sudbury for three years running, from the 2,162 recorded in 2019, 1,856 recorded in 2020 and last year’s 1,746. The lower numbers are possibly related to the COVID-19 pandemic keeping people closer to home.
Bit of a cooler day for Thursday
Expect slightly cooler temperatures today then what we’ve been experiencing all week. Today will dawn cloudy, but become a mix of sun and cloud in the afternoon. The wind will be out of the southwest at 20 km/h gusting to 40, before swinging in the afternoon to blow from the northwest at 20 km/h, gusting to 40. The wind will become light late in the afternoon. The high today is 26 with a 31 humidex value. The UV index today is seven, or high. Tonight, expect clear skies and a low of 15.