At the latest update, a community celebration in the Flour Mill neighbourhood was set to take place in 2022 to help mark the historic silos’ 111th anniversary.
With the calendar flipping over to 2023 this week and no celebration having taken place, those behind the proposed festivities clarified to Sudbury.com that something is still in the works.
This includes not only festivities, but also a display that would project multi-coloured lights onto all four sides of the historic silos year-round. Organizers are now uncertain as to when the event will take place and the lights display will be installed.
The plan, Flour Mill Community Action Network chair Claude Charbonneau told Sudbury.com, is to have LED lights encircle the silos, and that they can be controlled remotely to change with the seasons and show support for worthy causes, such displaying the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
Science North also has the technology to display images, and Charbonneau said organizers are interested in seeing historic images of the Flour Mill neighbourhood projected onto the structure.
“In the next couple of months, we’ll probably have more of an idea of where we’re going with it,” he said, adding there will be plenty of notice before neighbourhood celebrations take place.
“Everything has got to come together to make it a couple-day event,” he said, as he’d like to see the weekend serve as a reunion that brings people who grew up in the Flour Mill area back to the neighbourhood for a weekend. Activities and area business promotions will be planned to help keep people in the Flour Mill community for a couple of days.
This celebration was originally planned to take place in 2022, which would mark the silos’ 111th anniversary, which Ward 12 Coun. Joscelyne Landry-Altmann described at the time as being a deliberate date, in that it includes three number ones, which she said represents independence, motivation and new beginnings.
During 2022 budget deliberations, city council approved spending up to $110,000 to clean up the site and make it safe to accommodate the proposed lights display. Although the top of the structures is crumbling and falling off, city director of assets and fleet services Shawn Turner clarified to council at the time that the “remaining concrete structure is sound.”
In July 2022, a contractor for the city was undertaking this work from the top of a cherry picker, when the ground gave way underneath it and the machine tipped over with him in it. Cameron Stone was critically injured and remains on a long road to recovery.
“There are a lot of things that he can no longer do or has to learn to do all over again with his disability,” said his common-law partner Brittany Sheahan, with whom Stone has a young daughter. He is undergoing physiotherapy three days a week to regain his strength and balance.
“His condition will now prevent him from doing the work he loved and was doing before and will be difficult to find work in the future,” Sheahan said.
“It has changed our lives completely but we are doing our best to move forward. ... He is loving every minute of every day with his daughter even though he has his limits and setbacks.”
The city has since filled in the hole that caused the machine to topple, Charbonneau said, and a city spokesperson clarified that while work was delayed last year, it was completed and “the site is now prepared for the proposed lighting project to proceed.”
“While the site is fenced off and warning signage has been installed, we will work with the project organizers to grant them safe access for the lighting projection and any celebrations that are planned for the project’s completion,” according to the city’s written statement.
Landry-Altmann told Sudbury.com this week that city staff need to go over options with the Flour Mill Business Improvement Area and Community Action Network, and that they plan on meeting in the near future.
“Our collective hope is that the project will resume,” she said, adding there’s nothing definitive planned at the moment.
Although Charbonneau said the workplace incident caused a delay, the real holdup has to do with funding.
“It’s about getting support and applying for grants,” he said, adding it’s unclear how much the lights display will end up costing.
Tyler Clarke covers city hall and political affairs for Sudbury.com.
