Six-storey, 150-suite hotel on the horizon in west Orillia
6All I can say about this is that I hope the owners go bankrupt ...we need low cost housing , not more places for those with the money to travel the country to stay ! but.....this is indicative of our present mayor & most of council...forget the little people . I hope THEY will not forget when election time rolls around again .
29- gran
Trevor Lee, who was fired before becoming Orillia's CAO, has new gig
30Im sure he did just fine with the big payout recieved from our tax dollars. Glad that it was a nice smooth transition. Way to go Mayor. Now thats Leadership.
1- Brian Wesselingh
COLUMN: Orillia's 'forced sprawl' comes with a huge price tag
26I’m surprised that Mark Bisset missed the point of the problem. The issue is the low revenue from industrial commercial tax base. Developers keep building residential because that’s where the profit is while the city needs to provide the schools and rec centres etc. We need to limit residential growth until the industrial commercial tax base can catch up to cover more of the city costs.
- GMetz
Orillia mobile vet helps families say goodbye to pets at home
1Morbid
22- DONALD Reynolds
Trevor Lee, who was fired before becoming Orillia's CAO, has new gig
9Why didn’t Orillia promote from within in the first place since new CAO appears to be doing a good job so far?
14- WhoWhatWhy
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
21Interesting. Another example of staff being in charge of municipal affairs without input from the tax payer.
2- Derick.Lehmann
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
21Shame on the city and this new theatre manager. How is this person, without any ties to the summer theatre, allowed to make this decision without consultation? City of Orillia....fix yourself. This city is becoming quite an embarrassment.
1- AnneOB
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
21Please don’t take it personally, City staff, but you are wrong about a couple of things. First, the Opera House is a commercial venue and should be busy all year. Sure staff earn vacation, but to use staffing pressures as a reason to switch from self produced to purchasing is irrelevant. You’re still having shows so you’ll still need staff. And you’re a cultural and tourism venue. People vacation in the summer and look for places to go. That’s more important than cutting programming to suit your own needs. You should never have a bureaucrat like director of economic development make decisions for entertainment venues. Costs of purchasing touring shows will likely increase. It’s more expensive to run upstairs than downstairs. You’re really putting pressure on yourself to sell tickets over seven days. And Equity costs still exist, whether you pay them directly or have them buried in the show costs for these touring shows. You will lose more money with the new approach.
1- Vulture
Trevor Lee, who was fired before becoming Orillia's CAO, has new gig
3CEO of a government of Ontario arms length regulatory authority suggests he had a pipeline into the Provincial Government. Perhaps SuperDon knew this and did not want the provincial government having someone on the inside. And if any of this is even slightly accurate, I'm with his Worship on this.
19- Brad Mathews
Six-storey, 150-suite hotel on the horizon in west Orillia
20If you're staying at a hotel, you're usually travelling, probably in your own vehicle.If all 150 units are occupied and each of those 150 people (families, couples, whatever) have a vehicle, there will only be 147 parking spaces available? Then three vehicles have to be parked somewhere else? That seems odd, unless they think that they'll never be at full capacity.Also, what about staff? There seems to be no parking for staff at all, except for days when they are well below capacity.Interesting approach to planning.
1- Joanie C
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
19Shame on the city for not contacting Jesse Collins before the deed was done. His summer theatre was fantastic and it was great to see local productions in Orillia get sell out crowds in the summer year after year. Also the price of his shows was really affordable. Such a loss for our city and our arts scene.
1- Nonami
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
18Gotta love City Hall bureaucrats who have no idea about live theatre. Why not save more money and just show vintage movies all summer? That wood save money! Hey, even better, why not fire a couple of these Culture Department bureaucrats and save even more! The loss of Orillia's own summer theatre productions hits the community beyond the ticket office. But why would we expect a bunch of pencil scratchers to understand that! They're at home watching Netflix! So sad!
1- Clint Torres
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
18I am shocked that the decision to stop our summer theatre was made without consultation with Collins. I also agree there is much more lost here than the obvious. Loss of local construction and supporting summer jobs and loss of a part of our local identity. The City should have made an appeal to its audience of loyal customers and theatre goers everywhere to help with the costs of renovation and other issues. To close this venue to, import already produced shows for shorter periods is a great loss to this community.
1- Holly Levinter
COLUMN: Orillia's 'forced sprawl' comes with a huge price tag
16Excellent analysis by Mr. Bissett. We have been continually conned into believing that growth and expansion are good for all Canadians when it is clear that developers are the ones who have lined their pockets (as well as contributing to like minded politicians) at the expense of the municipal taxpayers. The other aspects of continual growth, excessive traffic, pollution, stress on finite services are also important factors that have often been overlooked.
2- Frankensense
BREAKING: Mayor uses veto power to cut tax increase to 0%
14If there was any doubt this mayor is running again in the election - here is your answer. This is basically the start of his campaign.
4- terror adagio
City's new stop sign policy aims to remove politics from decisions
7Good. Depending on the neighbourhood, there are too many STOP signs already in Orillia…the wealthy north end for example…used for deterring traffic to just keep their neighbourhood quiet.
11- WhoWhatWhy
BREAKING: Mayor uses veto power to cut tax increase to 0%
9I think some councilors have forgotten the cost to taxpayers to clean up their property after the major ice storm. In some cases property owners paid out thousands of dollars that they did not expect to pay out . In some caes the icestorm clean up cost was more then their total tax bill for the year .
8- Mel St.Onge
'Much is lost': Curtain closing on locally produced plays in Orillia
16The city never took Theatre serious. They were more interested in ROI and how much the Opera House cost to run. They lumped the Opera House in with sport venues and failed to see it as arts or theatre. Very sad indeed. I'm sure this will also affect Mariposa Arts Theatre as they supported the Opera House Summer Theatre as well. Very short sighted indeed.
1- Mike Beresford
Six-storey, 150-suite hotel on the horizon in west Orillia
3I agree with this statement. Yes we need affordable housing. We have a housing crisis here. We have many people living on the streets. Are you saying that Orillia does not have enough hotels, motels? Do you plan on housing the homeless people at this motel?
14- Donna Mcrae
Orillia considers reinstating free downtown parking for December
15The free parking should start mid November next year. Most people start there shopping by then
2- Polo
