Al Lunney

Lucky Friday the 13th- we had a very welcome visitor today, the Honourable Gordon O’Connor, MP, who came here to announce that we had received funding under the Building Canada Fund. The governments of Ontario and Canada will immediately invest $18,711,036 to build a mechanical sewage treatment plant and upgrade the town’s pump station. The Town of Mississippi Mills’ Almonte Ward will contribute the remaining $9,355,519.

It was critical to our community that we receive this funding. Our current lagoon system is over 40 years old and has been showing signs of failure. The residents of Almonte can rest assured that the we are keeping their water clean. This will ensure that our community is safe now and in the future.

To receive such significant funding, our homework had to be done. Over the past four years, we have: completed numerous environmental studies; we have instituted development charges that are constantly being updated; and we have completed rate studies to ensure that we can afford this project. In addition, all of the revenues from the new Power Plant will go towards the Town’s share of this project.

The provincial government is on the verge of formally announcing that every municipality must have a plan in place to deal with the septage from its rural communities. The new plant will be designed to have that capability. One of the simplest options might be to charge the local haulers who bring septage to the plant thereby generating income to help with the costs. Further discussions will happen shortly and all residents of Mississippi Mills will have the opportunity to provide input.

There is much work to be done in the final design of the plant and we anticipate that the shovel will go in the ground in early 2010 with the final completion date in 2011.

Mississippi Mills received the third highest amount in Ontario. We wish to express our thanks to Minister O’Connor for his wonderful support. We are thankful that the levels of government are cooperating to get shovels in the ground, targeting money for infrastructure projects in our communities.

The project is shovel ready

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ALMONTE — U.S. President – and avid basketball fan – Barack Obama is being invited to visit Almonte, the birthplace of the inventor of his favourite sport.

 The Town of Mississippi Mills, which includes Almonte, is taking the opportunity of President Obama’s February 19 visit to Canada to invite him to visit the birthplace of Dr. James Naismith.

 “I have written a letter to President Obama that we hope to have delivered to him during his visit to Ottawa,” says Mississippi Mills Mayor Al Lunney. “We are also planning to give him a piece of Naismith memorabilia.”

 President Obama’s passion for basketball is well known. He has written extensively about the game’s influence on his life and he frequently played pickup basketball during his presidential campaign.

 Dr. James Naismith was born on the outskirts of Almonte in 1861 and grew up there playing a game called “duck on a rock”. Thirty years later, when he was a physical education instructor in Springfield, Massachusetts, he was asked to invent an indoor game. Inspired by his childhood game, he invented basketball.

 “The stone Dr. Naismith used to play his childhood game sat in the blacksmith’s yard near Dr. Naismith’s home and schoolhouse,” says Mayor Lunney’s letter to President Obama. “This stone is now part of the collection of the Naismith Museum and Basketball Hall of Fame in Almonte.”

 The Town is hoping to deliver the letter to President Obama via Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office. A framed, limited edited print of the Naismith homestead by John Webster will accompany the letter.

 “The motto of Mississippi Mills is ‘let us move forward together’,” says Mayor Lunney. “President Obama has inspired people all over the world to move forward together, and we would love to welcome him to our town to learn more about the history of his favourite sport.”

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The letter to President Obama is below. 

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