From Bullet News Niagara: The Niagara Parks Commission and city of Niagara Falls have settled a two-year spat over voluntary payments that the provincial agency makes to the municipality in lieu of property taxes. With no public discussion at Tuesday’s council meeting (the matter was passed in a bulk reading of bylaws) Niagara Falls politicians…
From the Niagara Falls Review: Two provincial audits into the Niagara Parks Commission concluded “some of the actions taken by former staff were inappropriate and unacceptable.” The audits, conducted during the past several months by the Ministry of Finance and publicly released Friday, look into past executive expenses, procurement practices and revenue generating opportunities at…
From Bullet News Niagara: A pending deal between the City of Niagara Falls and the Niagara Parks Commission to create a new people-mover bus system to service the millions of visitors to the Honeymoon Capital each year was no shotgun wedding. While Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor acknowledges he and Ontario Tourism Minister Michael Chan…
From the Niagara Falls Review: On a sunny Saturday in March, Fay Booker surrounded herself with the next generation of plant experts – graduating students from the Niagara Parks Commission’s horticultural school. Their graduation ceremony recognized eight students in a specialized program whose labour keeps the Botanical Gardens attraction in shape. “The Niagara Parks has…
From the Niagara Falls Review: More changes in senior management are coming up at the Niagara Parks Commission where two of its nine directors have left recently, says chairwoman Fay Booker. The sudden departure of revenue, marketing and business development director Joel Noden Tuesday and the planned retirement of engineer Nick Murphy mean there are…
From Niagara This Week: Niagara Parks Commission Chairwoman Fay Booker has no immediate plans to replace departed Parks executive Joel Noden – at least not until the provincial agency goes through an extensive strategic planning process. “We’ll have to see,” Booker said Tuesday. “This isn’t our busiest time of the year. We’re coming into some…
From the Niagara Falls Review: Joel Noden, one of the Niagara Parks Commission’s nine-member senior management team, left the provincial agency Tuesday. “Joel has decided to look at some other interests he has,” said Fay Booker, the chairwoman of the provincial agency. He left the commission Tuesday, but Booker wouldn’t say whether it was his…
From the Niagara Falls Review: Regional council has asked GO Transit to find a way to extend daily train service to Niagara Falls. Metrolinx, the provincial agency in charge of GO Transit, is studying a possible expansion of the popular commuter service into Niagara. GO is looking at four different expansion routes, including one that…
From the Niagara Falls Review: Running the Niagara Parks Commission should be like driving a bus, says Fay Booker, the provincial agency’s new chairwoman, whose reputation for helping corporations understand how they govern themselves appears to be one of the reasons she landed the job. General manager John Kernahan should be the driver and the…
From the Niagara Falls Review: Five minutes isn’t enough time to explain complicated legal or financial positions during Niagara Parks Commission meetings, says James Bannister, a consultant and member of the Preserve Our Parks group that monitors what goes on at the commission. During their monthly meeting Friday, commissioners adopted a five-minute time limit for…