BNW Newsbrief – March 7, 2023

A diagram from a St. Lawrence Testing report shows borehole locations for soil contamination testing on a city-owned property on Louis Street. The City of Brockville is eyeing the property for affordable housing. (City of Brockville via Newswatch Group)

Here are your latest Brockville and area headlines:

  • Police are looking for two strangers to Brockville who ripped off thousands of dollars in colognes and perfumes from local drug stores. City police say about $5,200 in scents were taken from two Shoppers Drug Mart locations Thursday (March 2) through distraction theft which continues to be a “highly used method” for stealing.
  • Testing of a potential Brockville housing development site shows subsurface contamination of the soil. A report to the planning and development committee about the city-owned Louis Street site shows excavating and replacing the contaminated soil to make it ready for building could cost $1.6 million.
  • A Transportation Safety Board report shows an ultra-lite aircraft, flying from Yarker to Westport in September, had landed in a field to fix a door problem before it took off and subsequently crashed. The pilot was killed. Witnesses reported hearing the engine “sputtering” before the aircraft rolled over mid-air and crashed into the woods. There was no flight data recorder and the TSB says there was “no indication of malfunction” in the engine.
  • North Grenville has passed its 2023 budget. It comes with a 3.87 per cent tax increase. The township will spend $7.5 million on capital projects this year. Operating the municipality will cost nearly $27 million.
  • The former warden of the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry is dying from an aggressive form of cancer. A Cornwall court heard yesterday Frank Prevost only has months to live. Prevost was arrested in June 2021 on sexual assault and child luring charges following an OPP investigation.
  • The Leeds Grenville Small Business Center will announce the winner of its annual Lifetime Achievement Award Wednesday night. It’s part of the center’s sold-out International Women’s Day event.
A photo from a Transportation Safety Board report of the ulta-lite plane that crashed near Westport, Ont. in September 2022. (Niall Leslie/TSB via Newswatch Group)