town of milton

H1N1 Clinics in Milton

Mike Cluett

halton_identifierIts hard to find anyone who hasnt experienced the “bug” or knows of someone who has.  Anthony’s class of 26 was reduced to 11 at one point in time, with Anthony having to take a couple of days off as well.  Thankfully he didnt get hit too hard, but there were some children off for over a week.  From what we hear at some of the schools, its beginning to subside and the kids are back at school. 

With all of this sickness going on, is it H1N1 or is it just the flu, there are a lot of questions going around and to say people are confused would be an understatement.

I dont want to get into the politics of “should you” or “shouldnt you” get the shot but theres always a lot of questions on where do you go to get it if you want.

The following is from the Region of Halton’s website with the dates and time for clinics in our region, and more specifically Milton residents.  As a reminder, these clinics for the time being are for the priority group which include:

Priority groups are determined by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, and include:

  • People with chronic medical conditions, under age 65, such as:
    • heart, lung and kidney disease
    • illness or treatments that might affect the immune system (diabetes, cancer, HIV/AIDS etc)
    • certain blood disorders such as anemia
    • long term aspirin therapy in children under 18 years of age
    • severe obesity
  • Pregnant women
  • Healthy children from 6 months – under 5 years of age
  • Health care workers involved in pandemic response or the delivery of essential health care services
  • Household contacts and care providers of people at high risk of complications who cannot be immunized, such as for infants under 6 months of age or those who may not respond to vaccines
  • People residing in remote and isolated settings or communities

In addition, the following groups are also being offered H1N1 flu shots now :

  • First responders (police and firefighters)
  • Frontline institutional correctional workers
  • Adults 65 years and older who reside in long-term care homes or complex continuing care units.

To avoide overcrowding at these clinics they ask that if you are not in that priority group, you wait until everyone ha received their shots that want them.

Here are the details for Milton

  • Milton
    • New Life Church – CYC Black Box Theatre
      824 Thompson Road South  view map External Link
      Thursday, November 12: 4 p.m. – 8 p.m.
      Friday, November 13: Noon – 8 p.m.
 Will open Thursday, November 12 at 4 p.m.  

Here is the link for the clinics info from the Region Of Halton.

Milton Santa Claus Parade 2009

Mike Cluett

Anthony reminded me yesterday that hes beginning to write up a list for Christmas.  I thought at first…Christmas?  Yikes.

With last weekends fantastic weather, people all over Milton (with the execption of yours truly haha) were putting up Christmas lights to make sure they wouldnt be the ones climbing up and down ladders in sub zero temperatures.  With the coming of the holiday season brings Santa Claus in Milton.

The Milton Santa Claus parade is scheduled for November 22nd at 2pm.  You can go to the Milton HQ for Santa here and see all the details of the route.  Volunteers are always needed so please contact them if you have some time or if you’d like to help out along the parade as marshals.  The more the merrier.  Contact Dianna Bracken at lauranne62@hotmail.com or 905-875-2109.

Looking forward to seeing you along the route.  It’s been said by many people that Milton’s parade is one of the best if not THE best in the area with thousands making their way to downtown Milton to take part.  The floats are amazing and the community spirit of Milton really shines during this time.

See you there!

Milton Walk of Fame Grand Opening

Mike Cluett

From www.milton.ca

The Walk of Fame honours Miltonian’s past and present who have earned significant national and international recognition through their enduring achievements.  Each Walk of Fame inductee is recognized in the glass corridor linking Town Hall west and Town Hall east.  The first 27 inductees will be recognized at this event.

Event to be held on Thursday October 29th at 7pm at Milton Town Hall

Was it really that long ago?  It seems like forever when the 150th Anniversary master committee started back in 2006 to come up with some ideas to commemorate Milton’s 150th anniversary.  I was honoured to be part of that committee and throughout 2007 there were a number of events to promote the town and celebrate such a substantial achievement as being 150 years old.

During that year we had the first street festival in the summer, which has now grown into an annual event.  There was also Milton’s Amazing Race, an idea born from and organized by the committee chair Karin Muller which received rave reviews as dozens of teams raced across Milton to answer questions, pick up clues and win prizes.

One of the definite highlights of my time on that committee was being part of the creation of the Milton Walk of Fame.  With the help of the Milton Historical Society and countless volunteers, we came up with a list of 27 people from Milton, who through the years reached a high level or national and or international success in their fields.  Many people are unaware that there are many famous Miltonians in different fields and the cream rose to the top with our first class in the Walk of Fame.

You can see the full list of inductees here .  Many of these people are well known, but their connection to Milton came as  a shock to many.  Mr Dressup,  Ernie Coombs was a big surprise to quite a few people along with Dr John Wallace, one of the cofounders of Blue Cross.  There are many Milton favourites such as Lt. Col. Chris Hadfield, PL Robertson, John Tonelli, Peter McDuffe and international wrestling icons Tiger Jeet Singh and his son Tiger Ali Singh.

These great Miltonians were announced at the Canada Day Celebrations of 2007  to quite the bit of fan fare in a day I wont soon forget.  Here is the brochure from the Canada Day event that lists each inductee and their bio of what made them the first members of Milton’s Walk of Fame.

So its not just me…

Mike Cluett

Someone sent me an email awhile back asking me why I keep on the fact that there seems to be a lot of poor drivers in town.  While I wont go so far as to say the drivers are poor, but there does seem to be people who for whatever reason, dont pay attention and obey the rules of the road.

That got me thinking…is it just me?  Am I being too picky?  Apparently not as more and more letters to the local paper seem to justify my analysis that there are people taking liberty with the rules of the road when it comes to stop signs, speeding in residential areas and aggressive driving.

John Airyo’s letter to the Champion this week seems to outline the same concerns I, as well as many other people in Milton share.

Here’s his letter.

DEAR EDITOR:There’s a growing trend in Milton that in my own opinion is gradually reaching a frightening dimension.

It concerns the way many people treat traffic stop signs. I can recall more than 15 times recently where drivers haven’t used traffic stop signs properly — with a few of them nearly causing an accident.

In all those cases, it happened that I got to the stop sign and stopped by the white line. My tire touched the white line and I made a complete stop. Then I went forward.

I knew I touched the line before some drivers, but they proceeded before me as if they were blind.

A couple of times I almost ran into those drivers because I had no inkling they were going to advance before me. I don’t know whether they were impatient, rude or simply inexperienced — or a combination of these.

These incidents have happened all over Milton, so I can’t really pinpoint a particular place.

Please use our traffic stop signs properly to avoid an accident.

JOHN ARIYO, MILTON

It’s not an unreasonable request is it?  The stop signs are there for a reason.  To safely control the flow of traffic and help keep drivers and pedestrians alike as safe as possible.  We can go back a couple of years to Yates Drive where a number of these problems lead to a house being hit by a car…twice…in less than a year.  A car driving down Yates at a high rate of speed (for the record a “high rate of speed” was perception based on cars driving the speed limit) drove through an intersection with a stop sign.  The person at the stop sign didnt fully stop and did what was described by witnesses as a fast, rolling stop turning left onto Yates.  The car with the right-away swerved to avoid the car coming from the stop sign, lost control, jumped the curb and sidewalk to slam into this persons home.

The second occurence happened almost identical with the result being the same less than a year later.

I’m sure youve seen it too.  On your way to work in the mornings, or coming home at nights many people take liberty with the rules of the road and most times, nothing ever happens.

A friend commented to me that there should be mandatory retesting for our licences on a regular basis to make sure we remember and comply with the rules of the road.  I dont think that would make much difference because anyone can put on good behaviour during the test, shine the like star that they are and when its securely in their hands…speed off  and fly through a stop sign on the way to make it to the 401 parking lot in the morning.

More people agree about aggressive drivers

Mike Cluett

As I pointed out in a previous post, and commented on by another Milton blogger Zeeshan Hamid, there was a letter to the Champion outlining several instances of aggressive drivers in the Town of Milton.  It seems to be an ongoing problem with no real direction on what changes can be made.

Here’s Jean Paul’s letter this week.  It echos Cristina’s letter from last week.

What can be done?  There seems to be two different problems here.  One of them is aggressive driving and speeding in residential areas and the second being on the main roads like Derry and James Snow Parkway among other major intersections.

traffic calmingI’ve talked about traffic calming zones with speed bumps for residential streets to force drivers to slow down in areas around schools and where kids walk and play.  On the Hawthorne Villager Forum, people have talked about other ideas that possibly include a form of photo radar.

Raising awareness doesnt seem to work well.  You can have blitzes by police on a regular basis, but it seems that people go back to their old habits of driving 10km/hr over the speed limit because they can get away from it.

Why not make the speed limit 40km/hr in every residential area…no execptions.  If youre driving around homes, where there could be children crossing the street or bikes on the road the limit is 40km/hr.  This way if police do catch speeders, the fines will be increased and maybe someone will think twice about going over the speed limit.

There have been comparisons to speeding on the highways and the main streets and residential streets, and to me there is a huge difference.  Highways have an “allowance” of being over the speed limit.  Thats what fast lanes are for I’m told.

The fact of the matter is there are no fast lanes on Derry Road, Clark Blvd, Ferguson, Louis St Laurent, Trudeau or any other residentail street.  That arguement is mute.

It seems to be an ongoing issue.  Any ideas out there?  Let’s discuss.

mcclogo
 
Sep 04, 2009
DEAR EDITOR:

In regard to Cristina Drapeau’s recent letter about aggressive drivers in Milton, I couldn’t agree with her more.

I have lived in Milton for about seven years now and shortly after moving in I started to notice the exact same problems at the same intersections — Derry Road at Trafalgar Road and Derry at James Snow Parkway.

Other drivers have always used the merging lane as a quick pass lane and feel they have the right of way to merge aggressively.

I’ve witnessed a large amount of road rage and aggressive driving. Many of these drivers I see offend repeatedly on a daily basis. At least a few give a wave when you let them in.

Although I understand that the police can’t be everywhere all the time, I feel that everyone should know there’s something citizens can do about this problem. It’s called Community Road Watch.

It’s a community program where if you witness another driver demonstrating unsafe driving behaviour you can report that driver and incident.

The police will send the driver a letter explaining their unsafe behaviour and ask for their voluntary compliance.

If the driver receives multiple letters, then the police may contact the driver and potentially lay charges if they feel it necessary.

It’s quite simple to do. Just remember or jot down the information of the incident, including licence, vehicle, time, driver description, time, and location. You then report it by giving the report to your local police station.

There’s even an on-line system for reporting at www.haltonroadwatch.ca to make it even easier.

However, I do feel it’s important that one takes their time and considers what they’re reporting and if it’s correct or if we are letting our frustration get the better of us.

JOHN-PAUL DELSENY, MILTON