The Our Town - Clarenville Blog by Paul Tilley

Clara Hughes is a six-time Canadian Olympic speed-skating and cycling medallist and the national spokesperson for Bell Let's Talk. Clara's Big Ride for Bell Let's Talk is a 110-day national bicycle tour through every province and territory, beginning in Toronto on March 14, 2014 and concluding in Ottawa on July 1, 2014. As part of Clara's Big Ride, Clara Hughes will cover 12,000 km and visit 95 communities along the way. One of those communities was Clarenville, NL.   Over 120 people came out to White Hills resort on Friday, April 25 to hear Clara's story - It is an inspiring and thought provoking talk.

On April 3, Justice James Adams of the NL Supreme Court ruled on a case that pitted the Town of Gander against Trimart Investments Limited.  The thrust of the case was the Town sought to bill back owners of  commercial properties owners adjacent to a municipally owned parking lot for town provided services such as snowclearing, repairs & repaving.  The court held on the one hand the T own could impose charges to the business owners in respect of the parking lots; but on the other hand t he Town could not impose a charge in respect of the parking lots as a user fee and could not impose charges on the defendants in respect of the service roads.  ( Read the full judgement here )  This ruling has significant implications for Clarenville because of its similar situation with the Lower Mall parking lot. The Town has gained significant leverage to charge back for repairs to the parking lot.  The Town wants to see this resolved and now it finally has ...

In this week's edition of THE PACKET  Shawn Hayward's  lead story "Weather, economic uncertainty affect real estate" suggested that short term factors like winter weather and economic uncertainty pointed to some sign of cooling in the hot Clarenville economy. Granted the late arrival of spring and a less than expected impact of Hebron will tend to push down home sales but these are short term hiccups rather than long term structural problems with the Clarenville economy. Realtor  Neil Norcott's insight was key and I want to make sure we all recognize it.  At the end of the story Neil rightly points out that  "Many people who move back to Newfoundland from wherever they are now, not necessarily from the Clarenville area when they left, are picking Clarenville as a destination, mostly because of the amenities we have, the quality of life our community offers, and its geographic location. All are reasons people want to move here, and I don'...