The top stories of the month for December, as chosen by tbnewswatch.com editor Leith Dunick:
- Thunder Bay Police Chief J.P. Levesque was put on trial facing obstructing of justice charges in relation to an investigation into Thunder Bay Mayor Keith Hobbs over alleged claims of extortion. The Crown accused Levesque of revealing to the mayor he was being investigated by the RCMP, as well as sharing the information with the city manager and his deputy police chief. Levesque’s legal team built its case around the fact that by doing so the chief did not impeded the investigation or try to hinder it in any way, adding that he believed it was his privilege to share the information at his discretion.
- Three days of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls hearings took place at a local hotel and brought together family members and friends of those who have either disappeared or been killed. The province revealed it had taken the reins at the newly opened Hogarth Riverview Manor long-term care facility away from St. Joseph’s Care Group and into the control of a third-party operator. The government said SJCG wasn’t capable of meeting a number of standards at this time.
- A pre-winter storm that brought howling winds and wet, stick snow to the city left about 11,000 Thunder Bay Hydro customers in the dark for the better part of a day while crews struggled to keep up.
- The Thunder Bay District Health Unit launched a rat complain, saying they’ve had 208 rat complaints in a 13-month span. The $5,000 education campaign aimed to eradicated the skyrocketing problem, but officials could not say why the numbers have spiked.
- Weeks after a bitter strike shut Confederation College down for several weeks, the Thunder Bay school announced it had lost about 400 students as a result. That amounted to about 14 per cent of the school’s student population.
- City council made progress on proposed changes to the taxi bylaw, but were unable to pass the revamped regulations at the Dec. 11 meeting, instead deciding to put more effort into the plan and bring it back in the new year. Among the changes requested by taxi companies was the ability to set their own rates, allowing for surge pricing a peak times.
- Apartment dwellers held a rally to complain about what they say is an unfair taxation rate that’s nearly 2.5 times the city’s residential rate. They vowed to fight to have the city instead have a 1:1 rate with residential owners.
- Thunder Bay District Jail guards were joined by union members representing workers at the Thunder Bay Correctional Centre. The guards marked the second anniversary of a riot at the crumbling jail that saw staff taken hostage. They say little has been done to improve the safety of correctional officers.
- A cold snap descended over the city over the Christmas holidays, plunging the mercury to -25 and below, freezing water lines, but failing to dissuade Boxing Day shoppers who came out in droves searching for bSrgains despite the frigid temperatures.
- A possible meteor strike was discovered when residents in the Mount Forest Boulevard area say they heard a loud bang that shook nearby houses. Fragments of the supposed strike are under examination at Lakehead University, although a representative of the local chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada cast doubt on the strike with no witnesses to the landing.
