Latest news with #Chiarelli
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Rockford honors fallen servicemen with solemn Memorial Day ceremony
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — There wasn't a dry eye in the house at a solemn remembrance ceremony at Veterans Memorial Hall, honoring loved ones, friends, and other servicemen and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice. 'Memorial Day is not just a holiday. It is a solemn reminder of the sacrifices made by those who wore the uniform. These heroes defended our freedoms and never returned home,' said Winnebago County Chairman Joseph Chiarelli. The service followed Rockford's annual Memorial Day Parade through downtown. 'It's so important to honor those who have lost their lives, who gave up their life for our freedoms and to be able to honor them is what we should be doing every day. So hopefully today, everyone can take a moment to remember what it costs for freedom,' Chiarelli said. 'I think what moves me, especially this morning, is my little daughter gave me a note that said, Thank you for your service and please don't go away to the army that long again. And I kind of teared up a little bit. And then it made me think of all the fathers and mothers and even brothers and sisters who didn't come home back to their families,' said 2nd Ward Ald. Jonathan Logeman, who also serves with the Illinois Army National Guard. 'When you think about the solemn nature of the sacrifice that we make, being home from our families or even possibly making the ultimate sacrifice, it just makes me so proud to be a part of the United States Army. Especially on a day when we think about those who did pay that ultimate sacrifice,' Logeman continued. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Ottawa Citizen
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Ottawa Citizen
Denley: Ottawa's flawed transit system built on what people once wanted
Frustration with Ottawa's public transit system is understandable, but the root cause is not a large number of people who made remarkably stupid decisions over a long period of time, as it is now popular to conclude. Article content Article content In fact, it's almost the opposite. The light-rail decisions that are mocked today were both popular and rational when they were made. Article content Ottawans wanted the same kind of rail service that other cities had already had for years. To accomplish that, they kept electing and re-electing politicians who promised to make the dream a reality. Article content Article content People look back now and lament the loss of what they remember as a much better bus system, but there was a good reason why it had to change. It's hard to imagine now, but 25 years ago, buses clogged downtown streets at rush hours, particularly on Albert and Slater streets. Article content At the time, OC Transpo was moving about 10,000 people an hour in each direction downtown at rush hours. The streets were near capacity and transit ridership was growing rapidly. Light rail in a downtown tunnel was ultimately seen as the most viable solution to that problem. It would enable OC Transpo to move up to 24,000 passengers an hour each way. Article content It's fair to say that the city's first train decision wasn't the best. Then-mayor Bob Chiarelli wanted light rail that would run from downtown to Barrhaven, but with no tunnel. It was a short-term solution, and one that went north-south when Ottawa's main commute was east and west to downtown. The federal government refused to support the plan. Article content Article content In 2006, Ottawa voters rejected Chiarelli's plan and elected as mayor Larry O'Brien, who became a champion of a downtown tunnel and an east-west route. It was a plan that was more costly but also more rational. O'Brien argued that trains in a tunnel would be faster and more reliable. It seemed plausible. Article content Article content The decision to go with rail was widely regarded as the big-city thing to do. Skeptics, including me, questioned the high capital cost, but enthusiasm won the day. The first stage of the LRT was under way. Article content In 2010, voters elected Jim Watson as mayor. He'd been critical of the train plan, but quickly changed his mind when he figured out that others liked it. In the end, Watson became an enthusiastic supporter of light rail.
New York Times
30-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Cheap beer and a suspect blocker: Before Mark Carney was Canada's prime minister, he was Harvard's No. 3 goalie
Mark Benning knew his job. The Harvard defenseman's priority was to retrieve pucks and deliver them quickly and accurately to Scott Fusco, Lane MacDonald and Tim Barakett, the Crimson's talented forwards. To get to pucks first, Benning required timely on-ice arrivals. It was up to Harvard's No. 3 goalie to open the bench door at just the right moment to let his puck-moving defenseman pounce onto the ice at full speed. Advertisement Mark Carney took the job seriously. He did it well. It was one of many things the future politician mastered during his time at Harvard. Hockey wasn't his professional destiny, but the Canadian prime minister has deep connections to it, from his college playing days to his Oilers fandom to a close friendship with longtime NHL executive Peter Chiarelli. On Monday, Carney's Liberal Party narrowly won the Canadian election, defeating the opposition Conservative Party, meaning Carney will remain prime minister. He has held the post since succeeding Justin Trudeau in March. Carney, 60, incorporated hockey into his campaign. In a promotional video shot at a hockey rink with Mike Myers, Carney goes back and forth with the comedian to confirm his Canadian roots. Both are wearing red Team Canada hockey jerseys. 'You're a defenseman defending a two-on-one. What do you do?' Canada's 24th prime minister asks Myers. 'Take away the pass, obviously,' Myers answers. On March 20, Carney, wearing the No. 24 jersey of his hometown Edmonton Oilers, participated in the morning skate at Rogers Place. That night, with Benning as one of his guests, Carney watched the Oilers lose to the Winnipeg Jets in overtime, 4-3. Carney, who spent his childhood in Edmonton, where he attended St. Francis Xavier High, has reiterated his Oilers fandom many times publicly, including a month later before the Oilers began their playoff run and days before the Canadian election. The quest for the Cup begins tonight in LA. To the best team in hockey: you know what to do.#LetsGoOilers — Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) April 21, 2025 'He loves hockey,' says Benning, who also grew up in Edmonton. 'The two things — besides his family and his wife, obviously — that he loves are Canada and hockey.' Carney was good enough at the latter to earn a college scholarship. In the fall of 1983, Chiarelli moved into Straus Hall, his freshman dorm at Harvard. He met Greg Dayton, his new roommate. Advertisement Two doors down, Chris Sweeney, Dayton's best friend and fellow Belmont Hill grad, was settling in with an 18-year-old from Edmonton. Dayton went to visit Sweeney. Chiarelli tagged along and was introduced to Carney. The teenager that Chiarelli met in his first hour at Harvard would become his best man. 'We would have connected even if we weren't living that close together with each other,' says Chiarelli, who is from Nepean, Ontario. 'Because we would be at the hockey rink.' Chiarelli was a forward. In 1983-84, the freshman played in 27 games. It was 27 more than Carney. That season, Carney was behind two goalies: Grant Blair, a sixth-round pick of the Calgary Flames, and Dickie McEvoy. Blair and McEvoy were very good NCAA goalies. Carney, meanwhile, was listed at 5-foot-9 and 160 pounds, undersized for the position. Regardless of his competitiveness and puck-handling touch, he had weaknesses his teammates could exploit. 'I was going high blocker,' recalls Fusco when asked where he liked to shoot on Carney. 'Low stick,' counters ex-teammate Randy Taylor. Carney's situation did not change in seasons to come. John Devin entered the rotation, pushing Carney to practice part-time with the Harvard JV. But on March 9, 1985, Carney got his chance. In Game 2 of the Eastern College Athletic Conference quarterfinals, Harvard was beating up on Colgate. Crimson coach Bill Cleary pulled Blair and replaced him with Devin. Then in the third period, Devin got hurt. Carney came in. The sophomore stopped all five shots he saw. Harvard won 10-2. It was Carney's first and final NCAA appearance. 'His goals-against average is zero and his save percentage is 1.000,' Taylor says. 'Let's focus on that and not how many games he got in. For the chance that he got, he couldn't have done any better.' Advertisement In retrospect, Chiarelli, former general manager of the Boston Bruins and the Oilers and current vice president of hockey operations for the St. Louis Blues, believes Carney would have been good enough to be a No. 2 goalie elsewhere in the ECAC. 'He was realistic,' Chiarelli says. 'He was good at the sport and he loved it, but he wasn't going to change schools.' Carney did not go to Harvard to be a hockey player. After freshman year, Chiarelli, Carney and Dayton moved out of Straus. They lived together in Winthrop House. Their room became a second home for Benning. The defenseman had started his college career at Notre Dame. Benning transferred to Harvard after the Fighting Irish shifted to club status in 1983. In 1984-85, his first year at Harvard, Benning lived off campus in Inman Square, a residential and commercial neighborhood in Cambridge. Instead of walking back to his apartment after practice, Benning became what he termed Carney's adopted roommate. On Saturday nights, after home games at the Bright Center, Carney and his teammates were regulars at the Piccadilly Filly. Funds were tight. Beverage quality was not the priority. 'All of us were pretty cheap,' says Benning, now the founder of a venture capital firm called Excelsior. 'The cheapest beer we could find.' Carney graduated magna cum laude in 1987. He went to Oxford for his master's degree in economics, followed by his PhD. Carney continued playing hockey at Oxford. On one tour of Russia, Carney stared down a barrage of shots against a professional Soviet team. In March, Chiarelli attended Carney's 60th birthday party. Several of Carney's Oxford friends were there. They showed Chiarelli a picture of a hockey stick they had signed with goofy nicknames when they were students. Next to his signature, Carney had written his gag nickname: 'PM.' Chiarelli had a good laugh. As Harvard undergrads, Chiarelli regularly cracked to Carney he would become prime minister. Advertisement Taylor, a partner at LaBarge Weinstein, loves to fish. The former defenseman grew up in Cornwall, Ontario, going after walleye in the St. Lawrence River. Carney enjoys fishing too. One year, Taylor, Chiarelli and Carney had their lines in a lake in Quebec. Carney's phone was ringing so often that he had to get off their boat and head back to town. It was during Brexit. Carney was the governor of the Bank of England. The fish would have to wait. Carney started his career at Goldman Sachs. But service was a keener calling. Carney once joked to Taylor that in investment banking, the only difference his income made in his life was that he could wear a nicer suit to work. 'This guy could have spent his whole career in the private sector and made millions and millions and millions of dollars,' Chiarelli says. 'He was on partnership track. He chose to go into public service.' Fusco, the founder of Edge Sports Center in Bedford, Mass., is Harvard's all-time leading scorer with 240 points. He won the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey's top player in 1986. He had help getting there. Fusco, 62, remembers wind-lashed walks from the Harvard quad across the Anderson Memorial Bridge to practice at the Bright Center like they happened yesterday. He liked getting to the rink early to work on his shot. As Fusco crossed the Charles River, Carney was usually at his side. The goalie with no shot at playing was happy to stand in net while Fusco ripped off pucks for 45 minutes before practice. Carney was there to serve. (Top photos: Andrej Ivanov / Getty Images and courtesy of Harvard)
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
A look at bills that crossed the legislative finish line
Apr. 14—MORGANTOWN — The 2025 legislative session wrapped up at midnight Saturday, and a number of bills we followed along the way completed their journeys. Most prominent among them is HB 3279. Over the objections of WVU and Marshall and others who said it addresses a problem that doesn't exist, it turns the student, faculty and staff members of college and university boards of governors across the state into non-voting advisory members. For WVU specifically, it also makes the Extension service faculty representative a non-voting member. Some final amendment fiddling and concurrence concluded Saturday afternoon and it heads to the governor. WVU provided this statement to The Dominion Post on Monday: "West Virginia University is West Virginia's University because of our students, faculty and staff, and their commitment to serving the state. We believe their voices should be heard and, in this case, they made their opposition to HB 3279 known to lawmakers. "Once the bill is signed into law, " WVU said, "we will work to implement its provisions as we do with every other law. The WVU Board of Governors will continue to include two faculty representatives, one classified staff representative and one student body representative. Going forward, we hope their perspectives and guidance will continue to be sought in the decision-making process." SB 50 aligns municipal election dates with statewide primary and general election dates, effective July 1, 2032. Last Monday, April 7, the House adopted an amendment by Delegate Geno Chiarelli, R-Monongalia, to move the effective date to July 1, 2028. The Senate rejected that amendment and on Saturday the House receded and passed the Senate version 93-2. Chiarelli joined the majority but Delegate Evan Hansen D-Monongalia, voted against it (he voted for it when the House passed its amended version). It heads to the governor. Here are some other bills heading to the governor. After failing in 2023 and 2024, the bill to require the display of the U.S. Motto "IN God We Trust " finally passed. SB 280 requires public schools and higher education institutions to display a durable poster or framed copy of the motto "in a conspicuous location within a common area of the main building ...that is accessible to the public." Displays in other areas is optional. Public funding is prohibited, while private funding is permitted. HB 2003 requires county school boards to establish policies for permitting, or not permitting, personal electronic devices on school property. If permitted, the board will set parameters for use and for storage during instructional hours. It includes exceptions for medical issues and for students with Individualized Education Programs. It also requires school boards to establish consequences for violations, including confiscation and ongoing prohibition from possession on campus. HB 2164 allows schools three options to put security officers in their hallways. It allows public and charter schools, along with private and religious schools, to employ school safety officers. It allows public schools, including charters (private and religious schools do not appear in this section), to contract with a retired law enforcement officer to provide Guardian services. And it allows schools — public, private and religious — to contract with private security firms. HB 2434 is the Stop Squatters Act. It says a squatter is a person occupying a dwelling or other structure who is not so entitled under a rental agreement or is not authorized to do so by the tenant or owner. It allows a property owner or their authorized agent to request law enforcement to undertake the immediate removal of the squatter, under specified conditions. The bill establishes the crime of criminal mischief for causing damages, with misdemeanor and felony penalties depending on the value of the damages. It also sets criminal penalties for selling real property without authorization and for advertising property for sale or rent without authorization. HB 2960 launches a pilot project to plow secondary roads in Monongalia and Preston counties. It says, "Snow removal on the secondary roads in Monongalia County and Preston County has not been dependable, providing a hardship on the citizens of West Virginia." It establishes a two-year pilot project to put out a Request for Proposal for vendors to provide snow removal for District 4's secondary roads in Monongalia and Preston counties. The Division of Highways will identify the roads to be plowed. The DOH can terminate a contract, with 30 days' notice, for substandard or unsatisfactory work. A couple measures died. SB 85 aimed to ban the prescription and dispensing of abortion medications by mail order. It passed the Senate but died in House Health without a hearing. And the House was set to take up a Senate pro-coal resolution on Saturday but let it die. SCR 18 announced the intention to create a West Virginia Coal Renaissance Act, citing the changing views about energy as the Trump administration follows the more renewable-minded Biden and Obama years. It said the Coal Renaissance Act, along with programs and initiatives, will encourage and foster greater coal usage, and state agencies will develop strategies to fully develop coal production and consumption, including new coal-fired plants and efforts to keep current plants open.
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House amends Senate city elections bill to shorten time for municipalities to change their voting dates
Apr. 4—MORGANTOWN — The House of Delegates on Friday adopted an amendment to the Senate's bill to align municipal election dates with state dates — an amendment that will likely be rejected when the bill returns to the Senate. The bill is SB 50, to require municipalities to align their local elections with state primary and general elections by 2032. Delegate Geno Chiarelli, R-Monongalia, offered the amendment to change the year to 2028. Several delegates spoke in opposition. Delegate Larry Kump, R-Berkeley, said that when he moved from Maryland to West Virginia in 1999, he asked people, "Why do we have these goofy election dates that aren't on regular election dates ?" They told him that came from the good-old-boy system to minimize turnout and get the good old boys elected, he said. Kump said he supports the bill but not the amendment. "Let's not mess with it any further. It'll be done and we won't have any more of these goofy elections." Judiciary chair JB Akers, R-Kanawha, said he hadn't talked with the Senate about the reason for the late date. But Delegate Andy Shamblin, also R-Kanawha, said it had to do with municipal charters: Many municipalities will have to put a charter amendment to comply with the law on their 2028 ballot. So the amendment would harm the intent of the bill. And Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, added that the 2030 census also likely plays a role in the 2032 date — because districts will get redrawn and municipal ward and precinct boundaries will change. Shamblin and Linville were right. In Senate discussion, it was said that cities will need time to pass a charter amendment, and counties will need to redraw precincts that cross city boundaries. That led to the date changing from July 1, 2026 in the introduced bill to July 1, 2030 in committee. Then on the Senate floor on Feb. 28, Sen. Ryan Weld offered an amendment to further extend the date to July 1, 2032, to account for post-census redistricting. Not knowing any of that Senate background, Chiarelli's amendment found supporters. Delegate Jarred Cannon, R-Putnam, stated his belief that state law would preempt any city charter. And Chiarelli pointed out his hometown's reluctance to put election dates in the hand of the voters. Last October, Morgantown City Council voted against giving the choice of election dates to city voters. An ordinance to place that proposed charter change on the city's April 29 ballot failed on first reading. Chiarelli noted the low turnout percentage in Morgantown's previous three city elections, and said 2028 allows plenty of time for municipalities to make the needed changes. "I have full faith in them, " he said. "I think they'll be able to make the jump with very little issue." His amendment was adopted on a divided voice vote — no one demanded a roll call vote — and will be on third reading for passage on Monday. Then it will return to the Senate where the amendment will undergo scrutiny.
