St. Catharines Downtown Association

St. Catharines Mayor Brian McMullan has more ammunition in his battle to keep police headquarters downtown.

At the start of Monday's council meeting, a gleeful McMullan read a letter he received that day from Jim Watson, the provincial minister of municipal affairs and housing.

"The good part is coming up," McMullan said, after reading the letter's introduction.

"The province is supportive of directing institutional or public service facilities to our built-up areas, where there is an existing concentration of uses, services and infrastructure," McMullan said, quoting from Watson's letter. "Such direction supports a stronger live-work relationship and allows these areas to benefit from the economic contributions that the workforce will bring to local commercial businesses."

McMullan said Watson's letter supports his view that a plan to centralize all Niagara Regional Police operations in a new $100-million facility on a greenfield site in rural Niagara Falls violates the province's Growth Plan.

Please see full story in The St. Catharines Standard at:

http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1347940