Noella Klawitter, a Carleton Place local, is off and running again this year as she headed to Australia a couple of weeks ago to train and compete.

Klawitter headed to Sydney, Australia last Jan. 6 together with a team of athletes from Canada to get on with training and start competing.

The track athlete has been setting records in her sport last year as a visually impaired runner. As part of the T12 group, Noella Klawitter has established herself in her sport by holding new records for the 80, 100, 200, and 400 meter categories in Canada.

Last year, she traveled to participate in numerous events outside the country. In July, she competed at Colorado Springs, Colorado for the International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) Pan-American Games where she won 1st place in the 100, 400, and 800m run categories — breaking a national record in the 100m class. And in August last year, she traveled to the Czech Republic to compete in the Czech Open where she gathered two silvers and a bronze.

Noella owns a location both in Carleton Place and Smith Falls, and she has gathered support from family, friends, and staff from each locale. She has also gained support from Perth as well.

To satisfy the interests of the citizens from different communities who follow her pursuits, the track athlete has created a blog which she is dedicated to update every few days. The URL is www.noellarunning.blogspot.com

A full-day kindergarten program initiated by Ontario will involve three schools from the Carleton Place – Almonte area. The province of Ontario will launch a full-day learning program for an estimated 35,000 kindergartens from 600 schools around the area this coming September 2010.

One school from Carleton Place, the J. -L. Coroux Catholic School, was selected by the Ministry of Education to participate in the first wave of the provincial learning program.

Included in the criteria for the selection process were: the sites where kindergarten classes can fulfill the Early Learning Program model, readiness of the space, community need, impact of the program on existing childcare programs (Early Years), achievements of students, and inclination to implement.

According to Ted Kennedy, superintendent of school operations for the Upper Canada District School Board, he believes that the first phase of the program selected the schools that will best serve the community.

A government released information says that the parents also have the option to enroll their children on the extended day plan that provides before and after school programming for a price. And for parents who would be needing financial assistance for the extended day program, there will government subsidies available which will be based on the families’ needs.

Research says that early learning can have beneficial effects on the social and academic skills of children. A whole day of learning is believed to give a child better math, reading, and writing skills later on in life. This is the main reason why the government is trying to phase in the all-day kindergarten program this September.

Vacant homes and apartments have now become scarce in Carleton Place to the point where most people who are looking for them have dubbed the task “impossible” and “highly stressful.” Relative to most communities who have a rental population of approximately 40 percent of the residences, in Carleton Place, the rental population is now only 21 percent. This is according to Joanne Beaton, representative of ARCA Property Mgt.

She claims that in Carleton Place, there is just not enough rental spaces. Moreover, she said that this status is not likely to change soon because of the high costs in constructing new spaces for rental. She estimated that a unit’s cost could reach up to $150,000, and with that amount, there is just no way that investors could recover their money.

Lisa Young, Carleton Place’s director for planning and development, is aware of this problem. However, she suggests that this scarcity could instead be an opportunity for the community. She said that developers could look into other forms of housing for this community need. According to her, there are still parcels of undeveloped land in Carleton Place which, if utilized, can significantly reduce the time spent by those who are looking for places to stay.

Breanne Lawrenson, a resident of Carleton Place, has been trying hard to build a career in the music industry since she was 15 years old. But just recently, with the help of Algonquin College, she was able to release a DVD honoring the Canadian troops sent abroad — specifically those who are in Afghanistan.

Brea, as she prefers to be called, has a very personal motive for releasing this DVD. Contrary to the majority of the musicians across the country who are capitalizing on the patriotic trend from Canada’s campaign in the Afghan area, Brea has a deeper reason for the DVD’s release: her cousin Matthew Bradley once served in Afghanistan with the Canadian Army.

Matt and Brea met each other for the first time at their grandmother’s funeral. They weren’t really close back then since they really didn’t know each other, she claims. But thanks to the internet, they were able to acquaint with one another.

According to Brea, they found each other on MySpace (a social networking website). While surfing the internet, Bradley came across his cousin Brea’s music. And since then, the two of them became really close.

In September 2008, when Matthew Bradley’s was leaving Canadian Forces Base Petawawa to be deployed abroad, Brea, together with her mother, was there to bade him a heartfelt goodbye.

Since the Canadian mission started on 2002, more the 130 Canadian soldiers have been killed. Bradley safely completed his duty by returning home alive last May 2009. He got married on August the same year.

Her whole relationship with her cousin inspired Brea to pay homage to the Canadian troops.

Breanne Lawrenson can be found on the internet via Youtube and through her website where she can be contacted in case there is a request for her DVD.

Now that the 2010 Olympic games are fast approaching, a high demand for Olympic wear has broken out. Fields stores in Carleton Place have sold out their last pair of Olympic mittens — they were only given 18 pairs to distribute.

The Fields stores manager, Mindy Turgeon, claimed that she could have sold 1000 pairs. She said that a lot of people were searching for them, and that some would even buy ten pairs if they had the chance. Unfortunately, her supply couldn’t meet the demand. She couldn’t even secure a pair herself.

Although the $10 mittens are now out of stock, other Olympic items are still available such as: toques, pens, caps, blankets, hooded sweatshirts and T-shirts for adults and kids.

The Hudson’s Bay Company is the official supplier of clothing for the winter games. Fields, being a division of that company, is the only local business that sells registered Olympic merchandise.

Olympic merchandise continue to sell rapidly according to Turgeon. Starting from the 13th of December — the day that the Olympic torch came — up to the week leading up to Christmas, there has been a steep increase in sales.

She said that no further shipments of Olympic merchandise will be delivered to the store, and she advised people to come and buy before its too late.

Carleton Place won the annual “mayors” challenge again this year against Smith Falls’ mayor, Dennis Staples, and Perth’s mayor, John Fenik.

Mayor Dennis will be wearing the Canadians’ hockey jersey for one day as stipulated by Carleton Place’s mayor, Paul Dulmage.

Staples together with John Fenik, his counterpart in Perth, issued a challenge to Dulmage to see which municipality, in a set number of hours, could raise the most funds as volunteers for the Salvation Army Christmas kettle campaign.

Carleton Place was able to raise $1,636; Perth raised $893; And Smith Falls fell short with only $659. The three municipalities raised a total of $3188.

At a council meeting held last December 21, Staples announced the municipality that won the challenge, noting that the real victor was the Salvation Army.

On December 22, Dulmage concurred and said that it was the Salvation army that really won that deal.

Carleton Place also won the challenge last year, as a consequence, the flag pole at Smith Falls’ Town Hall flew Carleton Place’s flag for a day.

The money raised will be used to fund the Salvation Army programs in that area.

The Salvation Army once donated $6000 to the Christmas Basket program of Carleton Place.

Brian Fuller, A Smiths Falls Salvation Army Major, said that the support gained for this year’s Salvation Army campaign was awesome. He added that given the economic hurdles, the community really stepped up — volunteering, donating financially and everything.

The Carleton Place Jr. A Canadians hockey team lost to the Ottawa Jr. Senators last Wednesday night, December 16, 2009. Carleton Place lost their lead early in the game and had to struggle to recover in the third. However, their efforts were futile as the Ottawa Jr. Senators grabbed the 6-4 victory.

Tyler Kotlarz, benefiting from the assists of Richard Stethem and Brock Plouffe, put Carleton Place first on the board as the game started.

A few minutes later, Carleton Place scored another goal when Martin and Rodier fed Samuel Coyne for the score. This put Carleton Place up 2-0.

Before the period was up, Ottawa’s Pierre-Michel Legare gave his team their first score of the night when he was able to get an unassisted goal.

From then on, the Jr. Senator’s gained their momentum when they were able to score two more additional goals to seize the lead in the second period.

In the third period, Ottawa’s Nicolas Belleville scored a goal increasing the Jr. Senator’s lead.

Carleton Place tried to come back as Coyne made his second goal of the game courtesy of the assists from Rodier and Hannah. But the Senators refused to yield as they scored another goal four minutes later.

In the last two minutes, Plouffe scored for the Canadians reducing the Jr. Senator’s lead to one. But the Jr. Senator’s Matt White sealed the Canadian’s fate by scoring the game’s coup de grace with only 2 ticks left on the game time.

December 1, 2009 — Carleton Place’s budget for the incoming year was presented during a meeting at the town hall. Carleton Place’s total projected expenditure for the year 2010 is estimated to be 31.7 million dollars, that is, capital and major spending included. The majority of the projected expenditure will go to environmental and transportation services.

The projected 31.7 million dollars had taxation and government grants, both provincial and federal, as major revenue sources. For the last couple of weeks, it has been known that payers here will face a 2.64 percent increase in their property taxes for the year 2010. A breakdown of all the details and other aspects about the budget was also revealed with 46.5 percent of the apportionment of the total tax dollars going towards the town.

In spite of the efforts of the Carleton Place Town Council to publicly present their financial data, and the fact that majority of the average taxpayer’s money goes to municipalities, the budget presentation didn’t elicit any significant public response; which seems a bit surprising in a town where there is so much local political discussions taking place.

Budget statements can by obtained by the public at the local Town Hall. This is the first time ever that the mayor and individual Councillors can be seen and/or heard giving comments regarding a town budget.

Carleton Place, originally known as Morphy’s Falls, was chosen as a mill site by Edmond Morphy in 1819. It is located on the Mississippi River, a tributary of the Ottawa River. It became a village in 1870, and a town in 1890.

Both textile and lumber mills flourished here, but none are still operating. Some of the attractions of Carleton Place and surrounding area include Riverside Jam, Carleton Place Dragon Boat Festival, Morphy’s Falls Heritage Festival, Carleton Place Canoe Club, Victoria School Museum, Canada Veteran’s Hall of Valour, and of course the Mississippi River.