City councillor Rick Dubeau won’t be getting his wish, and the Porcupine Health Unit will continue their efforts to move from the downtown core.

Tuesday night, Dubeau made another effort to set up another meeting with the PHU board and have them take another look at their decision to relocate to the north end of the city.

“Their decision was made seven years ago on old information,” he said, “There’s new information and new circumstances. I’m just asking they look at it for the greater good of the City of Timmins, and specifically Downtown Timmins.”

It’s no secret the move will leave a large building vacant on Pine South. It will also take over 90 jobs away from the downtown.

“Downtown businesses rely on foot traffic,” added Dubeau, “And as stated by our Director of Community Development at the last meeting, the best way to support downtown business is to attract good paying government jobs.”

“We shouldn’t be (taking) jobs away from the downtown.”

Instead, Dubeau says the PHU could look at vacant buildings already in the downtown, a similar plea to when this issue was last visited back on July 18th.

The request wasn’t received as well as Dubeau had hoped. There is agreement on what the effect will be on losing the business, but their hands are tied as it is a decision for the PHU Board.

When voting on the move, the PHU Board voted unanimous support.

Councillor Mike Doody says the deal is done, the purchase has been made and the PHU feels is a win-win situation.

“At the same time, the BIA gave it’s commitment that they would continue to work for someone to take over that building,” he said, adding they’ve already received a couple requests.

Councillor Noella Rinaldo says the request being made has “been done over and over again.”

Councillor Pat Bamford notes his concern is that if they continue to go back-and-forth on this, there are two other communities in the district that would “love to have this building,” that being Cochrane and Kapuskasing.

“There’s nothing saying that this facility that we already have plans for…could be built in another community.”

“If they saw that we were causing a problem and it was a conflict in the community, I could see someone saying—and we’d be powerless to stop this—someone saying on that management board ‘Hmm, why don’t we move this building and 100 employees to Cochrane or to Kap.”

Bamford closed by saying this has to be a good news story, and council needs to move on.

Dubeau voted in favour of his resolution.

The rest of council voted against it, besides Rinaldo, who abstained from the vote.

Construction is scheduled to begin next March, and completed in the fall of 2019.

Filed under: Local News