Home Builder Developer - Interior Renovation and Design

Thursday, February 6, 2014 10:11 PM EST

By JUSTIN MUSZYNSKI STAFF WRITER

BRISTOL A minor apartment fire at the Gaylord Towers senior housing complex Thursday afternoon resulted in extensive water damage from the buildings sprinkler system.

Officials said the fire at 55 Gaylord St. began in the kitchen of a sixth-floor apartment. Deputy Chief Mark McCarthy said the call came in around 3 p.m. and the sprinkler system kept the fire contained until firefighters arrived.

The fire was pretty minor, said McCarthy. The bigger problem was the water damage to the floors below.

Floors 6 and 7 were evacuated because there was heavy smoke in the building, McCarthy said. The sprinklers pretty much held the fire in check. It looks like it was mostly kitchen cabinets that were burned.

No injuries were reported.

Mayor Ken Cockayne said many, many people were displaced by the fire.

He said 34 families were forced out by damage caused when the sprinkler system went off because of the fire.

The mayor said the displaced people are being taken in school buses to the DoubleTree Bristol by Hilton Hotel. He said the hotel has been oustanding in rushing to help out.

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Extensive water damage after Gaylord Towers fire

Vaughan Citizen

Vaughans fire chief is calling for sprinkler systems to be installed in all new homes after a spate of devastating blazes in the city.

I think the province should move forward and enact legislation to make them mandatory in all new construction of residential homes, Vaughan fire chief Larry Bentley said Thursday morning, following a fire on Rainbow Drive in Woodbridge. They are designed to control a fire until we arrive and it can help stop a lot of property damage and save lives.

Mr. Bentley said local firefighters have been called to seven house fires in the past 10 days, including at least one total loss", the damages of which are estimated to be about $700,000.

He said if that home had been equipped with a fire-suppressant sprinkler system the damage would have been minimal.

Requiring existing homes to be equipped with sprinkler systems would be costly for homeowners, the fire chief said, but making it mandatory for builders to install them when constructing new homes would be a good first step.

At least one local home builder, Townwood Homes, has stepped up and agreed to outfit 136 townhomes and six semi-detached homes with sprinkler systems in its Mackenzie Ridge Terraces development on Major Mackenzie Drive, near Dufferin Street.

Asked if the province is considering enacting such legislation, a spokesperson for the Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry responded in an email that the "government takes the safety of Ontarians seriously".

The building code addresses fire safety in a number of ways and its requirements are the strongest in Canada," wrote May Nazar, senior media relations coordinator. "The Building code makes use of a combination of the following fire safety principles: detection, warning, containment, suppression (e.g., sprinklers) and exiting.

Ms Nazar also noted that since 2010, the building code has required that large residential buildings, greater than three storeys, be constructed with sprinklers.

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Vaughan fire chief calls on Queen's Park to enact sprinkler system legislation after spate of fires

News

By Tim Hornyak

February 6, 2014 06:06 AM ET

IDG News Service - Sony will sell its struggling PC business to a Japanese investment firm, the company said Thursday, meaning the slick "Vaio" brand could all but disappear from markets outside Japan.

Tokyo-based investment fund Japan Industrial Partners (JIP) will operate the Vaio PC brand under a newly established firm and initially sell PCs in Japan only.

In another reform aimed at bolstering its restructuring efforts, Sony also said it would turn its beleaguered TV business into a subsidiary.

The moves come as Sony said it now expects a net loss of $1.1 billion for the year to the end of March, a reversal of its October profit forecast.

Vaio, which Sony introduced in 1996, looks set to vanish from most markets, at least for short term, as the new company will initially concentrate on selling consumer and corporate PCs in Japan. Whether or not Sony will continue to produce products under the Vaio brand remains to be seen, Sony said.

Although Sony is selling its PC business, it will continue to produce tablet computers, part of its renewed focus on mobile devices including smartphones.

Sony did not put a price on the sale. Sony will take a 5% stake in the new firm, it said.

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Sony sheds Vaio PC business

ANGEL FIRE The village of Angel Fire could get more much-needed water supplies upon completion of certain documentation up to two decades past due, the State Engineers Office reported last week.

The village requested a variety of water consumption credits through a return-flow report filed with the State Engineers Office in 2005. The report suggests the village should be allowed to take more from its wells because much of the water used by the municipality returns to the ecosystem as a result of snow-making, land applications, septic discharge, golf-course irrigation, waterline breaks and waterline leaks.

In a letter delivered to Angel Fire Manager M. Jay Mitchell last week, however, Sheldon Dorman of the State Engineers Office wrote the village will not be eligible for any water credits until the municipality files a variety of documentation that should have been submitted from 1992-2013.

Among the missing documents are 23 well-completion reports due Nov. 30, 1992, a well-completion report due Dec. 30, 2008, and proof of beneficial water use due Oct. 31, 2013, Dorman wrote. Another well-completion report is due March 31 of this year, he wrote.

Dorman also wrote that the only water credits available to the village are for snow-making and sewer discharge.

It is recommended that credit for return flow for golf course irrigation, septic tanks, land application and unaccounted water such as leakage will not be granted to the Village of Angel Fire, a memo from the State Engineers Office states.

Although Angel Fires return-flow report suggests 79 percent of its water used for snow-making returns to the ecosystem, the memo states the villages snow-making credit would be based on an analysis for the Santa Fe Ski Company. Angel Fire Resort used an average of 84.24 acre-feet of the villages water for snow-making during each of the last three winter seasons, according to municipal records.

If the Santa Fe study came back and actually showed that theres a higher level of evaporation or something like that, it might be a lower (credit), Mitchell said.

Through the sewer-discharge credit, Mitchell said, the village would be allowed to use an additional acre-foot of water for every acre-foot of effluent released into the Cineguilla Creek. Although the village has the ability and permits to discharge about 1,120 acre-feet of water into the creek each year, the municipality released an average of only 63.08 acre-feet during each of the last six years.

This is why we need to get more people hooked up on our sewage system. We dont get septic credit. Its metered, so anything we process, clean and discharge, we get one-for-one credit on it, Mitchell said. ...Out of just roughly over 1,800 water customers that the village has, weve only got 389 that are on our sewer system.

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Sangre Chronicle > Angel Fire > Much-needed Angel Fire water credits hinge on missing documents

WATERLOO | A contract to upgrade Waterloo City Hall's main meeting room won approval this week.

City Council members voted 5-2 Monday to approve a $194,500 contract with Failor-Hurley Construction, of Waterloo, to renovate, install new electronic equipment and add a wheelchair ramp to the council chambers on the building's second floor.

Councilmen Steve Schmitt and Tom Lind voted against the project.

"While I look at these chambers and do not argue for a minute that they need to be touched up a little bit, I just struggle with supporting this given what we're doing right now as far as the budget goes," Schmitt said. "While I think this is a real good project I think the timing on this is just completely wrong."

Mayor Buck Clark countered that abandoning the project now would not help lower taxes in the upcoming budget.

"This is not general fund money," Clark said. "It is not necessarily taxpayer money although it will be paid back with taxpayer money. This project has been in the works and we have been planning bond money for this for at least four or five years."

He also said the work is not just a "cosmetic makeover" given the addition of data ports, cameras and other equipment to improve the meeting presentations and eliminate using lots of paper.

"We're not in the 20th century with electronic equipment," Clark said.

Failor-Hurley submitted the lowest of six bids on the project and came in well under the $250,000 estimated cost.

Council meetings after Feb. 17 are expected to be held at the Waterloo Center for the Arts while the council chambers are renovated.

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City Council meeting room project moves ahead

Cazenovia The Cazenovia Board of Education meeting room overflowed with students, parents, coaches and other supporters of the districts girls softball program last Monday, Jan. 27, all of them there to lobby the school board to create a second modified team to accommodate the large influx of new seventh grade players moving up this year.

Without the addition of a second modified team, supporters claim, the program will have to cut about a dozen players this year since the program currently has no junior varsity team and the modified and varsity teams can only have a certain number of players. Such a circumstance could permanently harm the future of the program, since cut players may move to another sport, some argued.

Frankly, we didnt see the numbers coming out of the youth program like they did, said varsity softball coach Ed Roickle. He told the board there are already 42 players signed up for this years program, and, without a third team, 10 or 12 girls will get cut. There wont be any other way to do it, and it would be a shame to deny them the chance to play, he said.

The Cazenovia softball program historically has had one varsity, one junior varsity and one modified (grades 7 and 8) team. In 2012, due to large number of ninth and 10th graders on the varsity team, it was decided to temporarily eliminate the JV team while fielding a varsity team of 15 players and a 7-8 modified team of 15 players, for a total of 30 players. Money was included in the budget that year for a JV team but was not used, according to both Roickle and district athletic director Michael Byrnes.

Last year, money for a JV team was again included in the district budget but was not used due to small player numbers at the ninth and 10th grade levels. Instead, the modified team had 18 players and the varsity team has 17 players, Roickle said. After two years without a JV team, no money was budgeted for it in 2014 due to an uncertainty regarding numbers at the seventh and eigth grade levels, but, as it turned out, 42 players signed up, including 32 at the 7-8-9 levels.

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School board pressed to add third girls softball team

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A Middleton remodeling contractor was charged with stalking for allegedly harassing a prospective client who he told police had wasted his time.

The client told Madison police that someone had been repeatedly calling her from January 2012 until she called police on Aug. 9, 2013, the day after the caller told her that he was going to come to her home the next day and have sex with her.

Benjamin Luedtke, 27, was charged Wednesday with stalking for allegedly making the calls with his brother, who was not named in a criminal complaint that was filed in Dane County Circuit Court.

Luedtke appeared in court on Thursday and was given a signature bond. He was ordered not to have contact with the woman.

According to a criminal complaint:

The woman told Madison police Det. Peter Baio after receiving the Aug. 8 call that she had been getting calls that varied from someone whistling into the phone to someone swearing at her.

In one instance, she told Baio, she had come back to her home after walking her dog when the phone rang and the caller told her that when she walked her dog she should have a leash. That made her afraid that the caller was watching her.

Police used phone records to track down Luedtke, who admitted that he met the woman through his remodeling business, and that in 2012 and 2013 he made a number of harassing calls to her, but he denied telling her that he saw her with her dog.

The woman told Baio that she had contacted Luedtke for kitchen work after he was recommended by Menards.

She said Luedtke wanted to be paid upfront for his work, but she refused to pay him that way and she did not end up hiring him for the work.

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Contractor faces stalking charge for alleged harassment

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Has a British plumber conquered the biggest wave ever surfed? - Video

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