Civic Affairs

(Meghan Plooy, executive director of the DBIA, speaks to city council's planning committee on Tuesday.)

(Carmen Gottfried, right, speaks while his son, Ken, listens.)

(Photo by Darcy Cheek)

(Mayor David Henderson writes ideas on the whiteboard Monday while Rev. Marianne Emig Munro, left, of First Presbyterian Church, and Rev. Kimberly Heath, of Wall Street United Church, listen.)

“You know, I wonder if we, as a city, can somehow sponsor several families... Remember, almost all of us are immigrants of this beautiful, fantastic and colossal country.”

“Its amazing that a simple bakery could mean so much.”

I remember a great many things from the Ice Storm of 1998, but one of my first memories is the morning of Day One, when we gathered in the old newsroom on King Street West.

(Acting Mayor David LeSueur laughingly suggests Jeff Earle (foreground) is a bit fuzzy on the details of a smoking ban.)

It would be easy for the cynic, well-practised at slamming Riverfest over the years and longing for another Brockville event to devour in the acid bowels of snarl, to take down the All Ships Festival.

When a community is battered long enough by economic instability, it develops a response to positive news best captured by that sitcom title, “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”