... at Queen's Park, across Ontario and elsewhere.

* Police in Windsor have been awarded an 11.7 per cent wage increase over the next four years from an arbitrator, costing the city $1.8 million annually, according to Mayor Eddie Francis.

It works out to a 2.9 per cent increase each year until a new contract is negotiated.

Asked to comment on the ruling at a news conference Tuesday morning, Francis told the Windsor Star “until the province changes the rules, there’s nothing we can do.”

* Guelph police are preparing a plan for how to manage the expected 15,000-plus Hamilton Tiger-Cats fans making the trek to Guelph for the team's "home" games for the 2013 season while renovations are underway on the former Ivor Wynne Stadium in Steeltown.

Guelph police chief Bryan Larkin is leading a working group of the Ticats, the University of Guelph, the city and its police services to figure out how best to control the large influx of people.

“One of our primary goals is to alleviate road safety and traffic management around the university,” Larkin told the Guelph Mercury. Crowd management is also a topic for discussion.

* Frontenac County warden Janet Gutowski will keep her job despite a 6-2 non-confidence motion vote from council suggesting she resign over higher than expected reimbursements for travel, conference and accommodation costs when travelling outside the county.

Gutowski lost another non-confidence vote in December, 7-2, calling on her to step down, although she refused, saying the position needed continuity in its leadership.

“We're not going to pay for her to supposedly represent us when seven out of nine votes are against her,” Frontenac Islands Mayor Denis Doyle told the Kingston Whig Standard. “She's certainly not speaking on behalf of me or most of the people sitting around the council table.”

“She's operating like a tinpot dictator from some banana republic," Doyle said.

* The Niagara Parks Commission will be soon be asking for public input on what to do with the Rankine Generating Station. The doors to the hydroelectric plant built in 1892 have been closed for many years.

* Greater Sudbury Mayor Marianne Matichuk has indicated she will bring forward a motion that would make permanent the office of the auditor general, which was not done when the previous administration appointed Brian Bigger the city’s first auditor in 2009. The new bylaw will also create a minimum three-year contract for the auditor.

Whether the motion gains enough support from councillors to pass is another matter.

* Liberal MPP Jeff Leal was at St. Catherine’s Elementary School in Peterborough's west end Monday to announce $3.6 million from the government to build an 11,300-square-foot addition to the school by the start of the 2014 school year.

The new space will be big enough to house three classrooms for 100 new full-day kindergarten students.

* Ontario’s apple growers are thankful for the $2 million in aid from the provincial and federal governments to help develop strategies to fight against frost damage, but say the money is nowhere near enough to help after last season’s devastating loss.

"This announcement is an interesting way to say no," Brian Gilroy, chairman of the Ontario Apple Growers, told the Owen Sound Sun Times.

"It's something and for that we are thankful, but if they are serious about helping our industry recover, more is needed,” he said.

An unusually warm spell in March 2012 caused apple trees to bloom early before seasonally cold temperatures returned, killing as much as 90 per cent of the apple crop in some parts of Southern Ontario.

Quote of the day

“There is only shame in not trying. I am a voice for change and I will keep going.”
- Dr. Eric Hoskins, trailing the pack of Liberal leadership candidates, says there's no shame in not winning the race.

Tweet of the day

https://twitter.com/andreahorwath/status/291300651823149058

- Ontario New Democratic leader Andrea Horwath is in Ottawa for a meeting with other provincial NDP leaders and federal NDP leader Thomas Mulcair.

Seen, heard, happening …

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