On Friday, Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli unveiled his new constituency office.
The office, which is located at 219 Main Street East, is just a few buildings down from his previous location, 165 Main Street East. That location was destroyed by December’s downtown fire.
“We were in here on January 6th,” Fedeli said. “Our providers worked long and hard to have us up and online electronically. Our phones were ringing and we were able to answer them. We are a government agency and everything here is secure, and we have data we need protected so everything put in here is hardened.”
“It was a lot of extra due diligence to have an MPP office up and running this quickly and we are deeply appreciative to everyone who helped us,” Fedeli continued.
With the office up and running, during his opening remarks he took the time to thank the North Bay Fire and Emergency Services personnel who were on the ground on December 20th.
“I came down at 7:30 in the morning and took a photo, which I will be putting in this office of the firefighters,” Fedeli said. “They were relentless over seven hours after the fire started. They were fighting the fire, trying to knock it down sitting in puddles, but it wouldn’t go away.”
“Many people who lived on the second floor are displaced and they lost everything,” Fedeli added, taking time to acknowledge the residents who lived in the buildings. “We lost files, they lost homes. They are a great group of people. I see them, interact with them, I had been in that office for eight years.”
“This is traumatic to them,” Fedeli continued. “For a couple of them, they were getting their life back together and getting settled, and a tragedy like that disrupts them more than us.”
Fedeli says, with the new office they are looking at it as a chance to modernize and start anew. There will be no file cabinets in the new office as papers will be scanned and stored digitally.
“That will save a lot of money and save a lot of paper,” Fedeli said. “We will be one of the first digital MPP offices and that will be a good thing to come out of this fire.
There are now four areas downtown that have been affected by fire in the last number of years. Some areas have been turned into parking, others are being salvaged. Fedeli hopes to see buildings built to help revitalize the downtown core.
“What we have seen is a city that has made the best of it,” Fedeli explained. “At the former Richardson’s site, we have seen landscaping and parking, so you walk by without thinking of it. The former Frank and Freddy site, it’s a big hole but it has been used for parking. That is certainly not the highest and best use of that property, we would love to see something there. The old Lefebvre’s site is still a work in progress, so at least it’s not a hole and has a future.”
“This site here, because of its location and still a half a building left, I really hope that groups come together and develop at least the Main Street half,” Fedeli continued. “I hear they are thinking of putting parking on the Oak Street half, but having another parking lot is not the solution. There is a lot of parking, so I hope this is where we take a stand, say ‘enough is enough we’re going to rebuild.’”
