A man is dead after being electrocuted in New Sudbury.

It happened around 10:20 this morning on Madison Avenue near Gary.

Police say it appears a boom-truck operator employed by Evans Lumber was killed when the vehice came in contact with some hydro wires.

The Coroner’s Office and the Ministry of Labor are handling the investigation….

The incident also caused a wide spread hydro outage in New Sudbury.

The name of the deceased at this time at the request of the family.

The threat of violence has resulted in the firing of three striking members of Steelworkers Local 6500.

Vale Inco gave all three workers letters yesterday informing them of their termination with cause.

Company spokesman Cory McPhee would not say if the company is considering laying  criminal charges.

McPhee did say the three used threats against employees who were entering one of the company plants.

Sudbury’s M-P-P says there is nothing he can do to help those residents who suffered damages because of flooding back in July.

This week the province turned down the city’s request for Disaster Relief Funding for the 30 to 40 million dollars of uninsured damage.

M-P-P Rick Bartolucci says Sudbury is a well off community with reserve funds of more than 100-million dollars…so the resources are there to have a disaster fund established.

Anyone who’s ever lived through a Northern Ontario winter know how important a winter jacket is.

The United Way of Sudbury launched its Coats For Kids Campaign today for the 24th year in a row.

According to Community Initiatives Manager, Linda Dupuis, residents can drop off gently used coats of all sizes until the end of October.

Donations can be dropped off at Sudbury Steam Cleaners, Uptown Cleaners Bright Spot Dry Cleaners and Starlight Cleaners.

There are just a few hours left to vote on the worst roads throughout the province.

CAA’s annual campaign wraps up tonight after seven weeks of asking residents to cast ballots on-line, and in CAA stores, centres and garages.

Sudbury has two streets currently in the top 20 with Vermillion Lake Road coming in at number 10 and Regent Street at number 19….however the list has not been finalized.

Go to www.caasco.com/worstroads for more details.

The final list should be out in the next couple of weeks.

After a month of rumours Vale Inco will finally resume partial operations later this week, despite a labour disruption.

The company confirms management, staff and non-striking union employees will be used when partial production begins at Clarabelle Mill.

They’re also getting ready to start things at their Coleman and Garson sites.

This news comes as a disappointment to the more than three thousand striking production and maintenance workers with the Steelworkers union, walking the picket line since July 13th.

Last month Vale began moving ore from Frood Stobie to Clarabelle.

More and more of Sudbury’s population is aging.

That was just one of the many findings in a trends report compiled by the local Social Planning Council.

Executive Director Janet Gasperini says these details should be seen as opportunities for the community when it creates a social development strategy.

Social issues are inter-related and have an effect on one another and yet Gasperini say we don’t have a space or infrastructure to make sure were planning solutions to those problems in a joint and comprehensive way.

The report is available at the council’s office and all interested parties are invited to a workshop on November 13th to discuss a future strategy.

The public gets it’s chance to have some input into the city’s 2010 budget.

A public consultation session is being held tomorrow afternoon at Tom Davies Square starting at 5:30.

While council wants to hear from the public, Budget Chair Ted Callaghan says they have no money for big projects.

But he says they still want to hear from residents about small community projects.

Heading into the budget deliberations home owners are looking at a tax increase of between 4.5 and 7.3 per cent.

A local company takes gold in awards handed out by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

HLS Hard-Line Solutions in Dowling received top honours in the Market Expansion Award category.

Hard-Line was recognized for it’s excellent service and superior products, ability to customize mine equipment to each site, and expansion to international markets like Peru, Chile, Ireland, the U-S, Argentina and Brazil.

The awards will be presented in Toronto on November 25th.

Eighty-thousand visitors took in the International Plowing Match in Earlton last week.

The five-day event wrapped up Sunday and organizers describe it as a success.

Marketing Assistant Mike Pearson says despite the match being a well-publicised event he and his crew were pleased with just how many visitors travelled to Northern Ontario for the festivities.

He says visitors, including the Premier and other provincial politicians got an appreciation for the importance of agriculture nationally, provincially and locally.