Published on November 08, 2014

Sueann Musick -The News

Westville Mayor Roger MacKay, left, Westville CAO Kelly Rice and Pictou East MLA Tim Houstan were on hand to hear an announcement by Central Nova MP Peter MacKay, right, in regards to federal government funding for the restoration of the Westville cenotaph.

WESTVILLE - Ongoing restorations at the Westville Cenotaph are getting a boost from the federal government.

Central Nova MP Peter MacKay announced Saturday that the restoration project is the recipient of a $15,000 grant from the federal government to towards repairs on the monument and the make it more accessible for visitors of all ages.

We must never forget the heavy price that has been paid to defend our cherished way of life, and protect our shared values. Since Confederation, more than 2.3 million Canadians have served in our Armed Forces. Tragically, 118,000 never returned home, said MacKay.

We were reminded all too tragically of that reality only weeks ago, when terror attacks took two brave soldiers from our great nation. As Canadians we remain united, and these terrible events serve as a stark reminder of the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform.

Funding will go towards the cleaning of the monument and applying a protective coating and new wording. The area has also been landscaped and new steps, handrails and walkways are installed to improve accessibility.

The cenotaph, completed in 1921 as a memorial to those from Westville lost in the First World War, features a bronze statue of a grief-stricken soldier created by renowned Canadian sculptor Emanuel Hahn.

After the sculpture, the first of its kind in Canada, was unveiled, 10 other communities across Canada wanted the design. Westvilles memorial, however, is the only one signed by Hahn and has been described as the finest community war memorial in Canada.

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MacKay announces funding for Westville cenotaph restoration project

Waterford - Planning and Zoning is poised to take the initial steps of redeveloping Mago Point, a piece of shorefront land that juts into the Niantic River, according to Director of Planning and Development Dennis Goderre.

Since the bridge connecting Waterford to East Lyme was replaced in 1991, residents and owners of businesses on the point have complained that the small peninsula lies so hidden in the shadow of Route 156 that people don't even see it.

Goderre said Friday that a portion of a $500,000 state Small Town Economic Assistance Program grant the town received over the summer will be used to fund the development of a master plan slated for completion in the spring.

"We'll now have a fantastic road map that shows that we have a plan," Goderre said.

He said the town will use the plan to apply for further state and federal grants, including a second STEAP grant and a grant to explore the possibility of bringing commercial aquaculture back to the point. Goderre said aquaculture is currently only permitted in the area for research, though shellfishing was common in the past.

The town plans in the next week to sign an agreement with planning, engineering and construction services firm BETA Group Inc., according to Goderre.

BETA will be charged with surveying the point over the next few weeks. On Dec. 13, the firm will hold its first workshop for members of the public to give suggestions for the master plan.

The master plan will look at walkways, waterfront access, design regulations for buildings, layout of parking lot space, design of the point's park and more, according to BETA project manager Randall Collins.

BETA Senior Vice President Najib Habesch called the point a "diamond in the rough."

BETA will develop two to three master plans by the end of January, at which time it will hold further public workshops, according to Goderre.

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Mago Point redevelopment planning begins

As post offices prepare for the holiday rush of cards, letters and packages, they are seeking to remind customers that a snowstorm can be just around the corner.

Considering the extreme winter weather we had last year, it is never too early to plan for this years season, Postmaster Michael Thompson said. We are asking our postal customers to keep walkways and curbside mailboxes clear of snow and ice to ensure the safe and efficient delivery of mail this winter.

Letter carriers are especially vulnerable to slips, trips and falls during the winter months. Slippery surfaces can be dangerous and costly for homeowners, as well as for their visitors including their letter carriers. By clearing a path when the snow arrives, accidents can be prevented.

Letter carriers cannot make door or curb deliveries when the approach to the mailbox is hazardous because of snow or ice. Carriers are not allowed to attempt door delivery when there is a heavy buildup of snow and ice on sidewalks, steps or porches. They are not allowed to dismount for curbline boxes blocked by snow and ice buildup.

We greatly appreciate the support of our customers in this endeavor, Thompson said. Your letter carrier will thank you.

Source: U.S. Postal Service

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Downriver post offices ask for help this winter season

A public meeting has been arranged to provide an update on the Proposed Cathedral Coast Walk, which is part of our Coromandel Great Walks Project.

Everyone is invited to the meeting at the Hahei Community Hall on Saturday 29 November, from 10am until midday.

"This is a chance for us to share with everyone where we're at with the Walks project and to discuss parking issues around Hahei," says Garry Towler, Council's spokesperson on the Proposed Cathedral Coast Walk. "We need to talk about the impact that increasing visitor numbers is having on Hahei and how we can best manage it short and long term," says Mr Towler.

The Proposed Cathedral Coast Walkway is being developed in partnership with DOC and local iwi Ngati Hei. Stage 1A and 1B of the Cathedral Coast Walk is approximately 10km in length from the iconic "Blowhole," at Te Pupuha Recreation Reserve at Hahei through to the Purangi Estuary at Cooks Beach. It takes in DOC estate, Council reserve and QE2 Trust land. A private section of land at Lees Rd is also being negotiated, which will help to provide additional car parking for anyone wanting to walk the route.

"While the public meeting is primarily as an update on the Walk project and parking around Hahei, DOC are also coming along to give an update on its Integrated Plan for Cathedral Cove and Hahei," says Mr Towler.

WRC has also been invited along with Council staff and elected members from our Mercury Bay Area office.

One of the next steps in the Proposed Cathedral Coast Walk project will be finalising the names of a working group , made up of permanent Hahei residents, non-permanent residents, the Hahei Business Association and Coastal Walkways. This group will be the major forum through which the Hahei community and stakeholders can table views and issues and report back to the Project Governance Group, which is made up of our Council, DOC and local iwi Ngati Hei.

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Public briefing on Coromandel Great Walks Project arranged

A Signal Hill man accused of kidnapping and raping two women this year pleaded not guilty to a host of felony charges Monday and is being held in lieu of $4.5-million bail.

David Faavale Tautolo, 32, is charged with two counts each of kidnapping to commit another crime, forcible rape and one count each of forcible oral copulation, attempted sodomy by force, sodomy by force and criminal threats, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.

Prosecutors say that on Jan. 14, Tautolo forced a woman at a bus station into his car and then sexually assaulted her at another location. She managed to get away and call police, but officers couldn't find Tautolo.

Then in October, Tautolo allegedly kidnapped a second woman, drove her to an alley and raped her. The woman called police once she was free and Tautolo was arrested the next day.

Tautolo faces life in prison if convicted on all charges. Hes due back in court Jan. 20 for a preliminary hearing.

For breaking California news, follow@JosephSerna.

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Man pleads not guilty to kidnapping, raping women in Long Beach

First, they used a YouTube video to arrest him on suspicion of obstructing a California Highway Patrol officer. Now, officials say, theyre using what they found inside Guraurdas Khalsas home to lobby for illegal drugs and weapons charges.

Its only made a bad situation worse for Khalsa, a 32-year-old Brentwood resident who CHP officials say works as a stunt motorcycle rider and has a corporate camera sponsorship. Last week, Bay Area CHP officials announced they tracked down Khalsa and hoped to find others through a video he allegedly posted on YouTube showing him and other riders doing wheelies on Interstate 680 in Milpitas.

The riders in the video are seen speeding on the freeway and circling the officer, whose siren can be heard in the background.

The officer tried unsuccessfully to stop the riders in the pack. The video shows the riders celebrating after the officer peels away for safety.

On Thursday, a search of Khalsas Brentwood home turned up 90 marijuana plants and a loaded rifle, authorities said. Investigators are recommending additional charges related to having a loaded weapon in aid of cultivating marijuana.

Khalsa was taken into custody Wednesday on suspicion of delaying or obstructing an officer and being an accessory after the fact.

Officers say Khalsa filmed the riders' actions, and the video was picked up and later posted toYouTube. The video has been viewed more than 1.5 million times.

For breaking California news, follow@JosephSerna.

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Biker accused in taunting-video case could face drug, weapon charges, CHP says

Massachusetts brick walkways and steps evoke the feeling of a bygone era, a golden time of progress and certainty and can imbue your yard and garden with a similar feeling of steadfast permanence. Using brick in landscaping is always a good option, but particularly appropriate when paired with a brick home. It can turn a drab, dull, or awkward outdoor area into the favorite family room.

Whether the backyard is small or large, regular or irregular, or even sloping, an outdoor brick patio can create the intimate backyard room your family has always wanted. Wouldn't it be lovely to have an expansive multi-room outdoor area, perfect for entertaining?

The brick itself can conform to create a Clinton outdoor fireplace, a thoroughfare, a garden area with or without raised beds, an open floor for eating, dancing, and socializing or a tranquil and removed area just perfect for getting away from it all. Walkways can artfully surround your in-ground pool, hot tub, or sauna, guiding traffic in, around, and through, from the door of your home to the places you most want to end up outside.

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How to Find a Massachusetts Masonry Contractor - Looking for a Westford masonry contractor? Make sure you ask the right questions to get the quality workmanship and professional expert you deserve. -- Read More

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Massachusetts Masonry Steps & Walkways - Brick Walkways ...

Thursday, October 30, 2014 9:13 PM EDT

Special to the Herald

NEW BRITAIN The police department is asking city businesses and residents to leave outside lights on this evening to deter vandalism and increase safety for trick-or-treaters. The police will have extra personnel working tonight to further assist in safety and to promptly arrest persons who engage in criminal activity.

Trick-or-treating at organized events, such as the Halloween Safe Zone in downtown New Britain, is strongly encouraged. Parents are always requested to accompany their children while trick-or-treating. It is recommended that all trick-or-treating be concluded by 8 p.m.

Motorists, parents and children should be aware of the following safety guidelines:

/Motorists should obey all traffic laws.

/ Drive with caution in residential neighborhoods.

/ Be alert for children running out in traffic whose vision may be obscured by masks.

/ Use extreme caution when entering or exiting driveways.

/ Drivers must not wear any masks or wear any costume that impairs their vision or impairs their ability to operate a motor vehicle.

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Police offer tips on Halloween safety

No one wants to enjoy a landscaped yard just through a house window. You want to be outside in your outdoor room, not inside looking out at it, right? If so, you probably dont want to be stepping on dirt or mud. You need solid flooring for your outside rooms and connecting pathways. Thats where patios, walkways, and steps come in. Theyre the foundation for enjoying your outdoor room by yourself and with others.

Having a paver patio or stone patio is an automatic assumption for upscale landscapes. You need at least oneand maybe several strategically placed around your hometo serve as a base from which to enjoy your closest outdoor environment. A natural bluestone patio is an ideal location for family and friends to gather outdoors. They can enjoy fresh air, the sound of birdsongs, and the invigorating scent of flowers, grass, and other growing things.

Walkways provide convenient passage between outdoor areas and add visual interest to your landscape. Like patios, outdoor walkways can take many forms. A simple concrete sidewalk between point A and B. Garden pathways can wind their way through your yard and reveal a secret hideaway or other landscape feature. Paver and stone pathways can vary from plain to phenomenal; what kind of ambiance you want to create in your outdoor hallways is up to you.

If you want fanfare, however, consider a stone or paver walkway. Thick catalogs are needed to show the variety of sizes, colors, shapes, and materials stone and pavers are available in.

Depending on the topology of your yard, you may need stairs to help you and your companions move from the house to the outdoors and between different levels in your yard. Depending on the height difference, you might need only a step or two between levels. With large differences you might want multiple stairs with a small, or large, patio as a landing for weary legs to rest on. As with patios and outdoor walkways, steps and stairs can be made with a wide assortment of materials.

Want some ideas for how your outdoor flooring might look? Wander through our gallery of patio, walkway, and steps to see some of the work weve done for your neighbors in the community. Want to learn more about the options for hardscape flooring? See our Stone and Paver page to see the variety of options available and their pros and cons.

If you want more information, or are ready to get your landscape project started, contact Horizon Landscape today for help. We have met and exceeded our clients landscaping expectations in the Wyckoff and surrounding areas for more than 35 years. Let us use our local knowledge and experience to satisfy your landscaping desires.

To reach us, use our thoughtfully provided contact form. Wed be happy to learn more about your project ideas and give you input based on our decades of experience. You can also call us at (201) 848-0022, email us, or stop by our Wyckoff office today!

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Outdoor Walkways, Concrete Steps & Garden Paths Bergen ...

by Kevin VanOrd on October 27, 2014

His name is Harkyn. He exits conversation not with a goodbye, but with a gruff "I don't care," as if he can barely be bothered to embark on the quest at hand. Harkyn may not be delighted by the adventure he's been thrust into, but I can claim no such apathy: Lords of the Fallen is a dark-fantasy pleasure, cut from the same cloth as Dark Souls, yet distinct enough to earn its own spotlight and, perhaps, to earn your affection as well. Harkyn himself is not easy to love, but ultimately, he doesn't matter as much as the world he serves and the hammers he swings.

"World" might be too generous a word, actually: You spend most of your time in corridors and combat arenas, not gazing onto spacious landscapes. Lords of the Fallen's dramatic citadel and hushed monastery are suffering from the invasion of otherworldly flesh-monsters and armored behemoths. Snowy peaks may rise in the distance, but you will not be breathing in their refreshing air. Lords of the Fallen means to choke you with smoke and poison, and to crush you between the stone slabs that line its monumental suspended bridge. The view from this bridge says more about this world than words can convey. Ahead of you lies the gaping maw of a demonic temple hungry for your flesh. The massive chains that connect your destination to the bridge must have taken hundreds of hours to forge. Two colossal soldiers are carved into the mountain on either side of the entrance, warning you of the blood that will soon be spilled. This is Lords of the Fallen: ponderous and unwelcoming. There is no hiding from its dangers.

Unwisely, the game insists on trying to weave a coherent story into these spaces, with each of Harkyn's cohorts and various audio logs tossing up a word salad that does little to get you invested. In time, the story begins to make sense, but this cliched tale of the balance between good and evil isn't the reason to press on. Instead, it's better to let the frozen walkways and giant braziers speak for themselves. You may begin your adventure in a holy sanctuary, but this place seeks to murder you. Consider the titles of the bosses you fight. Guardian. Beast. Champion. Who needs proper names, when "Annihilator" gets the point across? These titans and their lesser cohorts have no other purpose than to kill.

You fight several such rivals in the first few hours (out of 20 or so) alone, though it takes time to reach the most formidable ones. In the meanwhile, you roam the game's corridors from a third-person perspective, swinging an axe or sword, dodging or blocking incoming attacks, and occasionally calling on the gods of magic to give you a hand when you most need it. It's almost impossible not to draw the obvious comparisons to the Souls series here. An energy meter depletes when you block, roll, and attack, forcing you to closely manage your defenses lest you leave yourself vulnerable to damage. Different melee weapons require different approaches, but Lords of the Fallen gives each of them an authentic sense of weight. Combat requires understanding of how long it takes to swing that humongous greatsword you carry, and how much time that fire-breathing thing you're fighting takes to prepare its next blow.

Lords of the Fallen's dramatic citadel and hushed monastery are suffering from the invasion of otherworldly flesh-monsters and armored behemoths.

So far, so Dark Souls then. Compared head to head, Souls games are superior to Lords of the Fallen in most given areas: Dark Souls is more mysterious, more difficult, and more diverse, and Lords of the Fallen features no online connectivity. To call Lords of the Fallen a poor man's Dark Souls sells it entirely too short, however. For one, Lords of the Fallen strikes a different kind of tone. It is moody and oppressive, but rarely terrifying; it is a power fantasy, not a heart-wrenching death simulator that rolls deadly boulders at you as if you are a single, miniscule bowling pin. The art style reflects the difference: armor and architecture is less Medieval, chunkier and excessively ornate, mirroring Harkyn's strength and confidence. Lords of the Fallen has a few challenges, but it's rare for you to feel frail or afraid: the game simply isn't hard enough to make your blood boil. That's at least true in the main world; the visits you make to a shadowy and sinister otherworld are more frightening.

Those visits bring great reward if you can conquer the darkness. Traversing this otherworld is like exploring a foggy dessert during the witching hour: you can barely see further than the tip of your blade, which make the occasional glimpse of light a true ray of hope. There is tribulation to undergo, however, before you reach possible treasure. Your steps into the beyond lead you first to easily-dispatched knights and mutants, which require only that you put the finicky targeting system to good use. Soon, though, you could encounter a rolling fire demon whose flaming carapace will quickly scorch your flesh. Your introduction to this dimension is a limited one, fortunately: you open a few treasure chests in the hope of finding a rune for upgrading your equipment, a new armor set, or an item that temporarily protects you from poison, and then return to the land of women and men. You reach this realm by entering portals that only unlock when you have killed some unknown beast. You will come to identify an available nearby portal by the crackles and creaks it makes as it opens, as if it's made of ancient tendons that haven't often had a chance to stretch.

The grind to level up is minimal, and while death is likely, it's not frequent enough to elicit heartache. When you perish, you leave behind your ghost and (usually) revive at whichever ruby crystal you last saved at. Your ghost contains all the experience you have accumulated since the prior death, but it doesn't remain forever, so it's in your best interests to go retrieve it, and to be timely about it, at least in the early hours. Every fallen enemy will have respawned after your death, but you will be armed with the knowledge of what lies ahead of you. You will also be armed with some spells and a gauntlet that shoots out magic projectiles, spews fire, and helps open new pathways. Selecting and casting spells is a matter of pressing or holding a button: there's no need to switch from a dagger to a wand if you want to punch a demon in the groin with your quake skill. There are no bows and arrows in Lords of the Fallen: it's all swords and sorcery. You can engorge on magic when leveling up and make quick work of the three-legged freak known as the infiltrator if you play your cards right. I prefer the heaviest killing tools, however, coming close enough to my foes to smell their breath.

You will probably not sob when your ghost expires and you leave behind all your experience. Experience can be regained easily, and in the last several hours, you accumulate too little experience from killing enemies to mind the loss. The bosses may parade around their ominous titles and roar with indignance, but most of them are more bark than bite: if you have Souls experience, many will go down on the first attempt. The challenge ramps up nicely during the lead-up to the final showdown, however, beginning with a double-boss encounter that signals trouble to come.

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Lords of the Fallen Video Review