Downtown Association puzzles over ongoing mystery of Santa's sleigh

CBRE Ltd., the private-sector firm that manages Sault Ste. Marie's courthouse property, will be asked to participate in planning future community tree-lighting ceremonies.

"We should be inviting more individuals to the table when we're planning the event," Paul Scornaienchi told a meeting of the Downtown Association board of directors last night.

"CBRE, who is the service provider who runs the courthouse, was not at the table for any of the meetings that we had with the City of Sault Ste. Marie," Scornaienchi said during a discussion about the property manager's still-unexplained request for removal of some Christmas decorations following the Nov. 21 tree-lighting festivities.

"When there's no surprises in advance, the event goes seamlessly. I recommend that we invite all of those parties to the table," he said.

As to why Santa's sleigh was evicted from the courthouse front lawn late last month, city and provincial officials remain silent as Christmas Eve snowflakes.

Attempts by SooToday's Riley Smith to get explanations from Larry Girardi, the city's deputy chief administrative officer for public works and engineering; Julie Bussineau, the assistant facility manager at CBRE who works with the city on tree-lightings at the courthouse; and Infrastructure Ontario have all been met with stony silence. 

As Smith reported on Dec. 2, Sault MPP Ross Romano indicated after extensive discussions with Attorney General Doug Downey that the sleigh and decorations may now return to the courthouse property.

But Mayor Provenzano and city CAO Malcolm White have no intention of doing that, arguing that it wouldn't be a good use of municipal resources to be moving the decorations back and forth between the courthouse and their present home in front of the Civic Centre.

"You should get in contact with Ross [Romano]," Frank Gaccione told Downtown Association executive director Josh Ingram at last night's monthly board meeting.

"I have been in contact with the courthouse, the MPP," Ingram responded, adding that: "There's no final word from any organization on the removal of the decorations."

"It's a mystery," said board member Paul Mason.

"I think it has a lot to do with the scalability of the event," Ingram told his directors.

"If I were to take a guess, from the first set of decorations to the amount of decorations that we have now.... It's not gaudy but we have a lot more stuff on the lot."

The Downtown Association is expected to ask MPP Romano to help secure a written agreement that will assure future tree-lighting ceremonies can take place.

There was general agreement that decorations on this year's community Christmas tree were "totally awesome" compared to the previous year.

"That's the template moving forward," Ingram said.