The M.S. Norgoma will be moved to a site at Algoma Steel that will not be accessible to the public, City Council effectively decided tonight.
Council voted 8-3 to advise St. Mary's River Marine Heritage Centre that the recently-painted ship must be moved out of Roberta Bondar Marina by April 15 to allow a dock-replacement project to proceed there this spring.
The marine centre proposed a last-minute alternative location, the former docking-site of the Chief Shingwauk tour boat on the west pier of Roberta Bondar Park.
But city staff rejected that site last year, saying considerable dredging would be needed and the Norgoma would jut out past the end of the dock, impeding the arrival of cruise ships.
Also, there are insufficient bollards there to tie the museum ship.
Unless the museum board can find an alternative location in less than a month (something both it and city staff have been trying to do for many months) the city intends to tow the Norgoma to the Purvis Dock at Algoma Steel, billing the $50,000 cost to the volunteer-run marine centre.
"We don't have the capital for it. We'd have to liquidate what we have," Warren McFadden, a member of the marine centre board, told tonight's City Council meeting.
Opposing the resolution were Ward 1 Coun. Sandra Hollingsworth and Ward 2's Luke Dufour and Lisa Vezeau-Allen.
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