John Spitters

John Spitters is a veteran local news reporter at Quinte News whose coverage joins vehicle-related incidents, police and court files, and municipal decisions about roads, transit, and development into a single, tightly focused news stream. He brings a long tenure inside Quinte Broadcasting, splitting his career between news and sales and spending 13 years as news director, which gives his day-to-day reporting a strong sense of institutional memory and procedure.

Traffic collisions and roadway safety

Vehicle incidents are a constant thread in Spitters’ work, and he tracks them from minor fires to serious collisions. In a short brief on a car fire on Moran Road near Zion Road, he reports the basic facts in plain language, emphasizing where it happened and when rather than speculation or commentary. His piece on a car that left the road and struck concrete traffic light standards overnight similarly fixes the scene in a few clear lines, describing how the vehicle “had left the road and struck a concrete traffic light pole” and noting the resulting damage. When a vehicle exiting Yeomans Street collided with a fire truck on Moira Street West, he highlights that there were no serious injuries while still noting that an investigation is underway, balancing reassurance with the sense that the file is not yet closed.

Spitters’ collision coverage often intersects with impaired or off-road driving. In his reporting on impaired driving incidents handled through a RIDE program, he links two crashes in a single evening to resulting impaired charges, framing them as part of an ongoing enforcement effort. His work on fatal off-road and ATV collisions, where impaired charges were later laid, shows the same pattern: he follows the incident into the charging phase and makes clear what police allege happened. Even when the story is more about infrastructure than a single crash, such as fresh paint and new markings on urban streets, he treats roadway design as part of the same continuum of public safety and traffic management.

Police, courts, and vehicle-linked crime

A second major strand in Spitters’ reporting is the link between vehicles, policing, and the justice system. He regularly writes short police and court pieces in which a car, truck, or off-road vehicle is central to the alleged offence. In an article on a complaint about someone using fake identification to buy a vehicle, he focuses on the role of the Quinte West OPP, the nature of the forged document offences, and the specific charge of using a fake ID to complete a vehicle purchase. His coverage of impaired driving cases similarly leans on police summaries, clearly listing charges and noting whether collisions or injuries were involved.

He also follows more serious and complex files through the courts. When a man was charged with smuggling millions of dollars’ worth of drugs in a tractor-trailer across the U.S. border, Spitters reports the guilty plea and situates it within the broader cross-border investigation. In his coverage of “jail time after [a] Marmora and Lake incident,” he reports the custodial sentence following a violent episode, again in the concise, charge-focused style he uses for police briefs. His story on the Special Investigations Unit dropping its investigation into a Belleville incident notes that the teenager involved struck her head against her mother’s vehicle and then the ground while being apprehended, and he walks the reader through the SIU’s reasoning for closing the file without amplifying speculation.

Beyond individual cases, Spitters covers violent incidents such as stabbings between Marmora and Havelock, emphasizing the police response, the charges laid, and the identities and ages of those involved where police have released them. Across these stories, his reporting style is consistent: short dispatches grounded in police or oversight-agency information, with clear reference to vehicles where they form part of the event or alleged offence.

Municipal council, transit, and development

Spitters extends his focus on the movement of people and vehicles into coverage of council decisions, transit operations, and land development. He reports on plans for a new vehicle dealership on Highway 62, situating the proposal at a specific address and noting its progress through the approvals process, which ties automotive retail directly to local planning debates. In a piece on residential and commercial plans for the Ben Bleecker property, he covers how the site could be redeveloped and what it would mean for surrounding traffic and land use.

His reporting on municipal council shows that he follows political debates with the same straightforward tone he brings to police news. In coverage of an emotional discussion at the Prince Edward County council table about the Pride movement and how to show support, he captures both the subject under debate and the atmosphere in the chamber without editorializing. When he turns to transit, as in his story on tariffs and federal policy affecting Belleville Transit, he frames national-level decisions in terms of their concrete impact on local bus operations and riders. These pieces show him moving beyond single incidents to the policies and infrastructure that shape how residents travel and how streets are used.

Longstanding role in the Quinte newsroom

Spitters’ professional history within Quinte Broadcasting underpins the way he works day to day. He is described as a longtime employee who has divided his years between news and sales, suggesting that he understands both the editorial and commercial sides of a local media operation. For 13 years he served as news director, experience that carries through in his attention to official sources, procedural detail, and the disciplined brevity of his copy.

His author archive at Quinte News spans thousands of posts, from crime and courts to council, transit, and development, with a strong concentration in local news, crime-related stories, and government announcements. On social platforms he amplifies major local projects and stories from Quinte News, pointing followers to what he describes as “game changing” developments, which aligns with his coverage of large infrastructure and land-use files. Taken together, his work presents a reporter who is deeply embedded in the local news rhythm, with a particular strength in stories where vehicles, roads, and public safety intersect with policing, courts, and city hall.