The Town of Gravenhurst was well represented at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Annual Conference in Toronto, January 27-29. A delegation consisting of Mayor Paul Kelly, John Gordon, District Councillor and Scott Lucas, Director of Development Services was in attendance. This conference was an excellent opportunity to continue to engage with Provincial Ministries in regards to the Muskoka Regional Centre Redevelopment project.
“We are proud to represent Gravenhurst’s best interests amongst the Premier of Ontario, the various Provincial Ministries and over 1200 municipal delegates in attendance,” said Mayor Kelly. “This gathering proved to be an important opportunity for the Town to continue to engage with our Provincial counterparts in regards to the Muskoka Regional Centre development. We were able to have frank conversations with the Honourable Bill Walker, Minister of Government and Consumer Services, Honourable Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Stephen Lecce, Parliamentary Assistant to Monte McNaughton, Minister of Infrastructure and MPP Robert Bailey, Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Government and Consumer Services to ensure our mandate is brought to fruition. I also want to sincerely thank Norm Miller, Parry Sound—Muskoka MPP, for joining us in Toronto and helping us bring our concerns to the forefront,” added the Mayor.
“At ROMA, we continued to build on a positive conversation that we started last November with the Province, in which we shared the project’s history to date, the Town’s economic goals and some of our ongoing challenges. Our personal conversations with these Ministry’s gave us the opportunity to reiterate Council’s position of making the Muskoka Regional Centre property, one that would bring substantial full-time, year round employment to Gravenhurst and the Muskoka region, not to mention a substantial list of advantages for the Province,” said Lucas.
“We have left this conference feeling very confident that the Province wants to make the Town an inclusive stakeholder in this process and has every intention of reaching out to a potential property investor to work with the Town to ensure our goals are met,” said Mayor Kelly. This is a relationship building process; we are very pleased with what we have heard from those ministries involved thus far. Rest assured, Council and the community can be fully confident that we are making Gravenhurst’s intentions fully known. We’re making great strides here with a real positive momentum, I look forward to next steps,” said the Mayor.
