CURRENT PROJECTS & PRIORITIES
Projects & Initiatives
Economic Development Strategy 2020-2025
Council formally approved the 2021-2025 Economic Development Strategy outlining the 5-year strategic path forward and initiating the implementation process of the Town’s first strategy aimed at facilitating business growth and success in The Blue Mountains.
STA & AMPs By-Law
Spend over 2 years developing the new Administrative Monetary Penalty System. This new AMPs By-Law has proven to be another tool in our fight against illegal STA locations. By tightening our By-Law, we have seen not only more charges laid, but we also have transitioned many Commercial Resort Unit Groups into fully licensed STAs with regular Rules and Fire Inspections to ensure compliance and safety
Leisure Activities Plan Chair
With public consultation, The new approved Leisure Activities Plan (LAP) has identified and prioritized community wants and desires and planned a sound and realistic course of action to deliver recreation facilities, programs, and services to our residents.
Corporate Strategic Plan 2020 - 2024
Economic Development Advisory Committee Chair
Grants and Donations Committee Chair
The Grants and Donations Committee has been responsible for raising funds to support the program and for receiving, reviewing and approving grants and donations applications for local organizations without using any tax dollars. Over $200,000 has gone directly back into our community.
Community Recovery Task Force
Blue Mountain Village Association
Council Representative and Board Member
Blue Mountain Chamber of Commerce
Council Representative and Board Member
125 Peel Street - Community Campus of Care
Through an innovative and unique partnership, the Town is working with the Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Long Term Care to develop a new 160 bed long-term care facility within the Community Campus of Care.
Official Plan Review
The Town of The Blue Mountains is updating its Official Plan, when completed, the Official Plan will guide all future land-use decisions in the Town, including residential and commercial development, the type of permitted housing, density and intensification standards, and how agricultural and natural features will be protected.
Sustainable & Healthy Community
A healthy community is based on respectful discourse. The two best components of any good relationship that I have found to be most effective are common sense and being a good listener. You need to have Respect for fellow Council members, all Town Staff and for our Residents.
There is nothing wrong with a healthy professional debate within Council. Asking questions to find the right answer is essential to the democratic process.
During the Public process it is important to let all residents know what you are doing. Decisions made for the greater good of all are paramount and should also be treated as such with Mutual Respect for all parties involved. The most important relationship Council can build is the relationship with four groups, Blue Mountain Residents, Business Owners, TBM Staff and fellow Council Members. Being on Council is about building those relationships and being part of a team. One must remember that this is a TEAM effort and harnessing the power and wisdom from all four groups is the only way to move forward and get things done.
Grey, Blue & Beyond
The TBM boundaries do not represent our economic or demographic activity anymore. We need to look at the entire Region as a whole for all services, not just within our own borders. We contribute to two Hospitals and to Charities those reach and draw are Regional not just local. Grey County receives over 27% of their tax base from TBM, but we still have one of the smallest voices/votes at the County table. We have been talking for years about an unfair distribution system and unbalanced weighted voting at County. We will continue to communicate and develop further collaboration with the Grey County. We must be able to collaborate with the existing situation while still working on a sustainable path for our Town. We have major project needs right here in the Blue Mountains that need to be accomplished within our borders. Working with all three levels of government will be the catalyst for success at the local level.
Our Life in Blue - Today & Tomorrow
Our Blue Mountains community is diverse, unique, close and caring, lively and authentic. Municipal governance matters far more in our daily lives than most people imagine. While it is Federal and Provincial politics that receives the most ink in the media, we are impacted by decisions made at the municipal level almost everywhere we turn. The stores where we shop, our natural environment, neighborhoods where we live, the streets we use to get from place to place, the parks we play in, and the many services we use without even thinking about them are often controlled, in some way by municipal government. We can also do ourselves a disservice by failing to realize that our municipal governance has implications far beyond the everyday issues of what time the garbage gets picked up in the morning.
For the people you elect do not just enact policies which affect us living here today: we as Elected Officials must enact policies that will affect generations of Blue Mountains residents into the future.
As a Town we must not just meet the needs of the moment, but projecting ourselves 40 or 80 years down the road. We must be conceptualizing solutions that will continue to work into the future. You have to think several stages ahead and as a Town and we need to think the same way. It is that ability to conceptualize and propose policies such as the Official Plan, Sustainability, Zoning and Economic Development that take into account not only the immediate needs of the present, but which also set the stage for decades – centuries – of future growth.
Big challenges require big solutions, and openness to big thinking.
Municipal politics can be so much more. I don't shy away from tough conversations, but I will always try to steer them to constructive outcomes hopefully in the best interest of all.
Housing & Labour
The Blue Mountains Attainable Housing Corporation’s (BMAHC) mandate is to facilitate the supply of suitable, adequate, attainable, and sustainable ownership and rental units in the Town of The Blue Mountains that are accessible to a larger portion of the population, in a financially prudent manner that supports economic development and workforce development.
BMAHC is getting ready to move forward with its first housing development at 171 King Street East, the site of the old Foodland store. This site was purchased by the Town and will be transferred to BMAHC to create attainable rental housing. Based on housing affordability in The Blue Mountains, the target is to make housing available to meet the demand of moderate household income in the range of 50 – 130% of median income for TBM (approximately $40,000 to $100,000).
Let us achieve a fine balance between meeting the everyday needs of today, while developing the vision of a future far beyond the next four years.