Mayor's Report
Mayor making provincial ministers aware of Caledon's needs
By Marolyn Morrison

It never ceases to amaze me how, no matter what you do, some people are negative.

Let me tell you folks the Town of Caledon is performing very well. We are financially stable, which is important to many corporations looking to settle in Caledon. We are environmentally conscientious and are moving forward every year to be proactive instead of reactive. We have our Caledon Community Work Plan, which is part of our vision for our community and in each budget cycle we are accomplishing many of the items within the Caledon Community Work Plan. Council members champion and make sure that the items on the work plan get accomplished. We recently (last fall) reinforced our vision of Caledon as a Community of Communities with the trinodal approach which has been part of our Official Plan for more than 10 years and is still relevant today, and that support was seen by the overwhelming council support in November. Isn't this good news!

We live in an amazing community, with amazing people. Last Saturday evening, my husband and were privileged to be invited to the 1st Bolton Scouting Troop awards and participated in congratulating these fine young citizens of our community for their outstanding accomplishments. The new gym and meeting rooms at the Caledon Centre for Recreation and Wellness have certainly helped the Scouting organization with the free meeting space. This was a wonderful partnership with the Bolton Rotary. Isn't this good news!

I could go on and on with examples of how great Caledon is and how it is important that we all work together as a team to accomplish these initiatives. There is no "I" in Team. It is a group of people, dedicated to their community, both council and staff, working together, listening to residents and taking action. Can we accomplish everything that everyone wants us to? Let's be reasonable - probably not, but our commitment to you the residents of this wonderful community of Caledon, is that we sure will try within our means. Isn't this good news!

I honestly wish I could come over and sit in every resident's kitchen and have a chat. You would see first hand how excited and passionate I am about our community and all that it has to offer and I might even get some more of you excited enough to volunteer and get involved in the most wonderful community in Ontario; maybe in Canada. Isn't this good news!

We should be positive about the good things in our community. There is enough negative in the world. I am a happy person. I see the positive and the possibilities before us and the accomplishments that we can achieve together. If each of us did a small part we could achieve truly magnificent things.

If you would like to talk further about how we can all impact positively on Caledon by working together, please call me either at the office (905) 584-2272 or at home (905) 838-2887.

Meeting with

ministers

A few columns ago I wrote about the responsibilities of councillors to take care of the issues pertaining to their wards and about the responsibilities of the mayor, which takes in all of Caledon.

The job of mayor requires working on behalf of the municipality outside of Caledon, with the federal government, provincial government, as well as with the various neighbouring mayors and municipalities.

I wrote a few weeks ago about my presentation to the Finance Committee for the budget preparations for the Province of Ontario. At that presentation, I spoke on behalf of Caledon and as the chair of the Greater Toronto Countryside Mayors Alliance.I used Caledon as the example of the underfunding that is taking place for municipalities by the Province of Ontario.

During the last month, I was invited as one of eight mayors in the province to be at a round-table discussion with Parliamentary Assistant to the Premier David Ramsay.We were asked to bring our ideas on economic development for small and medium sized municipalities.

It was a great morning. I had the opportunity to speak about the pressures we face in the economic development sector and to network with other mayors from around the province.

We talked openly about the challenges that municipalities face in attracting corporations to our municipalities. Some of it comes down to infrastructure and the lack of provincial funding municipalities require to build and renew infrastructure.

That same week, I also had the opportunity to meet with the Environment Minister John Gerretsen.I listened to his comments and he is very committed to the environment and to the protection of our water.

Next week, I have another meeting with a minister from the province about funding for the Town of Caledon.

All in all, it has been very busy preparing for these meetings and making sure that we give solutions to the challenges not just complain about them.

You will be right at the top of my list to let you know if we are successful.