Councillor for Ward 4, Highlands East
Update: January 2012
January was busy in Highlands East! Council meetings are now taking place twice
a month, on the 2nd and 4th Tuesdays of the month. This will continue until our
annual budget is finalized in April. Council Committee work has also shifted into high gear as the Committees
organize grant applications for their projects, which generally have to be
finalized over the next two months.
The Trails Committee, which I chair, met jointly with the Business and Economic
Development Committee in January to co-ordinate our projects and our fund
seeking efforts. Our grant writing subcommittees have now joined forces. We met
jointly with the Haliburton County Development Corporation (HCDC) in January to
co-ordinate a grant application from Highlands East for short and long term
economic and trail development. In February we will work with the Business
Committee to meet the first deadline for our grant applications which is
February 15th.
Also in January Highlands East threw itself into the campaign to support
Wilberforce in a bid to become the Kraft Hockeyville community for 2012. The
top five contenders in this CBC sponsored competition will receive $25,000.00
prizes for their arena facilities
and the winning community receives $100,000.00 for their facility and very
valuable publicity. At the time of writing we are still in the running as one
of the top five communities in Ontario and, win or lose, the community has
shown tremendous spirit in this campaign. It has been tremendous fun.
We suffered a loss in January with the passing of Elsie Lewis. Elsie was the
music in our hearts in Highlands East for years, playing piano and organ for
our churches and community events, ever willing, always with a smile. Her service will take place on February 2nd at her beloved St Margaret’s Church in Wilberforce. We will miss her.
