President’s Report
Welcome home to all of you who managed to get away for some or all of
the summer. We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable time.
In
June I attended the official opening of the western entrance to the
Waterfront Trail as it enters Pickering. The opening was attended by
the Mayor and some members of Pickering Council as well as the Chair and
some of the Toronto Region Conservation Authority staff. In mid June I
attended the quarterly meeting of the Port Union Waterfront Trail
Committee. I am pleased to report that work on the trail is on
schedule. A short section of the trail at Rouge Beach was opened for the
summer on a temporary basis to allow people to use a longer stretch of
Rouge Beach for the summer. This section will be closed in the fall to
allow work to continue on completing the trail.
Other summer events
included Heritage Day in June and the Summer Concert Series in July. I
hope your family was able to take in some of these community events that
were co-sponsored by CCRA.
In
June the provincial government issued proposed guidelines for the
installation of wind turbines off shore with a deadline of August 24th
for comments. The province is suggesting a minimum distance of 5 km
from shore. We submitted our comments to this proposal suggesting the
minimum distance should be 10 km. As you know all 3 levels of
government have contributed to the construction of the waterfront trail
in our community. To have to view these turbines in the lake will spoil
the pristine view of the lake and could impact the shoreline with the
infrastructure need to connect the turbine output to the electrical
grid. Concern and objections have been expressed by a number of
associations and other interest groups whose communities border Lake
Ontario and would be impacted by the possible construction of off
shore wind farms.
On
Monday September 13th there will be an All Candidates
meeting held at St. Dunstan’s Church Hall on Lawson Road. The meeting,
co-sponsored by CCRA, Highland Creek Community Assoc. and West Rouge
Community Assoc.,will start at 7:30 p.m. with all candidates for
Councillor in Ward 44, Public school trustees for Ward 22 and Catholic
school trustees for Ward 8 invited. October 25th is
election day.
Our
Annual General Meeting will be held at Port Union Rec. Centre on
Thurs. October 21st. Please mark this date on your
calendars and plan to attend.
Jeff
Forsyth
President
