Grey Highlands council has approved a memorandum of understanding that will get the project to revitalize Maxwell Park up and running.
At its meeting on Feb. 5, council voted in favour of a draft memorandum of understanding between the municipality and the Maxwell Park Committee. The memorandum outlines the financial responsibilities of the municipality and the committee, which intends to raise significant money for the project.
The future of Maxwell Park has been on council’s radar for the past couple of years. A local group of citizens approached council with intentions of raising money for the project. However, late last year, that process stopped when council was informed fundraising hadn’t been successful and council voted to cancel the project (although more than $50,000 remained in reserves for the park).
A short time later, a group approached council and asked that the fundraising efforts be resurrected, with the group asking that the municipality’s grant writer assist them with any grant applications.
Council agreed and asked staff to develop a memorandum of understanding for the project.
“This gets it going,” said Mayor Paul McQueen, as council reviewed the draft memorandum.
The appearance of the memorandum did cause some confusion at the meeting.
Maxwell Park committee representative David Wright spoke to council during the open forum portion of the meeting about the memorandum. Wright expressed concerns that the document was not covering all aspects of the park project.
“We feel that it needs to be more specific,” he said.
Wright said the proposed memorandum of understanding doesn’t include volunteers having access to the park to do work like site preparation, tree trimming, fence removal and landscaping. He also noted that the document did not speak to the municipality’s grant writer assisting with the project and did not mention who the staff liaison would be for the committee.
Later in the meeting, as council was considering the report on the memorandum of understanding, CAO Karen Govan explained that the document was meant to cover the financial/fundraising aspects of the project to clearly delineate the financial roles and responsibilities of the committee and the municipality.
Govan said it is important to have the financial relationship between the committee and municipality in place before the work on the project begins.
Coun. Nadia Dubyk said it was important for the committee to have “the ability to jump-start their efforts” to improve the park, while at the same time raising funds for the project.
“Is that allowed?” she asked.
Govan said as the project progresses, municipal staff would determine what work at the park must be done by staff.
“We will work with the group to determine where volunteerism is appropriate,” she said.
Later in the meeting, Coun. Dan Wickens announced that the park project's first fundraising event was coming up. A spaghetti dinner will be held at Maxwell Community Hall on Feb. 14 from 5 - 7 p.m. Wickens said the cost per adult is $15 and said all were welcome to attend.
"I will be making the sauce," he said.