Saving a school, like sparing a park is the next great challenge
For a person who gets up in the morning, and cherishes the first step outdoors, and who might stay out for an entire day admiring the inherent wonders of the hinterland, you might wonder why politics and government indifference to broad spectrum democracy would cause me to pause, internalize angrily for several moments, sit down at this keyboard and blog. Well it’s like this.
The years I spent as an editor-reporter for the local Muskoka press has haunted me long after my retirement. I know too much about the operation of local government. At times I feel it is a great advantage to possess this insight into the workings of the municipality. Most of the time it’s a curse because I unfortunately can’t leave well enough alone….ever! My family cringes each time I sit down at the computer for fear I might spontaneously combust. As for some members of local council that’s all I am to them…..a curse. At least we agree on something.
Just over a year ago I took up a protest in the Town of Bracebridge (ten miles north of Gravenhurst and my former home town), in an attempt to help a number of area residents block the sale and development of an historic park on Wellington Street. One of the town’s best known recreation sites, Jubilee Park, was about to be the new home of a satellite university campus, the recreation centre on the property to be used by a community college. The compromise of this historic parkland, in an otherwise urban neighborhood, seemed an appalling move by the town, considering there is not a lot of open space available in the central region of the ever-expanding town. Rather than go into great detail about the specifics of the park’s sale, the neighborhood residents opposed to the project lost their appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. The park is as good as gone. I watched these folks hustle non-stop for one year to save their neighborhood recreational space, and quite honestly, I took the OMB decision as hard as those living next door. As a resident of Gravenhurst, my primary worry now is that the decision sets about a precarious balance about what is to be conserved and expended in the future; a matter of concern for the entire district of Muskoka. If the elected stewards of a conserved property can get rid of it when so desired, shouldn’t we be watching the rest of the region’s parkland, for the very next mission of intrusion. Apparently a century old park isn’t secure enough. As a kid I played in that park. As a parent my kids played in that park. We never could have imagined a public park in such a tight urban area would be negotiable…. period. There were a lot of surprised people when the university project was officially announced a year ago, January 2006.
The relevance to Gravenhurst is this: It seems fairly apparent that Bracebridge’s expansion is going to seriously impact Gravenhurst, as was the case over many occasions in Muskoka history, including Courthouse centralization, District Government headquarters, formerly the head-office location of the former Muskoka Board of Education, and South Muskkoka Memorial Hospital of the early 1960’s. Being geographically central has helped Bracebridge grow, then and now. This has kept them economically balanced through a number of otherwise crippling recessions.
With recent news about Bracebridge’s expanding retail community in a number of significant rural nodes, and the creation of what appears to be a super equipped secondary school, (connected to a new town recreation centre, with pool and indoor track, and community theatre facility), Gravenhurst watchers have become uneasy about a matter of history formerly thought resolved. Several years ago a super school project was discussed at the Board of Education and Municipal level, to be situated on land bordering District Road 4 and Muskoka Beach Road, in Bracebridge, and it was decided an amalgamated facility would also include students from Gravenhurst High School. Talk about a shot across the bow.
I was a member of the Save Our School Committee and it was one of the most important issues of community integrity fought in more than a century. The hard working members of the committee who carried the matter to a Board of Education vote, were successful in halting the amalgamation project….for a time. I don’t think there were many folks on the committee who believed it was a total victory, fearing it would be a revisited issue at a later date.
There have been rumors circulating for the past two years, the past two months at a greatly accelerated rate, and I fear we are about to face the issue once again, as the new school facility opens this coming September 2007 in Bracebridge. With decreasing enrollment occurring in many regions of Ontario, the province has had no choice but to consider closing some of the most seriously affected schools. There isn’t much recourse other than for affected communities to come up with ideas in advance of a closure order, to make up for the shortfall of students and alternative uses.
Gravenhurst’s numbers have been hovering in the danger zone for years, and it has continued to fuel rumors about its imminent closure. This coming September, it is quite likely many families may opt to have their youngsters enroll in a secondary school with more options, and finer educational-recreational services attached. How can Gravenhurst High School compete? How can Gravenhurst save its school, and preserve its history?
When the super school plan arrived in the local press a few years back, there were several key levels of anger. One was that the closure proposal was to be voted on with very little preparation time to mount an effective opposition. Much the same occurred with the Jubilee Park project. Neighbors were afforded very little time to gather support and launch an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. Secondly, for all intents and purposes, the bid to close the school and bus Gravenhurst students north, seemed to many like a well planned attack on our town. Take a high school away and you stab a community in the heart. How can we prosper as a community when we’ve just had our heart ripped out? How many businesses would suffer a serious set-back in business and student staffing if our school was closed?
It’s just like the historian to get absorbed by historic precedent. We have somewhat the same issue today as the SOS committee faced. If the issue hasn’t already got some momentum behind the scenes, there are signs all citizens should be aware of, happening now, that could jeopardize the future of our school. It’s necessary to think of this worse case scenario now because if it is thrust upon us, there won’t be much time to react before action is taken.
With the large scale commercial development occurring presently and carrying on hale and hardy in Bracebridge, Gravenhurst will be hugely impacted in the future. I haven’t run into any one yet who can tell me how exactly, Gravenhurst can out-muster the box store pressures from Orillia, Bracebridge and Huntsville, except its ongoing successes in the seasonal tourist enterprise. If merchants in downtown Bracebridge are concerned about the impact of new business nodes on their way of life, merchants in Gravenhurst have to be similarly aware times could be much tougher a year from now than at present.
The old reporter’s nagging intuition is that much of the above has been pre-planned, with a great deal more known by local politicians and staff than the public knows via the media. While some local politicians believe that releasing news of these future initiatives would be harmful to ongoing negotiations with developers, for example, not telling the citizens of the potentially dramatic changes yet to come is, in this writer’s mind, an unthinkable injustice to the people who have worked hard to make this a good and safe hometown. There is time now to mount a new initiative to maintain the high school but with enrollment likely to take a battering in the next two years, it’s abundantly clear the issue of closure isn’t going to disappear any time soon. In fact, it could be an ongoing plan of action semester to semester, and it will necessitate municipal councilors getting involved, as well as every citizen who calls this community “home”. Every alternative needs to be assessed.
When the first super school project was bandied about a few years back, I made it clear to my committee members, on several occasions, that such a development would help launch a massive development of the land, well beyond the relatively small acreage used for educational and recreational buildings. I pointed out what kind of commercial and residential investment would be undertaken if the project was approved, and I know many on the committee thought I was blowing the magnitude and impact of the development way out of proportion. I recommend that any one who questions what kind of development is attracted to a new site for a community centre, theatre and secondary school, should take a motor trip up Manitoba Street (north) to Douglas Drive, and get a first had glimpse of urbanizing influence unfolding.
In the matter of saving the Gravenhurst High School in the coming months, I will again offer my support to any group wishing to mount a campaign in its defense.
While there are many councilors who have been dismayed by my involvement in the protest, first with the SOS committee in Gravenhurst, and most recently the Jubilee Park protest in Bracebridge, (seeing me as an outsider to an internal matter), being a Muskoka historian allows me a tad more flexibility. The same holds today, as I reference a brewing fight between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst over our students, and our right to self determination. Unfortunately, Gravenhurst hometowners, ratepayers, business owners, industrialists, investors and well wishers will have no choice but to recognize a rising grudge match as it manifests behind the scenes, and to get involved in whatever action is warranted. My suspicion is that Bracebridge council isn’t overly concerned about losses incurred by Gravenhurst, should our community succumb to the pressures of progress, lose our students, jobs and business.
I don’t have a dire warning for Gravenhurst. Just some reporter’s timely advise about a significant issue of increasing, purposeful centralization at our expense; proposals for a revamped order of things here in Muskoka, put forward by a few self appointed prophets of economic fortitude.
I’d like nothing better than to be wrong and this blog evaporate into the abyss of all other nonsense, hearsay and speculation. Sometimes issues like this are a tad more significant than whether Ted Currie is a raving loon or not. Is there any truth here? Is the school in danger of closing due to a decrease in enrollment? If you think it’s a possibility even sometime down the road, what are you going to do about it? Hopefully you’re going to help start the next generation of the Save Our School Committee. Maybe you’ll have enough interest in the good old home town to stay on and volunteer for the Help Gravenhurst Kick Ass Brigade, hopefully grown from the seeds now planted.
Be true to your hometown. Pay attention to the news of the day and ask questions of our elected representatives. If you think there’s more to the story, adopt a reporter’s point of view, and dig a little deeper. Being vigilante is a way of life now. As they say, it’s “the new normal.”
For a person who gets up in the morning, and cherishes the first step outdoors, and who might stay out for an entire day admiring the inherent wonders of the hinterland, you might wonder why politics and government indifference to broad spectrum democracy would cause me to pause, internalize angrily for several moments, sit down at this keyboard and blog. Well it’s like this.
The years I spent as an editor-reporter for the local Muskoka press has haunted me long after my retirement. I know too much about the operation of local government. At times I feel it is a great advantage to possess this insight into the workings of the municipality. Most of the time it’s a curse because I unfortunately can’t leave well enough alone….ever! My family cringes each time I sit down at the computer for fear I might spontaneously combust. As for some members of local council that’s all I am to them…..a curse. At least we agree on something.
Just over a year ago I took up a protest in the Town of Bracebridge (ten miles north of Gravenhurst and my former home town), in an attempt to help a number of area residents block the sale and development of an historic park on Wellington Street. One of the town’s best known recreation sites, Jubilee Park, was about to be the new home of a satellite university campus, the recreation centre on the property to be used by a community college. The compromise of this historic parkland, in an otherwise urban neighborhood, seemed an appalling move by the town, considering there is not a lot of open space available in the central region of the ever-expanding town. Rather than go into great detail about the specifics of the park’s sale, the neighborhood residents opposed to the project lost their appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. The park is as good as gone. I watched these folks hustle non-stop for one year to save their neighborhood recreational space, and quite honestly, I took the OMB decision as hard as those living next door. As a resident of Gravenhurst, my primary worry now is that the decision sets about a precarious balance about what is to be conserved and expended in the future; a matter of concern for the entire district of Muskoka. If the elected stewards of a conserved property can get rid of it when so desired, shouldn’t we be watching the rest of the region’s parkland, for the very next mission of intrusion. Apparently a century old park isn’t secure enough. As a kid I played in that park. As a parent my kids played in that park. We never could have imagined a public park in such a tight urban area would be negotiable…. period. There were a lot of surprised people when the university project was officially announced a year ago, January 2006.
The relevance to Gravenhurst is this: It seems fairly apparent that Bracebridge’s expansion is going to seriously impact Gravenhurst, as was the case over many occasions in Muskoka history, including Courthouse centralization, District Government headquarters, formerly the head-office location of the former Muskoka Board of Education, and South Muskkoka Memorial Hospital of the early 1960’s. Being geographically central has helped Bracebridge grow, then and now. This has kept them economically balanced through a number of otherwise crippling recessions.
With recent news about Bracebridge’s expanding retail community in a number of significant rural nodes, and the creation of what appears to be a super equipped secondary school, (connected to a new town recreation centre, with pool and indoor track, and community theatre facility), Gravenhurst watchers have become uneasy about a matter of history formerly thought resolved. Several years ago a super school project was discussed at the Board of Education and Municipal level, to be situated on land bordering District Road 4 and Muskoka Beach Road, in Bracebridge, and it was decided an amalgamated facility would also include students from Gravenhurst High School. Talk about a shot across the bow.
I was a member of the Save Our School Committee and it was one of the most important issues of community integrity fought in more than a century. The hard working members of the committee who carried the matter to a Board of Education vote, were successful in halting the amalgamation project….for a time. I don’t think there were many folks on the committee who believed it was a total victory, fearing it would be a revisited issue at a later date.
There have been rumors circulating for the past two years, the past two months at a greatly accelerated rate, and I fear we are about to face the issue once again, as the new school facility opens this coming September 2007 in Bracebridge. With decreasing enrollment occurring in many regions of Ontario, the province has had no choice but to consider closing some of the most seriously affected schools. There isn’t much recourse other than for affected communities to come up with ideas in advance of a closure order, to make up for the shortfall of students and alternative uses.
Gravenhurst’s numbers have been hovering in the danger zone for years, and it has continued to fuel rumors about its imminent closure. This coming September, it is quite likely many families may opt to have their youngsters enroll in a secondary school with more options, and finer educational-recreational services attached. How can Gravenhurst High School compete? How can Gravenhurst save its school, and preserve its history?
When the super school plan arrived in the local press a few years back, there were several key levels of anger. One was that the closure proposal was to be voted on with very little preparation time to mount an effective opposition. Much the same occurred with the Jubilee Park project. Neighbors were afforded very little time to gather support and launch an appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board. Secondly, for all intents and purposes, the bid to close the school and bus Gravenhurst students north, seemed to many like a well planned attack on our town. Take a high school away and you stab a community in the heart. How can we prosper as a community when we’ve just had our heart ripped out? How many businesses would suffer a serious set-back in business and student staffing if our school was closed?
It’s just like the historian to get absorbed by historic precedent. We have somewhat the same issue today as the SOS committee faced. If the issue hasn’t already got some momentum behind the scenes, there are signs all citizens should be aware of, happening now, that could jeopardize the future of our school. It’s necessary to think of this worse case scenario now because if it is thrust upon us, there won’t be much time to react before action is taken.
With the large scale commercial development occurring presently and carrying on hale and hardy in Bracebridge, Gravenhurst will be hugely impacted in the future. I haven’t run into any one yet who can tell me how exactly, Gravenhurst can out-muster the box store pressures from Orillia, Bracebridge and Huntsville, except its ongoing successes in the seasonal tourist enterprise. If merchants in downtown Bracebridge are concerned about the impact of new business nodes on their way of life, merchants in Gravenhurst have to be similarly aware times could be much tougher a year from now than at present.
The old reporter’s nagging intuition is that much of the above has been pre-planned, with a great deal more known by local politicians and staff than the public knows via the media. While some local politicians believe that releasing news of these future initiatives would be harmful to ongoing negotiations with developers, for example, not telling the citizens of the potentially dramatic changes yet to come is, in this writer’s mind, an unthinkable injustice to the people who have worked hard to make this a good and safe hometown. There is time now to mount a new initiative to maintain the high school but with enrollment likely to take a battering in the next two years, it’s abundantly clear the issue of closure isn’t going to disappear any time soon. In fact, it could be an ongoing plan of action semester to semester, and it will necessitate municipal councilors getting involved, as well as every citizen who calls this community “home”. Every alternative needs to be assessed.
When the first super school project was bandied about a few years back, I made it clear to my committee members, on several occasions, that such a development would help launch a massive development of the land, well beyond the relatively small acreage used for educational and recreational buildings. I pointed out what kind of commercial and residential investment would be undertaken if the project was approved, and I know many on the committee thought I was blowing the magnitude and impact of the development way out of proportion. I recommend that any one who questions what kind of development is attracted to a new site for a community centre, theatre and secondary school, should take a motor trip up Manitoba Street (north) to Douglas Drive, and get a first had glimpse of urbanizing influence unfolding.
In the matter of saving the Gravenhurst High School in the coming months, I will again offer my support to any group wishing to mount a campaign in its defense.
While there are many councilors who have been dismayed by my involvement in the protest, first with the SOS committee in Gravenhurst, and most recently the Jubilee Park protest in Bracebridge, (seeing me as an outsider to an internal matter), being a Muskoka historian allows me a tad more flexibility. The same holds today, as I reference a brewing fight between Bracebridge and Gravenhurst over our students, and our right to self determination. Unfortunately, Gravenhurst hometowners, ratepayers, business owners, industrialists, investors and well wishers will have no choice but to recognize a rising grudge match as it manifests behind the scenes, and to get involved in whatever action is warranted. My suspicion is that Bracebridge council isn’t overly concerned about losses incurred by Gravenhurst, should our community succumb to the pressures of progress, lose our students, jobs and business.
I don’t have a dire warning for Gravenhurst. Just some reporter’s timely advise about a significant issue of increasing, purposeful centralization at our expense; proposals for a revamped order of things here in Muskoka, put forward by a few self appointed prophets of economic fortitude.
I’d like nothing better than to be wrong and this blog evaporate into the abyss of all other nonsense, hearsay and speculation. Sometimes issues like this are a tad more significant than whether Ted Currie is a raving loon or not. Is there any truth here? Is the school in danger of closing due to a decrease in enrollment? If you think it’s a possibility even sometime down the road, what are you going to do about it? Hopefully you’re going to help start the next generation of the Save Our School Committee. Maybe you’ll have enough interest in the good old home town to stay on and volunteer for the Help Gravenhurst Kick Ass Brigade, hopefully grown from the seeds now planted.
Be true to your hometown. Pay attention to the news of the day and ask questions of our elected representatives. If you think there’s more to the story, adopt a reporter’s point of view, and dig a little deeper. Being vigilante is a way of life now. As they say, it’s “the new normal.”
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