On Thursday October 21st the West River Residents Association ran our annual AGM.
The WRRA AGM was a wonderful event where Mayor Burton is quoted as saying “West River is the most social resident’s association in Oakville, and since life is a people sport that means you’re the most livable area. You are the future, as we try to make Oakville the most livable town. You are the model.” What a compliment!
President - Vanessa Dorrington started out by summarizing the many neighborhood activities from the last year, including the new website, window boxes, skating rink and scavenger hunts.
Next Kelly Jo Walden confirmed that we had quorum for our AGM this year. Paul went through the necessary revisions to our By-Laws to be in line with the Ontario guidelines.
Geraldine went through the financials, showing the largest spending last year was to finance our new website.
Vanessa then introduced our 3 new board members, Alexandria, Anusha and Sue. To view the financials or the new board members, the board members can be found under “About Us”.
Chris Clapham then reviewed the Town of Oakville Traffic Report, see below.
Cathy Duddeck and Ray Chisholm gave us a ward 2 update which included updates on vacant properties in the area. 113 Garden Drive has an application from Revera retirement homes and it is under appeal. 58 Sheppard Rd has a new development application. Retirement home on Wilson St. have been working together with the town to address residents concerns. The Oakville Santa Claus Parade has been moved to the drive-through event similar to last year but with additional activities. Cathy also mentioned the 40km pilot and mentioned the deferring of 40km town wide speed limit vote on minor/residential roads.
The 40km pilot in West River will remain. Ray discussed the strong partnership with the WRRA community, and the pipeline project at the train tracks at Shephard and Kerr, which is why the street was closed over the last week or so, but is now reopened. Kerr St. BIA will do the tree lighting ceremony in westwood park, on December 3rd, with Jim Cuddy Band, Abba Mania and more. He talked about the deteriorating of the intersections with interlocking bricks. As of now, there is a plan to repave Kerr St. but not timelines have been set. So for now they are replacing bricks and doing patchwork to keep it maintained. Crosswalk at Kerr St and Prince Charles will be done later this year (no date was disclosed). He talked about the mural on Kerr St. and the discussions for a 2nd mural. Mayor Burton directed him to a recording of the fall Mayor update. He also talked about the 40k pilot and the fact that we don’t have enough troops to monitor all the streets. Council is going down a path to bring in automated speed enforcement. It’s essentially a new version of photo radar. This should act as a good deterrent. He also talked about Community Safety Zones and this is a new area that the WRRA board is going to explore for the west river area.
The recording of this meeting was started a little late but you can listen to the Mayor speak HERE.
Due to some technical difficulties Chris Mark was unable to speak during the meeting but he did send along these updates for parks around West River: - There were not a lot of initiatives to report for 2021 due to the pandemic. The Town has been mostly in a “maintain” mode for the last couple of years. Their resources were reduced in both 2020 and 2021.
- However, the Town continued to maintain the Parks within the WRRA. One of the highlights is always our association with the Kerr BIA and the floral displays on Kerr Street which many WRRA residents enjoy. Once again this year the floral baskets and planters were fabulous.
- The Town coordinated with Recreation and Culture to bring ConNextions public art to Westwood Park featuring Stronger Together by local artist Melanie Billark.
- The Town rebuilt the Kerr Street Notice Board which is used by the local community to advertise information and coming events to inform the WRRA and local communities.
Here are a few initiatives planned for this coming year.
Winter control will be ongoing at Forster Park all winter. Last year it was hit and miss but beginning this winter we will maintain at least one of the main walkways at Forster Park for snow and ice.
Plans for Spring 2022 to renovate the garden by the washroom building in Forster Park. Perennials will be planted to provide a variety of plants and colour, as well as flowering shrubs.
Install an asphalt pathway connection through the planting bed to provide more direct access to the washroom and playground area. At that time they will also try and address the drainage issue near the washroom building due to ponding water and wet conditions following a rain event.
The asphalt pathways at Forster Park are in some areas reaching the end of their life cycle. We will looking to incorporating pathway rehabilitation in either 2022 or 2023 depending on budget availability and prioritization with other park walkways.
Once again this winter we will support the ice rinks at Forster Park and will supply two (2) new liners. Thanks to Ray & Cathy for sponsoring.
Link to the Mayor’s address:
Link for more information for the Tree Lighting Ceremony:
Link for Santa Claus Parade in Coronation Park (date not yet determined):