[GREN-Exec] Greenbelt Expansion Announcement Thursday at 10:00am

[Kevin Thomason]

Hi John and the GREN Executive,

It has been confirmed that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs will be releasing plans to expand the Greenbelt to Waterloo Region this coming Thursday at 10:00am.  I have attached two very confidential draft government documents below with further details.

We will need to figure out how best GREN can do everything that we can to ensure strong public support locally.  The government is very clear that they will only proceed if they receive a strong mandate and after working more than 12 years on this initiative, if it fails now we aren’t likely to get another chance for such vast environmental protection for many years.

We will also have to try to figure out how best to engage our municipal and regional officials and politicians.  

It has been confirmed that there will be public town hall meetings held by the province in January in Guelph, Waterloo, and Brantford (as well as other parts of the province) - exact dates to be confirmed.

I can try to come up with an e-mail for the GREN distribution list for Thursday’s announcement.  There will also need to be a press release and outreach to the media here in Waterloo Region supporting and promoting the announcement that could be done either under the GREN banner, or jointly together with groups such as Smart Growth Waterloo Region that I can draft and send to local media.

There will be a 90 day comment period and I think that our optimal activities may be:

December
- promote Greenbelt expansion announcement 
- work with media to explain concept, need, opportunity
- encourage feedback, letters to government

January
- get people to the consultations
- meetings/discussions with local officials/politicians
- continued outreach to media
- encourage feedback, letters to government

February
- continued meetings/discussions with local officials/politicians
- continued outreach to media
- final push for feedback, letters to government

Please let me know any thoughts or ideas and how best GREN can lead this process locally because if we don’t, I’m not sure who else will. 

Thanks,
Kevin.





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Kevin Thomason

1115 Cedar Grove Road
Waterloo, Ontario Canada  N2J 3Z4

Phone: (519) 888-0519
Mobile Phone: (519) 240-1648
Twitter: @kthomason
E-mail: kevinthomason at mac.com

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