{"id":23249,"date":"2019-03-15T18:40:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23249"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:40:52","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:40:52","slug":"lieutenant-governor-underscores-heritage-revitalization-on-aurora-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/lieutenant-governor-underscores-heritage-revitalization-on-aurora-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"Lieutenant-Governor underscores heritage, revitalization on Aurora trip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re looking for ways to revitalize Aurora\u2019s\ndowntown core, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario has a simple, four step\nrecipe: \u201ca great coffee shop, a bookstore, a good bakery, and an art gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the verdict of Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth\nDowdeswell last Tuesday after her whirlwind afternoon in Aurora, which ended\nwith a reception following a roundtable discussion centred on Aurora\u2019s\nheritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Queen\u2019s representative in Ontario began her latest\nvisit to Aurora with a stop at the Church Street School, where she received a\nsneak preview of brand-new installations offered by the Aurora Cultural Centre\nand the Aurora Museum and Archives, followed by an auto tour of local landmarks\nand ongoing revitalization projects hosted by Mayor Tom Mrakas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the tour, the Lieutenant-Governor was welcomed\nat Town Hall where she facilitated a roundtable discussion of various community\ngroups, discussing growth with an eye to heritage preservation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is why I come out to visit communities because I\nlearn about the people where they are,\u201d Her Honour told The Auroran following\nthe meeting. \u201cI have the privilege of having a convening power that allows\npeople to come together to have conversations and sometimes they are\nconversations about the longer term. This was an opportunity where His Worship\nand Council put in questions about what happened in the past and what we want\nto take forward from those lessons for the future. One of the things I get to\ndo is tell stories and I was able to share some stories from other\nmunicipalities where I have been that are facing some of the same issues \u2013 and\nit is really about sharing stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Dowdeswell said it was \u201cquite wonderful\u201d to see\nAurora\u2019s heritage resources, like those in the Town\u2019s \u201cCultural Precinct\u201d up\nclose. She said she was particularly interested in new developments in the\narea, such as the Wells Street School House Lofts and the ongoing renovations\nat the historic Aurora Armoury, that respect history while keeping an eye on\nthe future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really admire Councils, for example, that really do\nthis kind of development planning with heritage in mind, but in such a\nthoughtful way that strikes that balance,\u201d she said. \u201cThat is so evident in\nwhat I saw. Of course, the new projects, the new developments are going to be\nso interesting. I didn\u2019t get to see inside the old Armoury, but I saw pictures\nof it and it is going to be a great new facility as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the roundtable discussion, the\nLieutenant-Governor met a further cross-section of community representatives at\na reception hosted in Town Hall\u2019s Skylight Gallery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, Mayor Mrakas said he was pleased to share pieces of\nAurora\u2019s \u201clong and storied history\u201d with the Lieutenant-Governor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe consider our heritage in our Town to be a crucial\ncomponent and one of our greatest assets,\u201d he said. \u201cWe continually seek to\nensure our community does not come, when it comes to growth, at a sacrifice to\nour heritage. This was the topic of today\u2019s roundtable: how we can celebrate\nheritage while we continue to grow. Ask yourself: what is it that connects all\nof us? I think, at the end of the day, what does connect all of us in the Town\nof Aurora is our heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe spoke around it at the roundtable, I spoke about it\nwith Her Honour when we were in the vehicle. A lot of times anyone who comes to\nthe Town of Aurora, whether you come here to live here or whether you come here\nto work here, and you start to learn about our history and our heritage, you\nstart to feel connected to the Town and the people in this Town and that is\nwhat I think is unique about [Aurora]. As we grow as a Town and as we develop,\nas long as we celebrate, promote and keep that heritage aspect of this Town, we\nwill always be Aurora and we will always be what makes Aurora special.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lieutenant-Governor, in turn, echoed these remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPerhaps you won\u2019t be surprised, but the Mayor forewarned\nme in our one on one meeting, he had used phases like \u2018this is the centre of\nthe universe\u2019 and just what a wonderful, sweet spot this Town was in the middle\nof mass chaos and confusion, those are my words and not his,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\nwas so interesting to see around the roundtable as we were talking that that\nwas generally a view shared by everyone, that people love being here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was telling those people at the roundtable that what\nwould draw me out here on a Saturday morning was if you had four things: a\ngreat coffee shop, a bookstore, a good bakery, and an art gallery. That would\nbe worth the 40-minute drive out, I think. We\u2019re going to see what we can do\nabout that \u2013 three out of four isn\u2019t bad!\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re looking for ways to revitalize Aurora\u2019s downtown core, the Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario has a simple, four step recipe: \u201ca great coffee shop, a bookstore, a good bakery, and an art gallery.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-14-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-62Z","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 14:19:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}