{"id":27911,"date":"2020-11-06T11:43:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-06T16:43:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=27911"},"modified":"2020-11-06T11:43:49","modified_gmt":"2020-11-06T16:43:49","slug":"aurora-thanks-david-tomlinson-for-wildlife-park-vision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-thanks-david-tomlinson-for-wildlife-park-vision\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora thanks David Tomlinson for Wildlife Park vision"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Landscape architect David Tomlinson has been praised for his dedication to preserving and restoring local wildlife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a cause he has tirelessly championed since moving to Aurora more than 40 years ago and this dedication shows no signs of slowing as he continues work on the Nature Reserve that now bears his name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Persistence might be something that has been a key to Mr. Tomlinson\u2019s success over the years, and it is a trait exhibited by Councillor John Gallo who first set the wheels in motion on dedicating the David Tomlinson Nature Reserve in honour of the visionary instrumental in making it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Councillor Gallo\u2019s motion to dedicate the Wildlife Park in Mr. Tomlinson\u2019s name was first put forward to Council more than a year ago. After it won the approval of Council in a Closed Session meeting this past August, he was pleased to be on hand October 23 to see his motion bear fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are many things that stood out to me with David,\u201d Councillor Gallo told a limited group of well-wishers gathered for the dedication of the David Tomlinson Nature Reserve, including the full Council complement. \u201cFirst is his humility. When I first approached [David] to do this, he told me he didn\u2019t want to and I convinced him otherwise. Because of his humility, he is not the person to [want to] have his name on a plaque and I think, obviously, he didn\u2019t do this just for that reason.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another thing that stood out to the Councillor was Mr. Tomlinson\u2019s knowing when and where to be \u201cstubborn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn terms of the environment, there is one thing he told me: there\u2019s invasive species all over the place and you can\u2019t be stubborn in dealing with them,\u201d Councillor Gallo recalled. \u201cSometimes you have to use a bit of Round Up to take care of them, even though it might not be the best for the environment and it is that different perspective that I really admire: you\u2019re not so narrow-minded to think that there is [one] particular way to solve a problem and I really respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of the dedication, Mr. Tomlinson told The Auroran he appreciated the fact Council decided to name the green space in his honour, but he was a reluctant honouree. When the time came to lift the veil on the park signage, he reiterated this position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really think it is \u2018my\u2019 nature reserve \u2013 it has been a massive effort by a lot of people from the first time I made this proposal in 1998,\u201d he said, thanking past Councils and Town Staff, including Al Downey, Aurora\u2019s Director of Operations, and former Parks Manager Jim Tree and the entire Parks Department, for working together to help him realize his vision for the area. \u201cI would also like to thank the people at Nature Aurora who supported me through all the survey work, all through the summer, plotting birds, plotting snakes, plotting wildlife. We have got an absolute amazing database so we can measure not only the effect of development on the wildlife and also the effect that all our landscape and habitat improvements will have, whether it has really worked and whether some things should be dropped or carried on. It has been a really interesting trip with a lot of effort and a lot of people. I am really thankful to you all for naming it after me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Mayor Mrakas in his dedication: \u201cThank you, David, for your significant contributions to Aurora. We appreciate your hard work, dedication and passion for the environment. You have helped Aurora\u2019s wildlife park project become a reality.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Landscape architect David Tomlinson has been praised for his dedication to preserving and restoring local wildlife. It is a cause he has tirelessly championed since moving to Aurora more than 40 years ago and this dedication shows no signs of slowing as he continues work on the Nature Reserve that now bears his name. Persistence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":27899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27911","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\/2020\/11\/2020-11-05-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7gb","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 11:23:36","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\/27911","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=27911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}