Lakeview Waterfront Update from Credit Valley Conservation

The Lakeview Waterfront image, which accompanies the May 31, 2018 message from CVC, featured at the post you are now reading, is from the CVC website.

May 28, 2016 Small Arms Jane’s Walk: On our way from the Small Arms Building to meet Kate Hayes of Credit Valley Conservation at the Lake Ontario shoreline, we stopped for a discussion about the wooden baffles at the Long Branch Rifle Ranges. In response to a question for a walk attendee, Jim Tovey (holding microphone) noted that the aim is to restore the Long Branch Rifle Ranges to a state approaching their original condition. Jaan Pill photo

May 28, 2016 Small Arms Jane’s Walk: Kate Hayes (holding mic), Manager, Aquatic (and Wetland) Ecosystem Restoration, Credit Valley Conservation outlines the current status of the Lakeview Waterfront Connection Project. Jim Tovey is standing on the right. Jaan Pill photo

Click here to access a May 31, 2018 Lakeview Waterfront Update from CVC >

The opening text for the CVC message reads:

We’re making great progress towards creating our new 26-hectare conservation area on the Mississauga waterfront. Learn more about the Lakeview Waterfront Connection Project Update.

[End]

Commentary

I have, as I have noted at previous posts, been following the work of Credit Valley Conservation for some years.

The quality of its communications strategy is of the highest level.

I find it most inspiring, when any organization, especially one that works in one way or another on behalf of our shared natural heritage, produces messages that are exemplary with regard to communication effectiveness.

Having been involved with the writing of news reports, feature articles, and the like for one or another audience, for well over a half-century, I endlessly admire good writing, wherever I encounter it. I always seek to improve my own writing, and communications, by drawing inspiration from an organization such as CVC.

Jim Tovey’s legacy

I’ve been following with interest the story of how the Inspiration Lakeview and Inspiration Port Credit projects are proceeding, in the absence of Jim Tovey, who passed away suddenly on Jan. 15, 2018. At this point, the CVC is a most valuable source of information, regarding the ongoing work that Jim Tovey played a key role in initiating.

The following YouTube video is one of the many videos, featuring Councillor Tovey, that I have recorded in recent years:

As was the case with many people, I counted Jim Tovey as a friend, and a source of inspiration in my own work, as a writer with an interest in local history, civic engagement, and land-use planning issues.

I originally got to know him, if I recall correctly, in the summer of 2013, when he visited my website and called me on the phone. We had a phone interview, which we followed up with an in-person interview at a coffee shop in Port Credit. In the years that followed, we keep in touch. I often met him at public events across Lakeview and Port Credit and had the pleasure of meeting Jim and Lee Tovey for coffee, from time to time.

Getting to know Jim Tovey was among the highlights of the 21 years that I’ve spent in Long Branch. Our family is now moving to Stratford, Ontario where I will be working on a book based on all of the things that I have learned, from getting to know Jim Tovey and from following events for many years, along the waterfront in Mississauga and Etobicoke.

Jim Tovey’s legacy includes the example that he set, and the inspiration that he generated, as a citizen with the passion to take a vision, and – in collaboration with an enormous number of fellow citizens – construct from it a reality.