Public Parks Belong to the Public: It’s Time to Fix the Lookout Park Stairs!
Over the past few weeks, so many of you across Ward 1 have asked where I stand on replacing the stairs at Lookout Park. Back in late 2023, the Town removed the stairs for safety reasons, put the replacement into the budget, and then deferred it twice. That kind of backpedaling needs to stop.
In Muskoka, where so much shoreline is already in private hands, public waterfront spots like Lookout Park are priceless. An $85,000 line item might look steep on a spreadsheet, but losing our public access to the water is a far bigger loss for our town. More than 330 of our neighbours signed a petition calling for those stairs to be rebuilt, and Council needs to listen and get it done.
Because of an administrative paperwork error, replacing existing stairs got tagged as “new development,” which set off a round of red tape and roadblocks. My motto has always been that no one gets left behind. We can rebuild the stairs to get our waterfront access back now.
Let’s be clear: our municipal projects shouldn’t take a back seat to wait on private developments. Gravenhurst is the Gateway to Muskoka, and we should be leading the way in protecting our public parks, not standing around waiting on a developer’s schedule.
“Public parks belong to the public, simple as that. We can’t keep kicking the can down the road or waiting around on private timelines. Over 330 neighbours signed their names because having access to our lakes matters. It’s time for Town Hall to listen, cut through the red tape, and build the stairs.”Gordie Merton
When elected as your Ward 1 Councillor this October, I will bring forward a motion within my first 100 days to lock the Lookout Park stairs into the 2027 budget and get them built once and for all. Let’s protect what makes Gravenhurst special.