- Hub staff

Our Grey County neighbours in Georgian Bluffs, West Grey and Grey Highlands attended the Annual General Meeting of the Community Schools Alliance while they were in Ottawa for the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference this August.

The minutes of the meeting, including 19 recommendations, will come before Owen Sound Council tonight as correspondence.

Councillor Richard Thomas, who recommended that the City of Owen Sound join the Alliance in 2015-16, said he does not believe we are members anymore.

This is what the Alliance is all about, according to their website:

"The Community Schools Alliance has been formed by Ontario municipalities to address challenges associated with the process that school boards use to determine which schools in a municipality stay open, which ones get closed and where new schools will be located. Across Ontario, municipalities are concerned about the Accommodation Review Committee (ARC) process and the impact this flawed process has on the socio-economic fabric of our communities.
We believe a better system is needed to address the educational facility needs in Ontario's communities."

The members of the Alliance continue to fund conferences and research to promote the mutual benefit of schools and their local municipalities under the new provincial government.