The Blue Mountains councillor Andrea Matrosovs has announced she is running for mayor in this year’s municipal election.
Matrosovs, the first candidate to register for the Oct. 24 election (Shawn McKinlay has since registered to run for a councillor's seat), said she has been thinking about taking this step for some time.
“I’ve been making this decision over a course of a number of months,” she said in her first interview since filing her nomination papers. “You get the idea of how short a four-year term is when you start such important projects for the community.”
Matrosovs is completing her first term on council and has served in a variety of roles including: Finance, Administration and Legal Committee Chair, Vice-Chair of the Grey Sauble Conservation Authority, board member of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority, co-chair of the Sustainability Advisory Committee, chair of the Agricultural Advisory Committee and The Blue Mountains Public Library Board.
Matrosovs is a retired educator who now operates the Wild Willow Studio in Clarksburg. During her teaching career she taught at Collingwood Collegiate Institute, Mountain View Elementary School and Niagara College.
“Four years ago I campaigned on The Town of The Blue Mountains having a sustainable future for all ages and stages. I’m a mother, grandmother and daughter and in another four years, we’ll have even more progress. A lot of things are happening,” she said.
As mayor, Matrosovs said some of her priorities will be: bringing “balanced sustainability” to the community, working to get the town’s Integrated Community Sustainability Plan in place with an action list and benchmarks and shepherding the Campus of Care project forward.
She said the Campus of Care project is a huge opportunity for the community to create a “micro-community” with benefits for residents of all ages.
“There is a lot of dreaming that goes with that, but we’re not retro-fitting. We have the chance to think creatively,” she said.
Matrosovs moved to the community in 2001 and it became a true home.
“I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anywhere in my life,” she said.
