Gerry Martin

Oct 02, 2014

Councillor

Gerry Martin – not complaining any more

Gerry Martin was born and raised at Fernleigh, where his family ran the general store. After going to school in Fernleigh and Sharbot Lake, he went to work for Bell, and lived in other parts of Ontario, eventually landing in Ottawa. He ran a construction company after retiring from Bell and retired back home on Malcolm Lake about 15 years ago.

He was at home about four and a half years ago, complaining about the township.

“My wife said I should stop complaining and start doing something about it. So I ran and got elected."

In his four years on Council, Gerry has been very busy. He has been chair of the personnel committee, has headed the master fire plan task force, has sat on the committee of adjustment, and even had a turn chairing the Ompah fire hall task force for a time (“I didn't make many friends there,” he recalls)

He found that there are a lot of obstacles to progress on municipal councils, and progress can be very slow, but he is proud of the work that has been done on Council, and speaks highly of the job that was done by Bud Clayton as mayor.

“Bud was a really forward-thinking guy, and he put a whole lot of effort into the job. He really worked at it, day and night.”

Knowing how much work Bud Clayton put into being mayor was one of the reasons that Gerry Martin did not put his name in for mayor after Bud died a month ago.

“I'm a retiree,” he said, “I don't want to start another career.”

One of the things that stands out for him during his first term was a successful effort to bring Bell cell towers to the township.

“I still had some contacts at Bell, so I called them up. They said there was no chance they were going to come in because we have only 2,000 residents. I told them about the 10,000 seasonals and a few months later they called saying the budget had been approved. That was a real highlight for me,” he said.

One of the projects that is going forward in the new term is a war memorial at a new park next to the Clar-Mill Hall.

“It will be fitting for us to have a proper memorial to the soldiers from around here who served and died in Canada's wars. It is long overdue,” Martin said.

He is not convinced that more money should be sunk into the township office to bring it up to accessibility standards.

“That building was built as a ski factory. It never was meant to be an office building. I'm not sure we couldn't be able to build something on a very reasonable scale, likely at the site of the former MNR building. It already has a well and septic. That might be better than the alternative. Nothing fancy; just what we need.”