Editor,
Grey County Warden and Town of The Blue Mountains Mayor Andrea Matrosovs has remained almost entirely absent from, and silent in, discussions around a $19.7 million shortfall in estimates for a contentious town-wide infrastructure project. The shortfall represents about 80% of the Town’s 2026 tax levy.
Only one member of council, Paula Hope, has publicly called out Mayor Matrosovs out for her absences.
The $19.7 million shortfall was made public in early December. Since then, it has been the subject of a number of heated discussions at Committee of the Whole and Council meetings. Matrosovs has been in attendance only twice – and has had nothing to say about the financial disaster that CAO Adam Smith told council “may result in the need to pause, defer, or reprioritize other capital projects.”
On March 2nd she disappeared from a Special Meeting of Council immediately before the presentation of an investigative staff report into the problem – without any explanation.
At the March 9th council meeting her chair was vacant. The clerk’s announcement that the mayor was attending a fire conference in Sarnia was met with laughter. Nor did the announcement reveal that the conference didn’t begin until the following day and that she was attending in her capacity as Warden and as a Board Director of the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, as well as Canada Co-Chair of its Commission on Water Access.
When she next appears in Chambers, the mayor will be surprised to learn that at that same March 9th meeting, her council took a step toward initiating an independent, third-party review of the affair. That review would be dependent on what’s contained in some pending staff reports.
One can only hope that such a review would reveal the mayor’s role in the financial fiasco. Questions continue to swirl around who was responsible for the shortfall; how and when council was advised; and whether there will be any consequences or changes among the town staff concerned. Ms. Matrosovs’s many absences from the discussions around this mess do not inspire confidence.
Mayor/Warden Matrosovs often speaks about wearing multiple hats as she shuttles between conferences and county and municipal council chambers. A growing number think she should be spending more time wearing just one hat – the one that she was elected to wear, representing her constituents in the Town of The Blue Mountains.
All residents of Grey County should be troubled by Warden Matrosovs’s behaviour. If she is absenting herself from problems such as this in the Town of The Blue Mountains, what is she ignoring at the county level?
John Milne, Thornbury
