MANITOWANING—An ad hoc roller mills review committee has been established by Assiginack Township council to review all options for and make a recommendation concerning the future use of the Roller Mills building in Manitowaning.
“If anyone has ideas or something that they want to present to the committee as an option for the building, we are definitely open to this,” stated Assiginack Mayor Brenda Reid at a council meeting last week.
At a previous meeting Assiginack ratepayers had been asked to put their names forward if they were interested in helping the township complete a study on possible future uses for the Roller Mills building on the Manitowaning waterfront.
At last week’s meeting council passed a motion, “that we strike an ad hoc Roller Mills review committee consisting of Mayor Brenda Reid, Councillor Jennifer Hooper, ratepayers Fionn Closs, Jane Moggy and Delmer Fields with the (township) economic development officer providing minute keeping, with a mandate to review all options for the Roller Mills and to make a recommendation concerning its future to council.”
Mayor Reid had told The Expositor a study will be carried out by the committee to see what options there are for use of the building instead of just letting it sit there as it is. “It looks terrible. We need to do something with it,” she said.
“We are looking for a couple of people in the community who, along with myself and another councillor, will look at everything that needs to be done to bring it back up to usable status and options as to what it could be used for,” said Mayor Reid. She pointed out if nothing is available option wise, and it is too expensive then the township would have to look at the building coming down. Mayor Reid said the building is in good shape structurally.
Mayor Reid told The Expositor after last week’s council meeting, “if anyone has any ideas they would like to share with the committee please send this to the committee. We will look at any options out there for the building. We did have a good response from ratepayers who wanted to be on the ad hoc committee, and we would like to thank everyone who put their names forward to be a member of the committee.”
It is expected that it will probably take about a year before the study is complete and the committee is ready to bring a proposal forward to council.
