By Doug Draper
The Niagara Parks Commission, the 116-year-old, provincial steward for more than 3,000 acres of land along the Ontario side of the Niagara River, has a new general manager.
Niagara Parks Commission's new general manager Fay Booker
That manager, according to a release the NPC circulated to media this June 30, is Fay Booker, who has serviced as the commission’s chair for more than a year now as it has worked to chart new paths and shed itself of some of the baggage from a decade or so controversy over the way the parks seemed to be going.
Booker was appointed by the province to the chair’s job after Jim Williams quit that post in 2009 following repeated questions over the untendered bidding of the contract over the iconic Maid of the Mist rides below the Falls and other issues. Williams was also in charge while the NPC weathered what was arguably its greatest crisis of public confidence over a plan to run a high-wire gondola ride over the Horseshoe Falls that was later rejected.
In her own right as chair of the NPC, Booker has shown signs of moving to focus more on the natural and human history of the falls area with recent new changes at the Niagara Glen area, one of the more environmentally rich areas on the Canadian side of the Niagara Gorge, and with the upgrading of the Laura Secord homestead in Queenston, Ontario.
Booker’s interim replacement in the chair’s position at the NPC is Janice Thomson, formerly the vice chair of the commission’s board. In a media statement, Thomson had this to say about Booker: “We engaged the services of a professional search firm to recruit candidates for this important position. Ms. Booker was selected following an exhaustive search that considered highly qualified candidates from across North America,” said Thomson. “Ms. Booker’s skill set is clearly in line with our requirements. She has the entrepreneurial drive that we need as a Commission to successfully steward our unique natural assets. We believe that she is the right choice to continue the Commission’s focus on strong governance and accountability.”
Niagara At Large will do more to introduce the residents of this region and beyond to Fay Booker and her vision in her new role in the days ahead.
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