12 - Southpoint Sun
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Letter to the Editor
Writer calls out Chatham-Kent on arena issue
Dear Editor: The Chatham-Kent arena issue may be more critical than what municipal administration may understand. With or without amalgamation, Chatham-Kent is a rural-urban setting, affording us opportunity to attract senior and young families with the two areas of a living environment — the City of Chatham — catering to urban tastes and our bordering communities catering to rural tastes. Roughly half of our revenue is generated from rural CK. It’s a balancing act. CK must invoke the rule of ‘effective marketing’ — identifying the potential market of senior and younger families, and then affordably creating the environment to best attract them to CK. We cannot do that without fully structured rural communities. We are only losing a combined cost of about $23,000 per month for all 10 arenas, representing only part of an amount we have calculated lost monthly by CK through its diluted level of managing. Remember
— our arenas were built to compliment growth — not to make a profit. An urban- rural area can be a marketable goldmine by maximizing investment revenues by securing a full diverse population of senior and new families, letting them choose an urban or rural setting, rather than just one or the other. You can’t tell people where they want to live. It is imperative we maintain an effective rural community infrastructure, having libraries, arenas, education, entertainment, shopping, retail, commercial and industrial in the same fashion the City of Chatham continues to do. Senior and young family investment is worth an average of about $725,000 per family. Four new investment families alone would pay our annual 10- arena operating deficit. In 2018, a leak-proof proposal was provided to CK municipality for the sole purpose of re-balancing CK’s urban-rural investment by maintaining hard and soft-core infrastructure by giving our ru-
ral communities equal profile and equal opportunity through the municipal web site. When presented to CK, all seemed to fall on deaf ears. It’s almost as if CK wants to abandon the rural area to make room for all the financial support to go only to the City of Chatham at the rural expense. The proposal guaranteed anyone visiting the CK web portal would automatically be introduced and welcomed to the municipality of Chatham-Kent, identifying and automatically marketing each rural community rather than just the City of Chatham. The site would automatically feature each community with a “mouse over” bringing up each rural community amenity for shopping, recreation, education, theatre, retail, commercial, investment opportunity, annual events and allowing each Chamber and BIA to piggy-back on the site to introduce their community’s attributes.
Additionally, the presentation called for CK to publish quarterly infrastructure investment so each community resident would know what’s being invested in their area. Overall, every visitor/ investor to CK’s web site would readily understand that Chatham-Kent is not just the City of Chatham, but is comprised of 23 fully equipped and serviced communities. Our experience with CK would describe them wanting at times to do things their way rather than the right way. Dismantling our rural communities would be a continuance of on-going mistakes. To obtain a courtesy copy of the rural urban marketing website proposal, please email john@municipalprojects.ca. Signed, John K. Cryderman Chatham-Kent
Town to seek public input on short-term rentals before enacting regulations on properties LEAMINGTON — At the November 20 Leamington Council meeting, council approved a motion to seek more public input on a recommendation to closer regulate short-term rentals within the municipality. Although complaints have been few, administration was recommending tighter controls on short-term rentals, such as Air BnB, Virbo and HomeAway properties. The recommendations would not include Bed and Breakfast operations, as those owners are on-site with the renters. Paul Medeiros, a local manager of short-term rental properties, was present on Zoom and argued that too much regulation could kill the short-term rent-
al business in the municipality. “This industry creates jobs and also benefits the community,” said Medeiros. “I’d hate to see it over-regulated.” Councillor Paul Tiessen felt that shortterm rentals are an important aspect to Leamington’s tourism industry. “We don’t want to over-regulate them but there needs to be some regulation,” he said. Councillor Tim Wilkinson agreed, saying that Leamington’s tourism sector needs these short-term rentals in place. “What the short-term rentals bring to the table is important to this town,” he said. After much discussion, it was decided that more public input was needed before enacting any regulations.
Administration was given instructions to begin public consultation on the
matter and report back to council.
Letter to the Editor
Thankful for poppies Dear Editor: I grew up in Detroit and spent many happy vacations in the Leamington Wheatley area. After I moved to Texas 30 years ago, I still managed to travel north to my home of heart all most every year. I receive the Southpoint Sun by e-mail each week. In seeing the poppies for Remembrance Day, I thought about how many I had bought as a child and as an adult when in Canada. Here in Texas I never see poppies.
I called your paper and talked to Lori Gouin. I asked her if there was a way to get a poppy sent to me. We had a great conversation and I received 3 poppies in the mail. I can’t wait to show them to my kids and grandkids and tell them what the poppiess stand for. Many thanks, Carol Petrus Allen, Texas
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