We understand and share Chatham Coun. Doug Sulman’s wish to see the former Chatham Jail preserved, but it will take more than good intentions to see anything happen.
Sulman intends to introduce a motion at the next council meeting to see the structure preserved and maintained by the province.
It’s not that the building isn’t deserving of preservation. It pre-dates Confederation by nearly 20 years and Canada’s second prime minister, Alexander Mackenzie, had a hand in its construction.
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It has been designated under the Ontario Heritage Act one of dozens of such designations in Chatham-Kent, and it boasts one of the nearly 1,500 provincial plaques but that doesn’t guarantee any access to funding.
The fact is that although the building’s address is 17 Seventh St., its future sits at the intersection of good intentions and empty bank accounts.
The province is broke and has been for years. The next provincial government will likely be elected largely on the public’s belief it can handle the fiscal mess.
We haven’t had a provincial cabinet minister here for decades, so it’s safe to assume we aren’t on the radar much at Queen’s Park.
There is a well-established protocol for buildings should the province deem the structure redundant, which seems likely.
Eventually, the building may be offered to Chatham-Kent – which isn’t in the mess the province is – but is hardly in a position to fork over who-knows-what for the 164-year-old structure, let alone maintain it.
With Sulman’s history of fiscal conservatism, he certainly won’t expect the municipality to pick up the tab.
What council needs to do is broaden its outlook past government solutions and start searching for creative ways to help the private sector take a role in the jail’s future.
The conversion of the former Chatham Armoury adjacent to Tecumseh Park to a public venue for weddings and special events is a blueprint of how to do things properly.
Ironically, that may mean NOT burdening the structure with designations that will make it impossible for someone in the private sector to transition the building for future use.
