All smiles

It was a good week to be Randy Hope.

The often-embattled but always-elected mayor was finally cleared when the Ontario Provincial Police found no basis for criminal breach of trust allegations against Hope and senior staff members.

The decision cleared a cloud that had been over his head for the better part of three years.

Reaction in the community ranged from “there never should have been an investigation” to “someone’s paid someone off.”

Both extremes are nonsensical.

It’s not like mayors haven’t fun afoul of the law before, with Joe Fontana and the late Rob Ford notable examples.

Once the issues were raised, the only solution was to complete an investigation.

As regular readers know, we’re not into blind faith of institutions or their leaders, but to suggest the OPP were derelict in their duties is irresponsible.

As if that wasn’t enough to make the mayor smile, later in the week representatives from a Chinese firm visited Chatham-Kent to consider whether to set up a tire recycling facility here.

The community has become understandably leery of investment that just doesn’t seem to pan out, but it’s doubtful these businessmen travelled from Beijing to Chatham just for some greenhouse tomatoes.

Unlike the trips to China, optimism doesn’t cost anything.

It’s a celebration

There aren’t many things as energizing as the enthusiasm of youth, so it was virtually impossible not to feel the energy as you walked into the former YMCA gymnasium on King St. Monday.

The event was the formal launch of the ACCESS Open Minds hub, a project designed to bring all of the youth mental health programs in the community together under one roof.

Anyone expecting a stuffy, academic driven event would be surprised and delighted to find that it’s a program designed very much by and for the 11 to 25 age group it serves.

It corrects a long-standing problem of fragmented services in which it was easy for young people to get lost, give up or fall between the cracks.

Mental illness is difficult to deal with at any age but for those in an age group who constantly face the twin demons of fitting in while establishing their own identities, it is considerably more difficult.

Throw in the short life experience of the age group and the potential for untreated illness to grow only becomes more likely.

It was no small feat for Chatham-Kent to land this project. It’s only one of 12 in Canada and speaks volumes about the efforts of Paula Reaume-Zimmer and her team. Listening to the community you serve not only makes sense, it saves lives.