Now that 2017 is in our rear mirror, it’s time to figure out what we can look forward to in 2018.
First off, we have two elections to look forward to. A municipal election is scheduled for Oct. 22 and for the people hope for a changing of the guard, Mayor Randy Hope and council members have a lot of explaining to do. There have been some good things to come out of 2017 – house sales are on fire locally, a company is actually breaking ground on the Bloomfield Business Park, and unemployment rates are down.
But on the other side of the scale, the farmers in the former Dover and Chatham townships might have a few ideas about who they want on (and off) council. There is also the Fifth Street Bridge rebuild that now won’t be done until spring and probably helped contribute to the closing of local business A Cup of Joe. In all fairness, you can’t blame the engineering department for that delay and the municipality is receiving $2,000 a day in penalties from the company doing the work. We’ll be eagerly waiting to see where that saving shows up in the budget.
Kathleen Wynne and her Liberal government will be in the hot seat this spring with the June provincial election, and if she is back in the premier’s chair, it will be because no one outside of the Golden Horseshoe area voted.
Second, can we dare hope that the condominium project in downtown Chatham will be finished this year? We can only hope that when it is done, it brings the promised people and prosperity to the downtown core.
Third, we hope to hear news of more stores coming to the Downtown Chatham Centre, filling the gaping hole that Sears has left and the space that will be cleared by the Union Gas folks. It would be nice to have back a thriving mall and to reward the brave business owners who have stuck it out over the past year.
Finally, here’s hoping we can all look forward to a better job market, less taxes and more prosperity for the coming year and Chatham-Kent fulfilling the potential we all know it has.
