Sir: When I moved to Chatham on June 3, 2009, I really felt at home here. My wife and I both fell in love with this town which we didn’t even know existed until my wife heard it mentioned when we were living in Elliot Lake in Northern Ontario.
We love driving around the different “corners” looking at the tilled fields bursting with growth.
When I talk with men waiting in the local barbershop, there seem to be two subjects on their minds, namely the Capitol Theatre and Navistar. I don’t know all the ins and out of either the theatre or the truck assembly plant dispute, but, having been affected adversely by “streamlining” in the newspaper industry, I felt joy for the former Navistar employees whom, it seemed, were owed $35 million by the company.
In my opinion there remains only one problem. The plant closed eight years ago. It was demolished a few years later. All that’s left of Navistar are memories and a few acres of valuable land on Richmond Street, a field of gravel, cracked concrete and bountiful weeds. I don’t know who actually owns the land, but it’s time that person got cracking, as the Ontario egg farmers say.
Stephen J. Beecroft
Chatham
