An email from a member of the CK Watchdogs group has drawn allegations of distributing false information from a municipal official.
Last week, Chatham resident John Cryderman, a Watchdog member, and someone who for years has been critical of many municipal decisions, distributed an email to the media and then apparently to a larger group. It contained a note from municipal CFO Gord Quinton to another local resident about the proposed Chatham-Kent Community Hub and the Civic Centre.
The hub is a proposed replacement for the aging Civic Centre. It would be located in the former Sears building on King Street in Chatham.
Opponents to the project have said it is too expensive an undertaking at this time and that the public has not received a fair cost comparison between renovating the Sears building to accommodate municipal headquarters, the Chatham-Kent Museum and Chatham branch of the public library, compared to leaving everything where it is and just putting money into the Civic Centre.
Cryderman, in recent emails, stated the Watchdog group believes the hub “is an unnecessary and costly project that cannot possibly be afforded without heavy tax increases.”
In regard to the email Cryderman distributed, Quinton wrote, “I agree everyone needs the facts and an apples-to-apples comparison between the current Civic Centre, Chatham library and current museum compared to the C-K Hub project. That is exactly what is coming. Evidence, facts and full costing of both options.”
However, it was another section of Quinton’s email that drew Cryderman’s attention, which he shared with the media and others.
“The highlighted portion confirms the CFO recommends repairing the Civic Centre as the most cost-effective option,” Cryderman said in his email.
That portion stated: “FYI, I highly recommended council repair the current building as the most cost-effective option in the past on occasions. Past councils certainly created today’s situation.”
Quinton, reached by The Voice, said that statement referred to previous efforts by administration to get council’s approval to renovate the Civic Centre.
“We should have fixed up this building on several occasions that this came before council,” he said, noting those recommendations came to council multiple times before the hub proposal was even put forward. “When it was $17 million, in 2017, it was administration’s recommendation to fix up the building, and council turned it down.”
Cost projections have bloomed at the Civic Centre, to the point administration recommends operations be consolidated at the former Sears building, which the municipality purchased for $2.95 million from a local ownership group that includes Rob Myers, Don Tetrault, Ron Nydam and Jessica Myers.
Seeing the email from Cryderman prompted a response from Rob Myers. He called the comments “misleading and false.”
Meanwhile, Quinton said details on the cost comparison between the hub and the Civic Centre are coming soon. The matter is set to come back before council May 12. Normally, the council package would be released to the public the prior Thursday, May 8, but it will be released earlier than that.
“I can’t comment on the report. It is almost done,” he said when reached by The Voice last week. “It will contain the exact numbers on what the project is estimated to cost. That will include the apples-to-apples comparison, looking at what it really will cost for the current facilities to be updated to the same standards.”
He urges people to sift through the documents.
“I still highly encourage everybody involved to actually read the report and the hundreds of pages of details when it gets released,” he said.
As for the Watchdog group and other citizens speaking up against the hub proposal, Quinton said he has no problem with it.
“I’m glad everyone’s involved,” he said. “I welcome public involvement and I really want them to read the whole report. I appreciate scrutiny and community discussions, not the spreading of false information.”
Cryderman said he’d like to be shown where he and other Watchdogs have erred.
“I strongly suggest Mr. Myers and Mr. Quinton review the material on the Watchdogs Group website to kindly point out and detail our inaccurate information and specify why it is inaccurate and misleading,” he said. “The lack of information provided council and the public, from day one with the hub project, is what precipitated our group and others to take the actions to try and find answers that abundantly and boldly have not been disclosed by administration. Clearly the pattern of costing has demonstrated continuous bias favoring the hub.”
Estimates brought forward earlier in the process, have stated that Chatham-Kent can revamp the old Sears building into a new Chatham-Kent Civic Centre, museum and library for a net sum of $6 million. However, this number includes the sale of the existing Civic Centre and library buildings.
Opponents to the project said it will be much more expensive than what administration has stated.
Deputations will be allowed at the May 12 meeting.
Municipal CAO Michael Duben stated in a mid-April article in The Voice, the May 12 meeting will not be the final one for the proposal.
