Chatham-Kent kicked off a new four-year term of council with an inauguration ceremony for the municipality’s newly elected councillors and mayor held at the Capitol Theatre in Chatham last night.
Darrin Canniff, who is starting his second term as mayor, made his inaugural remarks at the ceremony, previewing what council will be focusing on in the next four years.
Canniff said there is a lot for council to accomplish this term.
“We’re set up for success,” Canniff said, noting there are a number of companies that have made Chatham-Kent their home base in the past four years and there are a number of companies that are looking at coming to the municipality in the future.
“We’ve had huge growth here.”
Canniff said the municipality will look at more private-public partnerships in the future, similar to the selling of the naming rights for a pair of Chatham bridges which occurred earlier this year.
Canniff also predicted a renaissance in Chatham-Kent’s art and culture scene.
“For a lot of years we haven’t been doing as much on that front as we should be. I’m looking at public art, I’m looking at all those different things. There is a huge opportunity there to create an environment that people want to move here and stay here.”
Affordable and attainable housing will also be an issue council will tackle in the next four years, Canniff said.
Chatham-Kent council dealt with a lot of growth issues in its last term, approving a large number of housing developments and subdivisions across the municipality. It’s something that the newly elected council will have to carry on the momentum in the next term, said Wallaceburg councillors Aaron Hall and Carmen McGregor in previewing the next four-year term of council.
“In our perspective, see some of that momentum reach Wallaceburg,” Hall said. “There’s a few projects underway and we’ll realize that and see some shovels in the ground. It’s been a great four years from that perspective for Chatham-Kent, it’ll be nice to see that coming to Wallaceburg.”
Pointing to downtown and potential south-side development in Wallaceburg, both councillors said there is revitalization in the downtown core and a lot of change is on the way.
The pair also pointed to the issue of a tree-cutting bylaw, one of the main priorities for the newly elected council moving forward. Hall said he anticipates the natural heritage issue and updates coming forward to the new council by the end of the year.
McGregor says the last few years have been tough, living and governing through the pandemic, but has brought a sense of resilience.
“Being home and with Zoom meetings in COVID was definitely very difficult,” McGregor said. “It is going to be back in the council chambers and just be again amongst each other. You build a better rapport and when you have good relations, you work better together.”
Council will host its first meeting of the 2022-26 term on Monday at the Chatham-Kent Civic Centre. It will be their first in-person meeting since March of 2020.