The St. Thomas & District Chamber of Commerce Lunch with the Mayors gathering is typically a non-controversial State of the Union-type event, more jovial than jousting.
That all changed with last year’s get-together which came on the heels of Bill-63, the St. Thomas Central Elgin Boundary Adjustment Act.
Central Elgin lost hundreds of acres of farmland to St. Thomas for that municipality to assemble 1,500 acres for what would become the Yarmouth Yards industrial park and ultimately the home of Volkswagen/PowerCo and the EV battery giga-plant.
Much of the question-and-answer time slot was put to good use by former Central Elgin Mayor Sally Martyn to hold St. Thomas Mayor Joe Preston’s feet to the fire on her municipality’s lack of involvement in the land deal.
Tag Archives: Fire Safe Downtown
Who knows what lurks out of sight above Talbot Street?
We referred to them as the city’s forgotten apartments. A pair of decrepit hovels visible from the mayor’s office in city hall.
The first thing you noticed was the gaping holes where the ceilings had fallen away.
Patches of paint which had not yet floated to the floor cling tentatively to the walls.
In other areas, vast expanses of paint blistered like badly burned skin.
Missing tiles in one of the showers had been replaced with duct tape and garbage bags.
The remnants of a skylight were stuffed with a blanket and when it rained, water dripped to the floor and down the front stairs.
When this corner exposed those units in January of 2016 they were home to four tenants, seemingly off the radar of several departments at city hall.
Links to the trio of items written about those apartments and what might have been in the way of affordable housing back in 2016 can be found at the end of this item.
We reference these residences because how many other out-of-sight, out-of-mind units can be found up and down the Talbot Street core?
Ian's City Scope 