Bluewater Council Is Looking At The Possibility Of Selling The Building That Is Currently Being Leased By The Bayfield Lions Club

by Bob Montgomery 

Bluewater council is considering an offer to sell the building that is currently being leased by the Bayfield Lions Club.

Bayfield Ward councillor Bill Whetstone held a public meeting last week at the Bayfield Community Centre to answer any questions people might have and bring them up to date on what he says will be a very long process. 

The municipality was approached by a husband and wife team who are both doctors that would like to buy the building and convert it into a clinic. Whetstone says the building was declared surplus at their council meeting on November 4th and that's the beginning of a very long process. The next step involves staff sending out letters of interest to the people that are involved and he says there's no timeline or date for those to come back. They're not going to rush into anything and they want to make sure they get it right.

Obviously getting two new doctors to move into the community is a great opportunity, but he acknowledges they also have to do what's best for the people who currently use that building and that would the Lions Club. The Lions Club was in the process of negotiating a new lease and the Bayfield Food Bank, which sadly, is a significant part of the community, as well as the other service clubs that use that building. One of his goals is to find a new home for the food bank before they sell the building as well as finding a new home for the other service clubs that use the building if they can.

Whetstone does point out municipalities all over the province are begging for more doctors so it would be very difficult to turn away two doctors who want to set up practice in your community. He doesn't know why the two doctors chose the building they did, but anyone else who was interested in the property would also be given the opportunity to look through the building and make an offer.

Whetstone stresses again that they are in the very early stage of the process and he has no idea when it might come back to council. He doesn't expect any kind of decision before the end of January.