Goderich Council Looks For Public Input Into Strategic Action Plan
by Bob Montgomery
About thirty-five Goderich residents attended a public meeting Wednesday night hosted by members of Goderich council.
The objective was to get public input into council's Strategic Action Plan for 2023 to 2027. The meeting was held at the Memorial Arena and one of the issues that generated a lot of discussion was the future of the Memorial Arena. Mayor Trevor Bazinet pointed out the arena hasn't been marketed properly since the ice was taken out, but it's there for people to use it for any number of things. “Our seniors use it for shuffle board, we have Home and Garden Shows there, we had our vaccination clinic there, we've had council debates there during elections, wrestling events have been held there, so essentially everyone has been able to use the facility for whatever they want.” But, it's only generating about nine-thousand dollars a year in revenue. So the question is, do they continue doing what they're doing or do they look at organizations like child care or the seniors centre that are currently over capacity and could be accommodated at a refurbished Memorial Arena.
Another area that generated a lot of discussion is the potential for expansion in the harbour. Bazinet says he's had some interesting meetings over the last couple of weeks, and he just got back from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative Conference and everyone who has a port wants to expand it, and for good reason – they generate a lot of money for the municipality. Goderich is lucky to have a deep water port and they'd like to be able to take advantage of that. They also want to be in line for any government grants that might help them do that, but he says nothing's going to happen in the near future.
Bazinet says he's also very interesting in developing the port as a tourism attraction and he would be interested in trying to get some cruise line ships in. “But, if we’re going to have a cruise ship come in here we need to have something for people to do and yes, we have a historic downtown and great restaurants and things like that, but we want to bring people in for a festival like the Salt and Harvest Festival or the Celtic Festival. When people come here we want them to stay here for the entire time.”
The goal of council is to have the Strategic Action Plan completed by the end of this council's term.
