I’ve covered hundreds of council meetings in numerous municipalities over the years, but never have I covered one where there were as many police officers and security team members as there were at the May 12 Chatham-Kent council meeting. 

In fact, I’ve never seen any, and it would be a few hours into the meeting before I realized why they were there. 

Correctly anticipating a large crowd to gather for the decision on whether or not the proposed Chatham-Kent Community Hub would move on to tender, the meeting was held at the Bradley Centre instead of the Civic Centre. 

By now I’m sure you’ve heard the vote was 12-5 in favour of moving the project forward, which I can’t say was surprising considering how much time and money has been spent on the process to date. 

However, with an estimated price tag of $53 million at this point, it remains to be seen whether or not there’s a company out there that feels they can bring this project home for that amount or less. 

If not, and the tenders come back higher than anticipated, there will be another round of discussion to determine whether or not council will proceed with the project, so the hub is not a definite, at least not yet, and we won’t know until the fall now. 

And, while I remain skeptical about this project for many reasons, I certainly understand why council opted to take this next step – the do-or-die, so to speak. 

What I don’t understand is why anybody in our........

© Sarnia Observer