The mayor of Chatham-Kent is promising the Service Ontario office in Chatham won't close during the search for a new long term operator.
Mayor Darrin Canniff said the municipality has taken over the office at 455 Grand Avenue East and is prepared to operate it for several months or even a couple of years until the Request for Proposals (RFP) process is finished. A timeline for that process has not been established yet.
The mayor said the office is temporarily closed while inventory is being done but it should be open "anytime" once negotiations are finalized. Canniff said the municipality runs the Service Ontario office in Dresden and he has the experienced staff to operate both.
The previous service providers are retiring after 12 years of running the office.
Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls said he's excited to hear that the Municipality of Chatham-Kent is stepping up and services should be available at the Chatham location soon.
"Unfortunately there will be a slight delay in service," he said. "We're looking at the earliest possibly Thursday when the doors will reopen, if not it'll be Monday but we're just finalizing all of the legal documentation."
Nicholls is reminding the public that if they need immediate Service Ontario assistance, they can go online or drive to either Tilbury, Blenheim, Dresden or Wallaceburg while the office in Chatham is down.
"It's what I call a short-term inconvenience for a long-term gain -- a long-term gain meaning that we have a Service Ontario branch remaining in Chatham," said Nicholls.
Once the documentation is finalized, Nicholls said he'll be moving towards making certain licenses more accessible for Chatham residents.
"If someone in Chatham or the surrounding area wants to obtain a hunting licence, they can't get it in Chatham they have to go to either Windsor, London or Sarnia," said Nicholls. "That's a big inconvenience so one of the things I'll be advocating with some new procedures with Service Ontario is to make the local centre here in Chatham more customer-friendly and of course offer greater services to the people in the community."
Service Ontario also tweeted that "the Chatham-Kent centre at 455 Grand Avenue East will remain open until a long-term solution can be found."
