Chatham-Kent's debt reduction, housing market, and job opportunities are some of the highlights Mayor Randy Hope is acknowledging this year.
With only a few days left in 2017, Hope is taking the time to look back at the municipality's accomplishments, as well as what residents can expect to see in the new year.
One of the major goals the municipality achieved this year was getting its "financial house in order".
"When I first started, [the municipality] was around $163-million in debt," says Hope. "At the end of the month, one of the highlights will be, we're going to have a major debt reduction of about $86.4-million."
Hope adds, what makes the debt reduction even more exciting is that they were able to accomplish this goal while also improving infrastructure in the community.
Finances aside, Hope says more job opportunities and affordable housing is helping to attract more people to the area.
"In 2017, we've got over 50,000 people working in Chatham-Kent and we still have employers looking for people," he says.
"[We] try to get our young people to come back to the community -- they all know about the quality of life we have here, the cost of living here," he says. "We're also trying to entice others that are looking for employment that have skill-base."
Despite this year's success, Hope says there are still improvements that need to be made. Looking ahead to 2018, Hope says there's manufacturing-related business in the works.
"Hopefully in the first part of the year we'll be announcing a number of companies that'll be expanding, a number of companies that'll be investing in new technology, a number of companies that'll be hiring more people," he says. "We're going to see a lot of good, healthy economic activity around jobs, around sustainability -- I mean 2018 looks very positive."