Chatham-Kent residents are getting the chance to voice their opinion when it comes to improving the arenas across the municipality.
Public ice allocation meetings will be held in the area over the next few weeks and arena users will have the chance to give municipal staff feedback on various issues facing the facilities.
Information that is received at the meetings will be incorporated into a master arena business plan, which the municipality will be used to help increase declining arena usage across Chatham-Kent. The business plan will look at improving arenas as a whole is separate from the issue of building a new twin-pad arena.
According to Councillor Anthony Ceccacci, council members and municipal staff are hoping the meetings are well attended.
"We want to ensure that they have the opportunity to weigh in their opinions in regards to deficiencies or things they would like to see done better or differently and touch base about our business plan," he explained. "It's just a perfect way for them to interact with staff and councillors to let us know what they think we could do better and what can we do to make our arenas more efficient and better utilized."
Ceccacci said there's no better way to get information than to go directly to the source and talk to the people who use the arenas regularly. At the meetings, residents will be able to give their opinions on a variety of items including concession operations and marketing. He added that hearing feedback from users about municipal ice rates, which he calls some of the most expensive in the region, will be vital to the arena business plan.
"Our arena costs for renting the ice is just not affordable. It's too expensive, it's too costly and I think that we need to strive to do a little bit better," he said. "Can we do a lot better? Probably not because we have a lot of arenas in Chatham-Kent but can we do a little bit better? I do think that we can and I think that every little bit helps."
For anyone interested in attending, there will be plenty of opportunities to do so. The dates and locations of the arena meetings are as follows:
•Wheatley Arena, May 28 at 6:30 p.m. •Blenheim Arena, May 29 at 6 p.m. •Tilbury Arena, June 3 at 6:30 p.m. •Dresden Arena, June 4 at 7 p.m. •Thames Campus, June 4 at 7 p.m. •Wallaceburg Municipal Centre, June 6 at 7 p.m. •Ridgetown Arena, June 10 at 6:30 p.m.