Welcome back to our 20-year time machine. Strap in and travel with us, won't you, to the third week of January 2005. It was the best of times, it was the snowiest of times...much like this week. (Well, maybe except for the "best of," part, what with looming tariffs and a needless snap provincial election on the near horizon.)
First up we have this week's candidate for where-is-she-now, Sporty Spice, one Stacey Kerr, E. L. Crossley athlete, competing the first year that girls were included in the Tribune's annual basketball tournament. (Okay, technically The Spice Girls had gone on "indefinite hiatus" five years earlier, in 2000. But they made a comeback in 2007!)
Here's the scoop:
Where is Stacey Kerr now? I'm happy to say that the all-seeing, all-knowing internet has given us some excellent leads, so come on back next week for the 20-year catch-up. (And if you missed this week's catch-up, find it here.)
Moving on. Absent this week are any letters to the editor, mainly because they once again were mostly about gay marriage and I'm tired of re-litigating a settled issue. One lengthy letter was particularly abhorrent, once again written by an old straight man (since deceased) seemingly stuck in the 19th century. Worse, he was a convert to evangelical Christianity, making his dogmatic certainty all the more zealous, as tends to happen with newcomers to a belief or a brand of beer.
Now, unfortunately, this means that we'll also miss the following week's letters in response, which I'm happy to say eviscerated the man's arguments—ripped him a new one, as more recent phrasing might put it. It's hard to imagine now (especially for anyone under 30), but there was a time that people debated through letters to the editor in their local paper rather than yelling past each other on social media, which essentially didn't exist in 2005. Facebook was founded the year before and Twitter wouldn't start until the following year, but neither would become household words for a few more years. Oh, those wonderful, blissful days. Never has the truism that you don't know what you have until it's gone been truer.
But stay tuned, there's one last gasp yet left in the retrograde, anti-gay marriage-pushback of 2005. And you'll never guess who's officially helping it along. (Actually, in light of events 15 years later, during Covid, it probably won't come as that much of a surprise. But that's not until next week. Get the popcorn ready.)
On to the biggest story of the week, indeed the biggest of several years to come.
This week in 2005 saw a major announcement by the Town of Pelham, one that would affect local politics and certainly local property tax bills from then to now, and in fact will continue doing so far into our future.
This would be the Town's purchase of a large tract of land south of Highway 20 and west of Rice Road—32 acres, for $3.5 million dollars. A frightfully huge sum at the time—“It is the largest purchase the municipality’s ever made," said the Mayor of the day, Ron Leavens.
Well, take that $3.5 million and multiply it by a minimum of 10, since that's what Pelham was ultimately on the hook for by 2016—$36 million dollars (and that's a conservative estimate) for the Town's new Pelham Community Centre. Most of that debt remains yet unpaid, and yet remains the responsibility of Pelham property taxpayers. Leavens' reasonable plan in 2005 was that upper-tier grants would pay for the lion's share of the facility, a ball that was badly dropped by the next mayor and council.
In what some observers considered an ill-advised and hasty deal, long-term naming rights were sold for a song to Meridian Credit Union—hence the building became what we know today as the Meridian Community Centre, or MCC.
The previously small-town nature of Fonthill would never be the same, although it would take the better part of another decade for all the reverberations of the land purchase to be felt. The development of "East Fonthill" was well underway by 2017, when a local developer blew the whistle on what he considered underhanded practices engaged in by the Town administration under the supervision of Mayor David Augustyn's council.
In turn, the mayor and all Town councillors were turfed out of office (or chose not to run) in the blowout 2018 election, which saw current Mayor Marvin Junkin elected to his first term, in large part on the promise to clean up the disastrous financial mess created under Augustyn's watch. (After two subsequent defeats—regionally and provincially—Augustyn is now making his third run for elective office.)
Find the entire 2005 land purchase story on a separate page here.
On to other news: We find the Pelham Jazz Band holding a fundraising trivia night. (Trivia question: Is the Pelham Jazz Band still a thing?)
The Lioness of the time welcome two new members, with a positively youthful Eleanor Arbour looking on:
Next we have a young skater achieving her Skate Canada Gold medal, as well as the curious case of Select Coffee Roasters, who were apparently roasting their delicious beans down Highway 20 a fair hike, near the 406 interchange, in that low-rise industrial strip on the south side of the road, now possibly best known for the lurid orange sign you see as you whiz past toward the on-ramps, hawking hydroponic growing supplies, a.k.a, what you need to grow pot in the basement. Anyway, the coffee roasters are long gone, with a hydraulics parts supplier now occupying the space.
Next up, Pelham's Bantam Boys Basketballers basking in their first-place win in Burlington:
In the Classifieds section we find a couple of young lovebirds about to tie the knot, with the groom-to-be sporting one of the era's favourite goatee styles (many of us were similarly afflicted). If "Stephanie McWilliams" sounds familiar, it's likely because as the franchise owner of the multiple Tim Hortons in Fonthill you've seen her name in countless Smile Cookie photo captions in recent years:
Finally, if you're in the market with 2025 dollars for a Chrysler minivan, 2005 would be a good time to buy one. A brand new 2005 model (CD player included!) will set you back a mere $19,988. Today's price in nearby Welland? $51,049.
Note that this greatly exceeds the rate of inflation. At an annualized 2.43% inflation rate, a quick calculation says that a $19,998 expense in 2005 should be a $32,000 expense today. Hah!
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