Cambridge Times
When most people think of the centre of Cambridge, the last place in mind is city hall.
Though that was the old train of thought when constructing towns, cities are now built around malls, power centres and places where most people congregate.
So it looks like the city is taking notice of that by looking at putting a service hub at the Cambridge Centre with a nifty slogan, City Hall at the Mall. The fact that people will be able to go to the Cambridge Centre to pay their bills, pay parking tickets, get forms and licences, or register for recreation programs, should the idea get off the ground.
The city is looking at adding it to the 2017 budget and really make this a one-stop shopping town. Unfortunately, as merchants in downtown Galt know, there’s not a lot of foot traffic in the area and that makes a trek to the middle of Galt an out-of-the-way annoyance just to pay a water bill.
If it takes off, Gary Dyke, the city’s manager, said more services could be added to the hub. There was one time that prior to having shovels go in the ground for the new city hall building, some council members and residents were proponents of constructing the facility on Hespeler Road.
With this proposed service hub, some people are practically getting their wish.
(1) COMMENT
By Jon | MARCH 17, 2016 10:49 AM
30 million gets spent to build new city hall. At that time, there was question as to the logic of building it in that location. Now they want a hub to pay bills? This increases costs to taxpayers. Most people pay online or by phone or at the bank. There is no justification to have a high cost city hall as well as a hub. This is just more waste of our hard earned tax dollars. This city is out of date with their thinking and ways to conserve our money.
http://www.cambridgetimes.ca/opinion-story/6393810-city-hall-biz-in-centre-of-the-city/
