SD&G – The United Counties is, for the most part, getting out of the property management business.
County council moved ahead Monday with agreeing to sell the Service Ontario site at 8 Fifth Street West in Morrisburg and the SD&G O.P.P. detachment at 624 Main Street in Alexandria.
The properties will be offered first to the townships of South Dundas and North Glengarry at fair market value.
If they’re not interested, the properties will be sold through a realtor.
The sales aren’t expected to affect Service Ontario or the O.P.P., which lease the buildings.
Either way, the county estimates it could pocket $600,000 from the sale of both properties.
“Does the counties need to be in the business of owning buildings in local municipalities where there is no county service being offered in the one sense,” Warden Eric Duncan asked rhetorically in an interview with Cornwall Newswatch.
Duncan explained, the other O.P.P. detachments in SD&G are privately owned or rented at the municipal level. The setup in North Glengarry is a carryover from the since-disbanded North Glengarry Police Service.
“Do we need to be in the buildings business? And the answer is ‘no’. We have our building here (at 26 Pitt Street) and that’s what we need to be involved with and our local patrol garages,” Duncan said.
Duncan added the public won’t see any changes – the Service Ontario and O.P.P. detachment won’t close.
The county building is facing a major renovation to its second floor and the jail.
County council also learned Monday that Cornwall museum curator Ian Bowering is leading the grant application to the federal Canada 150 program for as much as $250,000 to fix up the jail and courthouse.
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