I want to take this opportunity to thank the many people who made donations to our 58 resident cats, before, during & after Covid, as well as the Theatres running the Movie Man Movie who went out of their way to gather and forward donations as well. A special thanks to Maryanne Leach who has helped out over the years and recently gifted us her Cottage Country Cats charity, so we are now able to give out a tax receipts for larger donations to anyone who needs one. I am grateful to all of you who came back to see me “at the movies” these past 3 years and went out of your way to voice your appreciation for the theatre existing, and continuing. Covid was an expensive 2 year hiatus, that coupled with the expense of re-opening and repairing the damage of the 2 year closure, while pondering if people would come back, made the decision to reopen or close for good, a tough one to make at 74. We did get help from both the Federal & Provincial Government for which I am grateful.
However the City of Kawartha Mistakes was an entirely different story. I severed a lot adjacent to the Theatre in 1977, which was sold. It had an approved entrance to the Highway and Health approval. 10 years later I bought it back and had no interest in selling it until Covid came. The $40,000.00 Ceba loan was coming due, and unwilling to borrow anymore money I put the lot up for sale in 2021. During the main street reconstruction in Kinmount around 2009 I let the contractor for the City dump fill on my property, one driver got lost and dumped a quantity of concrete on the lot I wanted to sell, which had to be removed. $3,000.00 later it went up for sale. It sold within weeks for $45,000.00. Initial discussions with the CKL regarding an entrance to the Highway, suggested they didn’t seem to know the lot existed, even though it was on city mapping. They refused to grant an entrance because a Bylaw they passed in 2017 prohibited entrances on the curve. The lot should have been grandfathered but never was. Since that time the City has never taken ownership for the mess they created. All the alternative entrances they have suggested will cost more money than the lot is worth, and are at my expense. The option to cross the ravine from my drive will cost upwards of $40,000.00. As a result the sale was cancelled.
Had I not found the money somewhere else without having to borrow it the Theatre would have closed over this issue. In my opinion the so called city is one giant bureaucratic nightmare, with councillors who no longer seem to care about or work for their constituents. To the rest of you thanks for your continued support, and kind comments, and I look forward to seeing you “at the movies’!! A further note you will be seeing some of our collection “in the movies” as we have had rentals out to HBO’s production of Welcome To Derry, as well as Twisted Metal, & this years Tiff.
Keith Stata