Port Stanley’s Business Improvement Area (BIA) elected three new members yesterday.
Newcomers to the BIA Board are: Dustin Allen, owner of Ports Pets; Kyle Carapanta, owner of Apropos and Apropos for Men; and Michelle Graham, a health agency consultant and co-ordinator.
They join current Board members: Melissa Van Ymeren, part-owner and buyer at Lady Savannah fashion boutique; planning consultant Ted Halwa; and Central Elgin Councillor Colleen Row. The Board manages a $60,000 a year budget.
The election of new Board members was prompted by the resignations of GT’s on the Beach co-owner Carol Gates, Windjammer Inn owner and chef Kim Saunders, and Carol Thompson, proprietor at Port Lifestyles, and branch lead with Keller Williams Lifestyles Realty.
Dianne Wilson, Central Elgin’s Deputy Clerk and Records Management Coordinator, will now forward names of the new Board members for consideration by Central Elgin Council at its meeting on Monday, November 9, 2020.
Once approved, a BIA Board meeting date will be set and a new Chair will be selected. It’s expected the Board will conduct virtual meetings on the third Wednesday of the month.
Gates, co-owner of GT’s on the Beach with her husband Andy Gates, has stepped down as Board Chair after two terms, having served from 2011 to 2016, and again from 2019 to 2020.