Holidays can impact deadlines and meeting coverage

Holidays are great, but sometimes they can also lead to less than ideal results in the newspaper business.

Due to the Victoria Day holiday, this week’s Amherstburg town council meeting was bumped to Tuesday night. Being on a Tuesday night, it means this week’s issue of the River Town Times already went to press prior to the start of the May 23 council meeting.

In other words, we weren’t able to print what happened at the meeting as it relates to the issue of the proposed boutique hotel at 256 Dalhousie St. in this week’s issue. We will print what happened at the meeting in our May 31 issue, likely in greater detail than what would have happened if the meeting were to have been held on its usual Monday date, but the timing stinks for us at the paper due to the holiday.

Town council had a difficult decision on its hands last night as, in my opinion, the town definitely needs a hotel but there were the concerns of the residents in the neighbouring Salmoni Condos that had to be weighed as well as it related to the setback amendments that were being proposed. I’d like to see one (or more) hotels in the community, but I can empathize for the residents of the Salmoni Condos as I can’t honestly say I’d want to trade my view of a park for that of a brick wall.