Meet Kyra Knapp, Wheatley's new dedicated economic development officer

Kyra Knapp has her work cut out for her: Hired by the Municipality of Chatham-Kent as Wheatley's new economic development officer, she'll spearheadthe community's redevelopment after an explosion rocked the town more than two years ago.

But Knapp says it's an exciting opportunity to help the town come together and build a thriving community.

Two downtown buildings were destroyed after an Aug, 26, 2021, explosion caused by gas surfacing in an old well. Those buildings have now been demolished, and some parcels of land purchased by the municipality.

Knapp's job is funded by the province of Ontario, the municipality said in a release

Knapp joined CBCRadio's Windsor Morning host Amy Dodge to talk about this new opportunity, her hopes for Wheatley and where things in the community stand now.

Here's part of their conversation.

So when the municipality announced your new job, it said you were"embarking on a crucial mission to spearhead Wheatley's economic revitalization." That sounds daunting. Does it feel daunting to you?

You know, it feels exciting. I think that there's an opportunity for the community to come together ... and make the community better with their voice central to their revitalization and rebuilding.

Really my job is just to help facilitate that. It's exciting, it's meaningful. I started my career in economic development in Chatham-Kent. So it's really great to come back and use all the tools that I've gained over the last 13 years to help the community that's really close to my heart.

Where are you coming back from?

I worked at the University of Windsor for a little while. I was with the Municipality of Leamington and I was with Caldwell First Nation. And then I opened my own consultancy.

How do you feel the town has changed over the years, especially recently with the explosion?

I live in Leamington ... soI was sort of a witness. I live right down from the fire station. At the time, my best friend's husband was the chief of fire for Leamington. We got a front row seat to how tragic and scary that the time was and I think that it's just been a period of uncertainty right now.

I think that this project, this role, me coming in is something that gives the community some hope for that rebuilding because we have been doing a lot of the sort of risk mitigation right now,it kind of feels like there's slow momentum.

But really it's just so that we're doing things properly and safely.

I know with the coverage I've done since the explosion, a lot of people there had told me that they feel like the momentum is a bit slow, as you mentioned there.

So I imagine when they hear that you've been hired and you're now consulting with them, there might be some enthusiasm that things might speed up. And my question for you is, what can you do to sort of speed up the process and build more momentum?

We're looking at doing, right now, a lot of the planning on how to rebuild. So it obviously takes a lot of brains, a lot of expertise, a lot of technical know-how to rebuild a community in a way that aligns with eventual municipal guidelines that is safe, that is progressive, innovative, all the things that Wheatley has expressed to me thus far that they're looking for.

So a lot of what my role is, is communicating to the community what we're doing and then talking to them throughout the process and making sure, again,that their voices are central to that process.

We've heard a lot about the phrase "Wheatley Strong" since the explosion. I was wondering what strengths do you see in Wheatley that can be built on that?

Oh my goodness, so many. Wheatley is tenacious. It's kind. The people on the task force that I've interacted with and in the community are knowledgeable and passionate and they're determined.

We've seen people be resilient a lot through COVID. But imagine going not only through this global pandemic, this economic crisis, and then also having a natural disaster like the level of resilience from the community and strength has been really inspiring.

That's beautiful to hear.

There was talk at one time that the downtown business district might need to be moved. What are you hearing about that now?

We still don't quite know what's going on. We're waiting until later on in the year. We've just purchased some properties where there might be some exploration that we need to do in future.

But I what I can say is that the community will be involved in that decision-making moving forward. So it might be an expansion of the uptown, it might be just re-envisioning what that looks like. We do know that one corner of that property will be municipally-owned and and we don't know if that will be something that will be redeveloped into commercial space.

Again those are question marks that we don't know the answers to yet. I definitely didn't want to come into this role being prescriptive. What are the possibilities, how does the community feel about it?

If things go well, how would you like to see Wheatley changed two years from now?

The best way that I can answer that is I'd like to see Wheatley thriving. I'd like to see Wheatley's economy thriving. I'd like to see the people thriving. I'd like to see [new businesses] coming in to the community, visitors coming into the community.

How are we taking care of the folks that may have been displaced or people who need affordable housing? How do we make a thriving community socially, culturally and economically? I think that that's really what I'd like to see.