Inverness County Council Meeting - October 1st 2020

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Inverness County Council Meeting - October 1st 2020

Inverness County held its first public council meeting since the beginning of the pandemic on October 1st, 2020. A large portion of the meeting was dedicated to addressing recent criticism from MLA Allan MacMaster over a housing project that was put on hold in Inverness.

In September, MacMaster spoke with several media outlets about how developers decided to pause the project because of the municipality’s delay in providing sewer and water costs. Inverness Councillor Jim Mustard said the MLA didn't know enough about the situation. “I did address Allan not having enough information that I thought would be a point of record,” he said, “to make a comment to the public about a housing development in Inverness. And he didn’t sound like he was making his way here, so I do think it’s important that we impress on him the idea of working together is fundamental to our county. And looking at the municipality from a distance and saying we’re not doing the work isn’t an effective way to work together.”

According to Chief Administrative Officer Keith MacDonald, MacMaster declined a meeting with council because he wanted to wait until after the municipal election of October 17th. But council insisted that the MLA should meet with them both before and after the election to talk about infrastructure. “We want to make sure that there is a plan developed where we can have our MP and our MLA on a regular basis to make sure that they’re aware what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and what our future plans are,” Warden Betty Ann MacQuarrie said.

Both Warren MacQuarrie and Councillor Alfred Poirier said the municipality had come a long way over the last few years. “Perhaps those are some of the things that we should also relay to our MLA, just to make sure that he’s knowledgeable that Inverness county is playing catch up with infrastructure,” MacQuarrie said. “So anyway, I know that the staff is making diligently to make that happen but everybody has to be aware that it is a struggle and it takes time to upgrade all of our systems, so it is probably going to take us another 9 years for us to solve.”

Council agreed they would write a letter inviting MLA MacMaster to visit on October 14th or 15th.

Councillors talked also about Milford Road in Whycocomagh. The province has agreed to repair the portion of the road classified as J, which covers 49 km. The road also has areas classified as I and K. The municipality would like to get more parts of the road funded, so it will make a proposal to Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal.

Council had a chance to look at the 2020 heavy pick up garbage schedule. The municipality budgeted $45,000 for the service, which will take place over 3 weeks.

CAO MacDonald had news about the Cellphone Expansion Project. The municipality has received three proposals, which municipal staff are currently analyzing.

 

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Video Upload Date: October 6, 2020
Maritimes
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Cheticamp NS

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