Cape Breton Regional Library

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

August 19, 2020 at 2:47 pm

Once more to the polls! I have yet to decide how to cover this fall’s municipal elections in the CBRM. Back in 2016 — the year I launched the Spectator  — I chose to focus on the women running for office in part because I am one person and couldRead More

Change to Library Funding Formula Overdue

Change to Library Funding Formula Overdue

June 17, 2020 at 12:59 pm

To the patrons and friends of the CBRL network, Recently the board of the Cape Breton Regional Library has been encouraged to review the discussion regarding the new central library. We have also been happy to see discussion around what steps are currently underway to ensure progress is, in fact,Read More

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

June 11, 2020 at 12:47 pm

Cruise News Monday was World Oceans Day and if you put your ear to a seashell,  you could hear a chorus of voices across the globe calling on the cruise industry to clean up its act. Environmental activists living in “port communities” marked the occasion with a virtual “Rally toRead...

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

March 27, 2020 at 10:18 am

Timeline update I have realized that there is a better source for Canadian COVID-19 confirmed case totals than the one I used in compiling my initial COVID-19 timeline (I used the Wayback Machine to consult the page each day when I should have simply consulted the cumulative total tables maintainedRead More

CBRM Council Chambers, 2017. (Photo by WayeMason [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons)

About that General Committee Meeting…

February 5, 2020 at 1:36 pm

I watched yesterday’s CBRM General Committee meeting in its entirety and would like to give you a few highlights:   New Central Library First thought when I saw this item on the agenda: John Phelan is no longer on the library file. The former economic development manager (who returned toRead More

District Energy Part I: Who Benefits?

District Energy Part I: Who Benefits?

January 29, 2020 at 1:16 pm

If you were a cash-strapped community of communities looking to cut your greenhouse gas emissions and had $100,000 to spend, how would you spend it? Would you blow the boodle on a preliminary study for a “district heating and cooling system” in Sydney’s downtown core? A system that would serviceRead More

Detail from Ekistics Sydney Harbourfront Conceptual Vision & Design

Doublethink on the Waterfront

January 29, 2020 at 1:10 pm

“Doublethink,” a term coined by George Orwell in 1984 (the book, not the year), is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “believing two contradictory ideas at the same time” and I think it describes the CBRM’s approach to waterfront development. This past week, I had reason to have aRead More

Building Near Water

Building Near Water

January 20, 2020 at 1:47 pm

Jennifer Henderson at the Halifax Examiner has been following plans for a new provincial art gallery on the Halifax waterfront from a (to me) very reasonable angle — the “when are we going to talk about sea rise?” angle. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure (TIR) has issued a requestRead...

Artist's rendering, new CBRL Central Library, Sydney waterfront.

“I Don’t Know When This Business Development and the Library Became One”

December 11, 2019 at 1:38 pm

Something amazing almost happened during Tuesday afternoon’s (ir)regular monthly meeting of the CBRM council. As I predicted (call me Kreskin), Martin Chernin and Jim Wooder of Harbour Royale Development Limited (HRDL) asked for an 18-month extension to their exclusive agreement to develop the Sydney waterfront — a development that includesRead More

Also on the Agenda…

Also on the Agenda…

December 11, 2019 at 1:36 pm

As you have probably divined, the item of greatest interest to me on yesterday’s council agenda was the request to extend Harbour Royale Development Ltd’s waterfront development agreement and thereby, its role in developing the proposed new CBRM central library, but there were other items on the agenda that IRead More