Shovel-ready Wednesday marked a momentous day in the history of Sydney port development: two First Nations Chiefs and a Montreal property developer came together to shovel…something. Part of me is ashamed at my inability to grasp the importance of Wednesday’s event, but part of me thinks that since neither BarryRead...

Lease released The first rule of accessing information from public bodies is “just ask for it,” and sometimes — hallelujah! — just asking is all it takes. For instance, I asked the CBRM for a copy of the lease signed between the municipality and Danny Ellis’s company, the catchily namedRead More

I have been wading through pages of documents related to the CBRM and Business Cape Breton (BCB) and the provincial Department of Municipal Affairs (DMA) searching for answers to questions about economic development funding and Glace Bay revitalization and the role of our economic development “entity.” While I still haveRead More

Why am I so interested in Business Cape Breton, the CBRM’s economic development “entity?” Because I just can’t get a grip on what it’s supposed to be — it’s neither flesh, nor fowl nor good, publicly accountable municipal body. It’s a non-profit society with a board made up of localRead More

Glace Bay Revitalization You will not be able to tell from this article, but I am working busily behind the scenes trying to piece together the timeline on the Glace Bay Revitalization project — not the 20-year timeline attached to the actual project but the months-long timeline attached to theRead More

Danny Ellis, who has signed a deal with the CBRM to rent property on the Sydney waterfront for a seasonal food and drink establishment, is a director of Business Cape Breton — the municipality’s designated economic development “entity.” According to his LinkedIn account, Ellis has been on the BCB boardRead More

The CBRM has an environmental assessment of a property owned by local businessman Jerry Nickerson on which it hopes to construct a second cruise ship berth. We know the assessment exists, as Nancy King points out in the Cape Breton Post, because Mayor Cecil Clarke has referred to it, asRead More

Year One The Cape Breton Spectator turned one on August 3! The anniversary almost slipped by unnoticed — I knew it was in August, but I’d convinced myself it was later in the month. Luckily for me, my family not only remembered it, they marked it. There was a cakeRead More

There I was, looking for signs of shipbreaking on Sydney harbor and I forgot to mention North Sydney. Apologies to all my North Sydney readers, who must have been left scratching their heads. How did I forget about that time the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) sold Archibald’s Wharf, aRead More

A plan, apparently 12 years in the making, to bring the shipbreaking firm Marine Recycling Corporation to the Sydport Marine Industrial Park in Point Edward seems to be becoming a reality. I have a reader to thank for the tip: a Cape Bretoner working out West who pointed me to a pairRead More