District 1 includes the former town of Sydney Mines and part of the former town of North Sydney, plus the communities of Alder Point, Florence and Little Pond. It’s shaped — well, I’m seeing a ghost, but I see a bat in the map of District 12 and am startingRead More

Managing expectations Students of local municipal politics! Given that CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke seems to be pretty obviously running for a third term (despite announcing on election night in 2016 that he would do no such thing) I invite you to compare and contrast the following items: Exhibit A ARead More

Editor’s Note: Mayor Cecil Clarke’s contention that discussing council remuneration in camera (and treating elected officials as “personnel”) is a longstanding CBRM practice sent me scuttling to the “CBRM Mayor and Council” clippings file at the McConnell library, to research some of the remuneration (and related) issues council has dealt withRead More

Editor’s Note: Mayor Cecil Clarke’s contention that discussing council remuneration in camera (and treating elected officials as “personnel”) is a longstanding CBRM practice sent me scuttling to the “CBRM Mayor and Council” clippings file at the McConnell library, to research some of the remuneration (and related) issues council has dealt withRead More

Mayor Cecil Clarke’s contention that discussing council remuneration in camera (and treating elected officials as “personnel”) is a longstanding CBRM practice sent me scuttling to the “CBRM Mayor and Council” clippings file at the McConnell library this past week, where the first thing I discovered was that controversy over theRead More

Editor’s Note: John Whalley, the former Economic Development Manager of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality (CBRM) is suing the CBRM for constructive dismissal. The case finally came to trial from 20-24 August 2018 and the Spectator was there. We’re presenting our coverage in a series of articles because the trialRead More

Writing about wastewater earlier this year, I raised the possibility that CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke might not be worried about meeting a December 2020 deadline associated with new federal wastewater regulations because he’s already announced he won’t be seeking a third term — which means he will bid us farewellRead More

The Port of Sydney Development Corporation posted minutes from two more board meetings on its website recently. (I can’t say exactly when, because I don’t check the site every day and the Port doesn’t seem to feel the need to notify me when it’s about to post a batch of freshly vetted documents.)Read More

Remember that brief swirl of controversy around the mysterious renaming of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality’s Civic Centre to “City Hall?” A front-page story in the Cape Breton Post on March 6 saying the issue would be on the agenda of that day’s General Committee Meeting (placed there by District 6Read More

I checked the Port of Sydney web site this week and did a spontaneous jig of joy around the old control center (which is what I call my office since I added the second desk and the map of the world): they’ve posted a whole year’s worth of board meetingRead More