District 9 (not to be confused with the film of the same name) encompasses much of the former towns of Glace Bay and Reserve Mines. I am not sure what it is shaped like but I don’t think anyone will argue with me if I say it is shaped weirdly.Read More

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

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

CBRM Council approved a raise for itself last night in response to the federal government’s decision to end a tax break that allowed elected municipal officials to collect one-third of their salaries tax free. Councilors did it without a word of debate or discussion, presumably because they’d already debated andRead More

There were ructions at CBRM Council yesterday and I was there to witness some of them. It all started at a 4:00PM in camera session, held under Section 22 (2) e of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) which allows municipal councils to go behind closed doors to discuss “contract negotiations.”Read...

I have a confession to make: I did not watch the full CBRM council meeting last night. I watched (with interest) the discussion of the proposed RV Park in Big Pond. (I spend my summers in Irish Cove, just a little further west along Route 4, so anything that happensRead 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

It’s Wednesday and you know what that means — time to beat the Business Cape Breton (BCB) drum! This week we’ve learned that BCB is both an outside organization immune to the rules governing departments of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality AND the CBRM’s “economic development entity,” immune to theRead More