BEAVER BANK/FALL RIVER: The councillors for the area each have three top priorities as discussions around the budget for 2022 for Halifax Regional Municipality continue.
Lisa Blackburn, the representative for Upper/Middle Sackville-Lucasville-Beaver Bank, and Waverley-Fall River-Musquodoboit Valley councillor Cathy Deagle Gammon agree on two of their priorities—climate change in HRM and grave roads paving.
In a Councillors Corner interview last month, Blackburn said she is going to bring forward a motion that proposes adding some money to fund the paving of our gravel roads.
In 2017, HRM passed a motion that basically promised HRM was going to pave the remaining gravel roads. She believes there were 60 or so at the time.
“We chipped away at them for a couple of years and just recently found out that there’s no money in the budget to finish them off and there hasn’t been for a couple of years,” said Blackburn. “I want to make sure that that that promise is fulfilled, because we have old folks living on those gravel roads, that that was something we were going to do.”
The second priority is on climate change and in particular HalifACT is fully funded.
“We’re sitting basically in Beaver Bank, in an ice wonderland right now, and that’s in large part because the climate change, the weather is changing, the climate is changing and because we’re a coastal province, we basically have the front road to it,” she said.
Blackburn’s third priority item for the budget I on pedestrian infrastructure.
“The other thing too that I think is going to be a big deal is just trying to get more pedestrian infrastructure, sidewalks, greenway trails, that sort of thing,” she said. “It’s difficult living in an area where we have all of this nature, but it’s so difficult to walk to get to it.
Deagle Gammon said her top three budget priority items, in no particular order, include gravel roads getting paved; seeing more parks & rec upgrades in District 1; and climate change
“We have a lot of private roads in District 1 and people are waiting for them to be paved, so it would be absolutely to support that,” she said.
She was disappointed at the lack of par & rec in the budget for the riding.
“I’m a little disappointed when we look at Parks and Rec for District 1 and what is absent in the budget,” she said. “I think there’s one project in the budget for District 1 under Parks and Rec, so that’s a little disappointing.”
Deagle Gammon said the third thing is to see HRM begin to invest in HalifACT.
“I do want to see us invest in climate change now,” she said. “They say one dollar today saves us six into the future, and so we need to be physically responsible absolutely.
She spoke about HRL looking at how aggressive they’re using their debts; how well are they’re using the reserves and for what.
“Nobody wants to be having a savings account in a year when we’re still coming out of the pandemic, living through it,” said Deagle Gammon. “It’s not the time to raise taxes in a huge way, so I’ll be looking at: how do we manage that 1.9 per cent (proposed tax increase) and get it as low as we can.”
