Meet the candidates: Alice Cotton, running in Ward 3 (Central Sackville)
Alice Cotton is a long time Sackville resident and avid volunteer, having worked with EOS Eco Energy, the Sackville Music Festival, and the Community Food Smart program. She has diverse work experience in teaching, gardening and food preparation, and is a local entrepreneur, running the Deus Ex Machina coffee truck at the Sackville Farmers Market.
Listen to CHMA’s Meet The Candidates interview with Alice Cotton, which took place by phone on November 9, 2022.
Cotton is running for Ward 3, where residents will elect four councillors from a pool of nine candidates, including Cotton, Sahitya Pendurthi, Josh Goguen, Virgil Hammock, Bruce Phinney, Michael Tower, Allison Butcher, Charles Harvey, and Sana Mohammed. All candidates have interviews on CHMA, except for Charles Harvey who declined our request, and Sana Mohammed, who has yet to respond.
CHMA is compiling all its election coverage in one place, for your convenience. For more candidate interviews and other local elections coverage, click here.
TRANSCRIPT
CHMA: So Alice cotton, thanks for joining us. Thank you. For those who might not already know you tell us a bit about yourself.
Alice Cotton: Sure. Well, I have lived in Sackville for close to 30 years. I have raised my two sons here, they both went to Mount Allison, one is still going to Mount Allison. And I have worked at various jobs here in town and gotten to know you know, different groups of people through those those jobs and also through volunteer work that I’ve done, and board work that I’ve done, as well, I’ve been on a couple of boards for EOS Eco Energy and the Sackville Music Festival.… Continue
Elections NB dumps Civic Centre in favour of Middle Sackville church for voting in first Tantramar election
A Sackville resident is concerned about the location of the polling station for the municipal election happening on November 28, 2022.
In the past, polling stations for Sackville elections have been held at the Tantramar Veterans Memorial Civic Centre, but for this first election of the new Tantramar council, the main polling station for all advanced and election day polls will be at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church across from Silver Lake. On election day, November 28, there will also be a second polling station at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre.
Sackvillian Alice Cotton says she and some others she’s spoken to are concerned about the location at the Middle Sackville Baptist Church for two key reasons. The first has to do with the use of a church for the polling station. “The church and the state need to be separate,” says Cotton. “We just would not be voting in a church.”
The other reason has to do with accessibility. “There’s a lot of people on the other side of the highway, ” says Cotton, “who don’t have cars, who can’t make it to that poll easily.”
Community Food Smart harnesses the power of bulk buying to make fresh food cheaper
Food prices have been climbing for months now, but one initiative in New Brunswick is helping stock kitchens with fresh produce by harnessing the power of bulk purchasing.
Community Food Smart is a food security initiative taking place across the province, wherever local community partners have stepped up to become distribution points. Here in Sackville, one such community partner is the Sackville Commons Coop on Lorne Street, where once a month, people pick up grocery bags full of produce for a set rate of $15.
CHMA spoke with organizer Cynthia Dyck and volunteer Alice Cotton to find out more:
“It’s like a bulk buying program where you’re getting your vegetables at cost,” says local organizer Cynthia Dyck. “It’s a collective of people working together to get big enough orders that we can get it directly from the producer.”
There are a number of Food Smart branches in the Tantramar area, including the Sackville Commons, the Mount Allison Students’ Union, the Dorchester Moving Forward Coop, The Church by the Lake, and the Port Elgin Regional School. All branches combine their orders each month, and one large bulk order for fresh fruits and veggies is placed with a distributor. Volunteers at each location then divide up the bounty into bags, and participants pick them up.
Volunteer and program participant Alice Cotton has been involved for the past couple of years, and says the volunteering is fun.… Continue
The housing crisis in Sackville is growing and needs action, says group to town council
If there were any Sackville town councillors not aware of the developing crisis in housing in the region, that was put to an end on Monday night, after a presentation to council by the Tantramar Affordable Housing Initiative.
Sackville residents Reggie Beal, Ashley Legere and Alice Cotton gave an an eye-opening presentation on the situation being faced by some Sackville families, including testimony from Legere and Beal, who are both facing loss of their current homes.
“It’s very scary,” Beal told council. The home he’s been renting is being sold, and Beal needs to leave. But he says that after 6 months of looking, he can’t find an affordable place to go, even with a full time employment income. Beal works at Rose’s Independent alongside Mayor Shawn Mesheau, who said he’s familiar with Beal’s predicament. “It is an emotional situation,” said the Mayor Monday. “And it affects more people than we realize.”
Ashley Legere is a Sackville resident and Wellness Navigator with Ensemble Moncton. She found out this past weekend that she has three months to find a new home after the house she is renting was sold. The irony of her situation wasn’t lost on Legere. “My job is to literally find housing for individuals who are experiencing homelessness,” she told council. “And I’m going to be probably the first Wellness Navigator who is also going to end up homeless.”… Continue