Category: Front Page

By the end of this year, if all goes as planned, the new municipality of Tantramar will have a new five-year strategic plan.

Community and corporate services director Kieran Miller told council on Monday that staff have recommended hiring Strategic Steps Inc. to run the process to arrive at a new five year plan, including running consultations with staff, council and members of the public.

Strategic Steps is based in Alberta, but has an Atlantic office based in St. Johns, Newfoundland.

Eight different companies bid on the project, including Porter O’Brien, the Fredericton-based company who led consultations about Tantramar’s new logo and brand last year. On Monday, Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black expressed support for staff’s recommendation, but also asked Miller if consideration was given to companies who had worked previously with the town.

“I’m glad that this is happening just to set the tone for what our municipality will be looking at for the next five years,” said Black, adding that the “comprehensive public consultation process” included in the project is “vitally important, considering our new boundaries.”

Black also asked, “was there any consideration in the matrix for companies that may have worked with our former municipalities in the past?”

Miller said that the scoring considered experience working with municipalities in general, and not specifically direct experience with Sackville, Dorchester or Tantramar.

Councillor Michael Tower asked if the climate change lens was applied to the evaluation, in terms of additional transportation requirements for the work to be completed, but Miller said climate change impacts did not figure in.… Continue

A development agreement put in place twenty years ago is limiting development of the former Pizza Delight property on Mallard Drive, and so Tantramar council is being asked to take a step towards dissolving the agreement at its next regular meeting in May.

Lori Bickford of the Southeast Regional Service Commission’s Plan 360, was on hand at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting to present the proposal on behalf of the owner of the vacant property, numbered company 734163 NB Inc., owned by Rashid Tufail.

This is the second planning change sought by Tufail. In 2023, the owner sought changes to allow for drive-thru restaurants in the zone, something that the former town of Sackville had banned in 2001. Council approved of the change in September 2023.

The development agreement applies to two properties on Mallard Drive. Both the Home Hardware and Pizza Delight properties share a single development agreement created in 2004. But its the vacant Pizza Delight property that is limited by the current agreement.

“You’ll notice that the Pizza Delight building remains vacant at this time,” Bickford told council. “Under the agreement, the only use that would be permitted within that building would be a single restaurant.”

While other uses are permitted in the highway commercial zone, explained Bickford, the Pizza Delight property development agreement is much more restrictive, and can only be changed with a lengthy bylaw amendment process at town council.… Continue

A historic property in Memramcook is in the process of being sold by the provincial government.

According to Memramcook mayor Maxime Bourgeois, the Memramcook Institute is being acquired by Heritage Developments, a Moncton based property company that also owns the former Moncton High School property in downtown Moncton.

A provincial spokesperson told CHMA by email that the transaction is ongoing, and further details about the price, or any protections for the buildings may be released once the agreement is completed.

“I’m very, very happy, to be quite frank,” says Bourgeois. “Obviously with some concern just because we are losing some control on the future of the building.”

With the province on the deed for the large property—which completely surrounds the Monument-Lefebvre National Historic Site on rue Centrale in Memramcook—Bourgeois says local public opinion gave the community some control over its fate. On the other hand, he points out, despite a number of attempts to make something happen on the site, it has sat empty since 2012. “It’s such an important and imposing property in the downtown core of Memramcook,” says Bourgeois, “that it really was sort of dragging the municipality down.”

“I’m very happy that a local business owner decided to step forward and clearly wants to invest time, money, and energy in making something with this building,” says Bourgeois. “It’s also very comforting that they’ve been in constant communication with us, presenting their vision from the get go, wanting to establish a good relationship with the municipality.”… Continue

A garage sale at the Tantramar Civic Centre raised money for two community groups while at the same time tackled the persistent problem of mounds of household goods being left on the curb as the university year ends. 

The event, called Dump and Run was organized by EOS Eco-Energy and the Sackville Rotary Club. Mount Allison University Students were invited to drop their stuff off, or arrange for volunteers to picked it up.

Bill Evans, president of the Rotary Club, said sometimes graduating students have a hard time dealing with the things they’d amassed over their time in Sackville. 

“Their household effects were too big to take or carry on the plane, they would often just dump it at the end of the driveway, and leave town,” said Evans. 

Within the first five minutes of opening, more than 100 people showed up at the garage sale, according to Evans. Over $1800 was raised with EOS Eco-Energy and the Sackville Rotary splitting the profits.

The groups plan to hold another Dump and Run next year.

Meanwhile, at the Pickard Quarry nearly 30 people from the Tantramar Outdoor Club and Chignecto Naturalists Club hauled away about 15 bags of garbage plus four bags of recyclables on Saturday.

Kate Fraser was there picking up garbage with her two children and husband.… Continue

New Brunswick Education Minister Bill Hogan is warning members of the Anglophone East District Education Council (DEC) that they may face personal liability for what he calls, “improper use of public funds”.

The warning comes in a letter dated April 16, which is part of a series exchanged this month between Hogan and Anglophone East district chair Harry Doyle, stemming from the DEC’s legal challenge to Hogan’s revisions to policy 713, which they say would force them to violate Canada’s Charter of Rights.

On April 2, Doyle and the DEC filed a notice of preliminary motion in the Court of King’s Bench, seeking an injunction to prevent Hogan from dissolving the DEC and repealing its policy on the implementation of Policy 713, two things the minister had threatened to do in past letters to the district.

On April 5, Hogan wrote to the school district, asking for details of the costs incurred in preparing the court filing, and questioning the authority of the district to spend its money on a legal action.

On April 11, DEC chair Harry Doyle replied, declining to provide the cost information, and outlining the chain of events in the year since Hogan and Premier Blaine Higgs first announced their review of Policy 713, which had been approved in 2020 with the goal of protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ students in the public school system.… Continue

The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure closed down Route 106 between Dorchester and Sackville just over two weeks ago, on April 1, due to a damaged culvert with a collapsing road around it, caused by runoff from heavy rain.

Since then, drivers in the know have been taking an alternate route between Sackville and Dorchester, via Woodlawn Road and King Street. But those not familiar with the area, have had more difficulty.

Tantramar councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell lives not too far from the main intersection where the 106 passes through the heart of Dorchester, where DTI has elected a large sign warning of a road closure in 4.6 kilometers.

Wiggins-Colwell points out the obvious problem. “We’ve got no detour signs,” she says, slightly exasperated. “We’ve got all kinds of ‘road closed’ signs, but not telling people where to go.”

Wiggins-Colwell says numerous drivers have found themselves driving the 4.6 kilometres up to the actual road closure, where the 106 crosses Two Mile Brook, in search of directional signage showing them where to go, only to discover they have to turn back.

When she’s called DTI about the problem Wiggins-Colwell says she’s been told that the department has just run out of detour signs. “Which just doesn’t make any sense to me,” says the Tantramar councillor and former village mayor. “I know roads have to be fixed, but please tell people where they have to have to detour… This is very confusing for everybody.”… Continue

The cans and bottles have been piling up quickly this month at Wheaton’s All-in-One recycling depot in the Sackville industrial park. Since April 1, consumers who return their beverage containers have been getting their full deposit back, doubling the cash payout on a bag of cans and bottles. That means that in the months leading up to the change, people were holding back, waiting for April 1.

CHMA dropped by Wheaton’s to find out how the depot is faring, now that New Brunswick has embraced a full deposit return:

“As you can see, we’re a little backed up right now,” says Wheaton, pointing to piles of bagged cans and bottles inside and outside the depot. “A lot of people were holding off that for the last two, three months. And so then they all, of course, come in at once.”

Wheaton says it took some budgeting to bridge the few months that business dropped off, but at least the return was predictable. “We knew that it would be up again in April,” he says.

So far this month Wheaton says he’s averaging 80,000 to 100,000 cans per week, when before the changes to the system he would see 35,000 to 40,000 cans per week.

Wheaton says it’s still not clear if the full deposit return will make an impact on how many redeemables get returned overall.… Continue

Alice Cotton is a very excited these days, but also a little bit scared. The market coffee vendor and her partner Peter Stephenson have just signed a lease with the municipality of Tantramar for 200 square feet inside the Sackville Visitor Information Centre (VIC), where they will be opening Café Tintamarre this summer.

“It’s a big step for us to move from little vendors at the Farmers Market to having a cafe,” says Cotton. “We’re very excited.”

The new location will be seasonal, along with the VIC itself. Cotton says the couple is aiming to open the cafe when the VIC reopens for the season on May 1. Before that, there’s an estimated $4,500-$5,000 in plumbing, electrical, and flooring work to be done. In consideration of the leaseholds improvements that Cotton and Stephenson will make at their own expense, town staff recommended a nominal rent of $1 per month for their first season, from May 1 to December 31. If Café Tintamarre returns in 2025, then Cotton and Stephenson will pay similar rent to the other occupants at the VIC, the Craft Gallery and Robert Lyon Graphics.

Tantramar council approved of the lease proposal on April 9, with two councillors, Barry Hicks and Matt Estabrooks, voting against.… Continue