Community News Archives » Page 40 of 178 » CHMA, Voice of the Marshes

Considering the future of Tantramar’s abandoned properties

Two Tantramar councillors are raising questions about abandoned properties in their wards, and what the future holds for them.

Both Deputy Mayor Greg Martin and councillor Debbie Wiggins-Colwell have called attention to buildings they say could pose a danger to residents due to their dilapidated condition.

Wiggins-Colwell told council in March that a property across from the Dorchester post office has been vacant for nearly 30 years. Recently, said Wiggins-Colwell, “I got a call from the postmistress saying there were three young kids in the building playing.” By the time the councillor checked it out, the kids had moved on, but she remained concerned. “They do board it up, but they do break it down and they get back in,” said Wiggins-Colwell. “The floors are caving in… so it is a bit of a concern.”

Deputy Mayor Greg Martin has a similar concern over in Jolicure at the intersection of Parson Road, Luciphy Road, and Jolicure Road, where a former community hall lies vacant. “I just want that building to be secured,” says Martin, “whether it’s tearing [it] down or boarding [it] up… Do something so that somebody doesn’t get hurt.”

The former Jolicure Community Hall at Parson, Luciphy and Jolicure Roads. Photo: Erica Butler, April 2023

At its April 11 meeting, Tantramar council is slated to consider first reading of a renewed Dangerous and Unsightly Premises bylaw based on those currently on the books for Sackville and Dorchester. The bylaw gives the municipality the power to clean, repair or demolish buildings that have gone through a rigorous complaint and evaluation process, and then charge the costs to the property owners.… Continue

Irving Big Stop sees drop in taxes compared to 2020

While many residents of Tantramar are experiencing tax hikes due to both increased assessments and rising rates in some part of the new municipality, over at the Big Stop in Aulac, property taxes are less this year than they were three years ago.

Screencap from Service NB’s Property Assessment Online service. March 14, 2023

According to Service NB’s property online system, the tax levy for the Aulac Big Stop, not including the truck stop area next door, was just over $82,000 this year. But in 2020, the tax levy for the same property was just over $85,000. That’s because the assessment on the property took a dip in 2021, knocking about 10% off the Big Stop’s tax bill that year. The assessment went back up in 2022, but actual taxes due have not returned to previous levels, likely due to spike protection, which limits annual tax increases.

Properties highlighted in red and green were included in Irving’s internal land sale. Image: screencap from Service NB’s property assessment online service. March 14, 2023

The Big Stop and surrounding properties owned by Irving Oil Limited recently sold in a massive internal land deal involving over 100 properties province wide, mostly gas stations and surrounding properties. The deal saw Irving Oil Properties Limited sell properties to Irving Oil Limited for $42.7 million. Irving spokesperson Katherine d’Entremont says via email that the company, “has recently completed some standard internal reorganizations, the effect of which has been to change ownership of certain properties within the Irving Oil corporate group.”… Continue

Full ER service months out, group report remains confidential as Horizon looks to ‘collaboration 2.0’

Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson at Sackville town hall after a presentation to Tantramar council. Photo: Erica Butler

While there is a now a full staff of nurses at the Sackville Memorial Hospital, a return to 24/7 service at the hospital’s emergency department is still months out, Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson told Tantramar council on Monday.

“We have the nursing staff,” said Melanson, “that’s not the issue. The issue is the medical staff coverage.” At least two more full time emergency department doctors are needed to fully staff the Sackville ER.

“I really don’t want to reintroduce additional hours and then have to retreat again from that,” said Melanson. “And so our next leap would hopefully be that we will be able to be open until at least midnight, and then from there look at what will be the model for an overnight service availability at this point in time.”

Melanson said physician recruitment efforts are underway, and Horizon is exploring other options to staff the Sackville ER, such as making it possible for Moncton ER doctors to take shifts in Sackville, and the introduction of physician assistants to the Moncton ER to help free up doctors.

A policy change with Horizon last year meant that local primary care doctors no longer needed to commit to working shifts in the ER, which resulted in the immediate loss of two ER physicians who chose to focus on their family practices. Melanson said that was aligned with a culture shift in medicine, making primary care and emergency medicine their own specialties.… Continue

Wild Carnivore due to open up shop in Mel’s space in June

Sarah Honea, Diego Mora, and their 3-month old son Luka. Photo: Erica Butler

Mel’s Tea Room closed in Feburary 2022, and since then the iconic storefront has stood vacant. That will change in June, when Wild Carnivore pet store sets up shop in the former diner space.

Sarah Honea and Diego Mora are the young couple behind Wild Carnivore. After looking at other spaces to house their business, they settled on Mel’s and plan to move in in May and start preparing the space.

“I definitely think that we can make it work and make it something to be proud of here,” says Honea. Though the couple is relatively new to Sackville, having moved from Ontario about a year ago, they are familiar with the legacy of Mel’s from word of mouth. Honea says she is looking forward to reviving the space and making it usable again. “Right now it’s just sitting, and it’s being wasted,” says Honea. “We do know it was a staple here, but we’re going to be proud to be able to make it something that is usable and that can succeed and be successful for the town of Sackville.”

CHMA sat down with Honea and Mora across the street from their soon-to-be new space, in bustling Ada’s Cafe one afternoon last week:

Both Honea and Mora are animal lovers (they have four dogs and a bunny) but Honea specializes in canine nutrition, and hopes to use that expertise to make Wild Carnivore the go-to spot for pets in town.… Continue

Foundation campaign to build hospital garden one more reason Sackville hospital is ‘thriving’, says Wheeler-Thorne

Sackville Memorial Hospital Foundation chair Bill Evans, Moneris Solutions representative Tanya Becker, Horizon hospital director Christa Wheeler-Thorne, and campaign director Carolle de Ste-Croix. Photo: Erica Butler

The Sackville Memorial Hospital Foundation has launched its latest fundraising campaign, and this time instead of purchasing a new piece of equipment, the foundation has commissioned a design for a three-season therapeutic outdoor garden courtyard behind the hospital.

The Foundation hopes to raise $150,000 in its Rest, Restore, Reconnect campaign, and hit the ground running on Thursday with a $20,000 commitment from Moneris Solutions, and another $40,000 in the bank from the previous year of donations.

“I’m blown away by the support that this community, our corporate and our private donors, make to this hospital that we all love,” said Bill Evans, foundation chair and former Sackville town councillor. Evans said that since 2010, donors had contributed $1.3 million towards hospital improvements. “The future of our hospital as an acute care facility with a 24/7 ER is of paramount concern to the residents of this town,” said Evans.

SMH is ‘thriving’

Evans expressed confidence that the hospital’s administrators, Horizon Health Network, are also committed to its future. Sackville and Moncton hospital chief Christa Wheeler-Thorne was on hand to back him up on that.

“Sackville Memorial Hospital is thriving,” said Wheeler-Thorne. “And I have some evidence that I can tell you about to demonstrate that.”

Sackville and Moncton hospital director Christa Wheeler-Thorne addresses the crowd at the kickoff of the Rest, Restore, Reconnect campaign.

… Continue

Investigate environmental factors potentially causing ‘atypical neurological decline,’ group tells province and feds

*Steve Ellis, whose* *father is among the patients initially identified as part of a neurodegenerative disease cluster*, *speaks in support of neurologist* *Allier Marrero during a news conference in Fredericton on Tuesday, March 28, 2023. Image: Screenshot.*

Patients and families struggling with symptoms of a neurodegenerative illness are calling for a new investigation into potential environmental causes of the condition.

Their demands come 13 months after the province announced that the “neurological syndrome of unknown cause” doesn’t exist.

The provincial Green Party held a news conference on Tuesday alongside people affected by the condition.

There are now 147 people “demonstrating a rapid onset of severe neurological symptoms,” according to the group. They said more than a third of those patients are under 45 years old.

Listen to the audio report:

Medical testing has shown that many of the patients were exposed to “multiple environmental toxins,” said Stacie Quigley Cormier, whose stepdaughter is among the patients.

In particular, she pointed to the herbicide glyphosate, which is widely used in forestry and agriculture.

“We want to confirm that in recent months, patients have tested positive for multiple environmental toxins, including glyphosate, with detectable levels between four and 40 times the average limit,” she told reporters.

Few details were immediately available, but she said “many patients have been tested.”

Her stepdaughter, former Mount Allison University student Gabrielle Cormier, is one of the youngest patients affected by what officials previously called a neurological syndrome of unknown cause.… Continue

Overcrowding in Shediac and Dieppe could mean rapid growth for Dorchester and Port Elgin schools next year

Dorchester Consolidated and Port Elgin Regional schools could see a student population boom next year as Anglophone East School District officials try to solve overcrowding issues in Shediac and Dieppe schools with boundary changes.

A suggested boundary change for Dorchester would see between 39 and 73 new students next fall, a significant increase for the small school, which this year had 94 students enrolled.

Port Elgin Regional School could see between 63 and 100 additional students next year, also a big increase from the school’s current enrolment of 180 students.

The new Port Elgin students would be coming from Shediac Cape school, a kindergarten to grade 12 Anglophone school on the western side of Shediac. The boundary change would mean kids living east of Grand Barachois, or even as far as Parlee Beach, would be bussed westward to Port Elgin instead of eastward to Shediac Cape.

*Detail from presentation to Anglophone East District Education Council, March 2023, showing two suggested areas that could be moved into the Port Elgin Regional School (PERS) catchment area.*

Dorchester Consolidated would take kids in the Memramcook area up to Dover Road, who are currently being bussed to Lou MacNarin School in Dieppe.

*Detail from presentation to Anglophone East District Education Council, March 2023, showing two suggested areas that could be added to Dorchester Consolidated School (DCS) catchment area.*

If the boundary changes go through, those students would proceed on to Tantramar Regional High School as they graduate from Dorchester and Port Elgin.… Continue

Tantramar’s Terrasonga Troupe tackles environmental issues in song

Members of the Terrasonga troupe from Port Elgin, Salem, and Marshview schools sing along with director Christine MacLeod. Photo: Erica Butler

Last Friday CHMA stopped by the basement of the Sackville Library, where thanks to a public school PD day, the kids of the Terrasonga Ecological Musical Troupe had gathered to rehearse.

Project leader Christine MacLeod runs Terrasonga in two Tantramar elementary school classrooms, as well as the troupe that meets outside of school weekly. All are part of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute’s outreach and education programs.

CHMA started off asking the Terrasonga kids to talk a bit about what they were up to:

The Terrasonga troupe is spending its time learning about acting, writing, and putting on a theatre production, as well as environmental issues like species extinction, which is the focus of their production, Have to Have a Habitat. They will debut Have to Have a Habitat at the Sackville United Church on April 22, Earth Day. Proceeds from the performances will go to support the Atlantic Wildlife Institute.

The Terrasonga Troupe, Photo: Erica Butler

After that, the troupe will take their show on tour to some Amherst area elementary schools, as well as Salem and Port Elgin schools, where MacLeod is running school-based programs with Grade 4 classes this year, thanks to a grant from the Canada Post Foundation.

MacLeod has been putting on Terrasonga productions for years, starting in Amherst when her own children were young, and now continuing in the Tantramar area as formal partners of the Atlantic Wildlife Institute.… Continue

‘Someone’s going to die’: Ambulance NB stops dispatching local first responders and citizens and firefighters fear the consequences

Roselys Belliveau thinks very fondly of her local fire department, and with good reason. One July day in 2020 her son Jean Yves Belliveau was up early and preparing for a trip when he suddenly felt ill. Before too long, Belliveau had collapsed. His wife frantically called 911, and within minutes, help arrived. But not an ambulance. That would arrive later. The first people on the scene were from the Memramcook Fire Department, where firefighters are trained and equipped for medical first aid response. The firefighters used a defibrillator to help revive Belliveau, something they had to do three times, and well before the ambulance arrived on scene.

“If it wasn’t for the Memramcook firemen,” says Belliveau, her now 48 year old son Jean Yves “wouldn’t be here at all.”

But since a change to Ambulance NB’s protocol in January, it’s unclear whether the Memramcook Fire Department will be called to help people like Jean Yves Belliveau in the future.

Roselys and Gerald Belliveau. Their son Jean Yves was rescued by local Memramcook firefighters equipped and trained with a defibrillator. Image: contributed

Not all fire departments in New Brunswick are trained or equipped for medical first aid. Memramcook was one of the first in the province to take on the extra duty, with a pilot project in 1999. Dorchester has also been doing medical first response for decades, and the newly amalgamated Straight Shores department, with Port Elgin and Cape Tormentine stations, is also trained to first responder first aid level.… Continue

Online ‘toolkit’ to help communities facing coastal erosion and flooding

A Sackville-based organization has launched a new Internet-based “toolkit” to help people in Atlantic Canada to adapt as the climate crisis results in increasingly erratic weather and rising sea levels.

CLIMAtlantic, a regional hub that provides information to help people deal with the effects of climate change, started operations in 2021 with funding from the federal government.

On Tuesday, the group launched the Coastal Adaptation Toolkit, which is mean to “help Atlantic rural coastal communities and property owners plan for the effects of climate change.”

Users respond to a series of questions about conditions at a specific site, such as as natural or human-made features that may offer some protection from flooding.

The system also queries users about policies that are in place locally, such as an emergency management plan.

The answers to those questions result in an automatically-generated report with a detailed list of possible measures to address the risk of flooding and coastal erosion.

It’s not a substitute for professional advice, but can serve as a first step for people facing extreme weather events like Hurricane Fiona, which hit Atlantic Canada last September.

“This is for educational purposes and information purposes,” said Sabine Dietz, executive director of CLIMAtlantic, in an interview with CHMA.

During the online launch, CLIMAtlantic also screened a new 12-minute documentary highlighting adaptation actions in the region.… Continue

Category: Community News

SMH is ‘thriving’