Virgil Hammock has lived in Sackville for nearly 50 years, teaching at Mount Allison University for almost 30 of those years. He previously served on Sackville town council from 1999 and 2012 and has held positions on the Southeast Regional Health Authority board and planning commission.
Listen to CHMA’s Meet The Candidates interview with Virgil Hammock, which took place at his home in downtown Sackville on November 10, 2022.
Hammock is running for Ward 3, where residents will elect four councillors from a pool of nine candidates, including Hammock, Bruce Phinney, Michael Tower, Allison Butcher, Alice Cotton, Sahitya Pendurthi, Josh Goguen, Charles Harvey, and Sana Mohammed. All candidates have interviews on CHMA, except for Charles Harvey who declined, and Sana Mohammed, who did not 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: Interview with Virgil Hammock, November 10, 2022
CHMA: Virgil Hammock. Thanks for taking some time to speak with us.
Virgil Hammock: My pleasure, Erica.
CHMA: Just to start off, for people who might not already know you, tell us a bit about yourself?
Virgil Hammock: Well, my name is, as you say, Virgil Hammock. I’ve lived in Sackville for 47 years. I taught at Mount A for 29 years, and 19 of those years as head of the Fine Arts department.
I’ve had some experience in what we’re trying to do, I served 13 years on town council before from 1999 to 2012. I also served on the Southeast Regional Health Authority Board, for a four year elected term, and seven years on the planning commission. So that’s the kind of experience I’m talking about.
CHMA: Okay, yeah, that’s great. What factored into your decision this year to run for this new amalgamated town of Tantramar council?
Virgil Hammock: Well, actually, part of it is frustration in being relatively pissed off. I think this is an unnecessary election. I am not a big fan of amalgamation. When I was on council before, a Liberal government at the time tried to force amalgamation on us. And we managed to fight it back and other communities did as well. And I think that it’s going to be a difficult time for this new council. And I think I can bring some experience to it, to help it along. So that would be my idea. I think I have a lot more experience in these kinds of organizations and events.
CHMA: Okay. Can you give us a bit of an overview of some of the issues that you’d like to be bringing to the table if you if you’re elected?
Virgil Hammock: Yeah, I think a lot of times, I go to these debates and they say, ‘my platform’ and ‘blah, blah, blah.’ Well, as an individual councillor, that’s totally stupid, because you can’t accomplish anything without teamwork, and working together with other people.
And there’s very, you know, we operate under a weak government system in municipal politics. We are a vessel of the province. We have very little power, but what power we have, we have to use wisely. And I think the problem coming with a new council is the combination of rural and urban, and understanding each other, and seeing what we can do to make as much noise as we can in Fredericton to get what is due us, but also let them know what the needs of this community are.
The very fact that they dissolved, and I really am annoyed about, you know, the history… that we have 250 years plus history of the name of Sackville and Dorchester. And, you know, just this idea that they can just whack that off. I know everybody’s going to be using Sackville and Dorchester, or Wood Point, forever, I hope. But I am extremely annoyed with the Tantramar tag.
CHMA: Okay, like the name Tantramar in particular, or just the fact that there’s a replacement…
Virgil Hammock: Okay no, Tantramar is okay. It’s about the marsh. I mean, it comes from a term called tintammare, which means big noise. I like that part. Because I think that part of my job is making a big noise. But uh, you know, it’s a dumb name, as far as I’m concerned, because if Sackville… I don’t know what we could have done besides… Higgsville, perhaps? Higgsville, I like.
CHMA: I wanted to ask you specifically about a couple issues here. So let me highlight housing. That’s come up a lot for people in town in the last couple years. Should the municipality do something to address the housing crisis? And if so, what do you think can be done at the municipal level?
Virgil Hammock: Okay, know, what we can do is very little, because of, you know, building codes and regulations, cost, and a lack of federal and provincial funding for affordable housing. At one time, years and years ago, there was a lot of money available to build affordable housing. But right at the moment, especially with the taxation issues, and inflation, and more and more expensive homes being built, that for people of modest means, it’s a very difficult thing.
I think we can look at ways of changing the building code, for instance, allowing mini-homes, Granny suites. That’s the kind of thing we can do. But most landlords, and for many years I spent on town council and the planning commission, they’re in it to make money, obviously. And they’re not going to… They’re in it to build expensive units, because they make more money doing that, right? And the idea that they’re going to all of a sudden, build inexpensive housing, from something that we say in town council is a ludicrous idea.
But we certainly need to think and push. And, for instance, we need to look at lowering the mill rate. That’s something I need, because we’ve made our… Our budgets for years, all the years I was on council, [relied] on increasing assessment value. So we didn’t raise the mill rate. What we did was say, Oh, we’re holding the mill rate steady, we’ve got more cash because the assessment went up.
And in this past two years, it’s like this little house we’re sitting in now, my assessment has gone up $35,000, the assessment has gone up for $35,000 for a two bedroom bungalow, which didn’t change 100 bucks for the five years before. So that’s a problem. And it’s a problem I can afford to probably pay the increase in taxes.
Some people jumped on this and said oh, they’re gonna keep them frozen for five years. But I’m still gonna get a 10% whack this coming year. And after five years, what’s going to happen? So no, I think housing is an extremely important issue. And something we should try and be proactive [about]. But we’re not miracle workers, we can’t force people to build houses. We can’t force people to build apartments. Or we can try and make it easier for them. But through the zoning, but we’ve lost control over that now, too.
CHMA: We’ve also heard from readers and listeners that transparency is a key issue of transparency and openness. And people mean different things by that. I’ll guess I’ll kind of ask you, how you interpret that, and do you think that the new town should be doing anything differently regarding how they operate with, you know, in terms of openness and transparency?
Virgil Hammock: I should say that I published a position paper on transparency, that’s on Facebook, and on my blog, which is virgilhammock.com. Transparency. So every election the issue comes up. Every [time] the non-incumbents, you know, blame the incumbents for a lack of transparency. Then we have a long discussion, and everybody agrees, it’s a good idea. We elect a new council, and they go back, and again, we have a lack of transparency.
So the Municipal Act actually limits what we can talk about in camera. But that’s often overlooked, at least in my time on council. And you’re only supposed to do things in camera, that are like personnel or financial issues and things you don’t talk about, your employees, you know, in an open meeting. You don’t discuss, you know, the town’s interested in buying a piece of land, in an open meeting. So we’re very limited in what we should talk about. We’re not allowed in camera to have a debate in camera or to make pre-decisions about things that are on the agenda of the town council meeting. But it’s too easy to fall into that trap.
So I’ve always tried, and I will continue to try as an individual councillor, to encourage council not to go into in camera meetings. And if I think they are not correct, I will not go to them. And if I am in one, and it shifts into something I think is incorrect, I will leave that meeting.
So now I think there’s very little that… We should debate everything in the open, and vigorous debate. You know, I’m not against that kind of thing. But obviously, we should not be discussing issues in camera that will come up on the agenda, much less it being illegal, it’s improper.
So no, transparency has always been an issue. It’s easy to go in camera and make decisions before and vent your anger, blah, blah, blah, and then go back out into the [open meeting] and just rubber stamp stuff on the agenda. It was much worse years ago than it is now. But no, it is a problem now, and we should be transparent in everything that we do in the town council.
CHMA: Let’s talk a bit about amalgamation. I’ve been asking people for their best and worst. So when you’re looking ahead to this new town of Tantramar council, what is something you’re excited about that you think actually might be good coming out of it? And what’s something that you’re worried about or something you think is going to be a challenge? The best and the worst…
Virgil Hammock: Best and the worst? Well, as far as the best, I don’t think there’s a best. You know, I think there’s a problem here. Because centralization has always been a mantra of provincial governments, and it never works.
Halifax, you can go through any… Mirimachi. You can go through a whole litany of towns who have been amalgamated. And hospital amalgamation didn’t work. Centralization never saves money. It’s a stupid idea. It gives people less democracy. So I can’t think of any good reason. Okay, maybe we can operate common snowplows or blah, blah, blah, you know, economies of scale. But they never work either.
So, you know, I was talking to somebody in Dorchester. People in Dorchester are worried they are going to lose their fire department, for instance, lose their library. And I said to them, I would fight not to have that happen, but I have no control over that, because that’s done by the province. So all the crap… And this Regional Commission that stands between us and the government. Six wise men, and I assume they’ll all be men, who stand, with big salaries, in between us and Fredericton. That’s a problem because they’re going to be taking over they’re going to have a say in things we used to do. So no, I think we were better off on a smaller scale where you can talk directly.
Now another problem is the ward system. I don’t want to get into this, but when I was elected councillor in 1999, I was a Ward 1 councillor, which is where you and I are sitting now, downtown Sackville. And I was expected to carry on speaking for that Ward. We had four at-large councillors and four ward councillors.
The whole idea of a ward councillor is to take care of his people or her people in the ward. Now, obviously, we have to think differently about that. Because you know, Sackville has got by far the more seats than the other outlying areas, which is a far larger area. And most of us in Sackville really don’t have a clue about the needs of, you know, a dairy farmer or any kind of rural people and their lives. And they not, ours. So that’s why I’m saying, it’s a difficult situation. We as a council, assuming a lot, have to understand each other and how we do our resources. Already Sackville was the largest town in the province in area, and had huge infrastructure problems with streets and things which we had responsibility for. Now we have a huge area with all sorts of, I can see, infrastructure problems. Everybody’s going to be screaming about their potholes and roads. People in the rural areas are going to be much more taxed, but you’re not going to get any water and sewer. You’re dreaming in technicolour if they think they were going to run water lines out to Wood Point. Ain’t going to happen. But they’re gonna get taxed like they did.
So no, I think it’s just bureaucrats thinking that centralizing things always works. When in truth, it never works.
CHMA: So no, no best but a few contenders for worst.
Virgil Hammock: I can feign excitement. I’m sure when I go to the debate on the weekend, people are all going to be excited and feigning excitement… but I would be lying.
CHMA: All right. Is there anything you know, speaking of wards, is there anything else you want people in Ward 3 to know?
Virgil Hammock: Well, I don’t know. I mean, Ward 3, it’s the whole town. So it’s not like the old thing… So no more than the idea that now Sackville is part of a larger community. And we can’t expect, you know, to have 95% of the cake. We have to understand that there is Dorchester and other communities and we’re going to have to work together with them. And they’re all nice people.
Obviously the problems we had in Sackville before amalgamation are problems we are gonna have after amalgamations. And I’m not a miracle maker. I’m one councillor of eight.
CHMA: All right, any final words?
Virgil Hammock: Well, none at all except that I hopefully, I look forward to being on council. Oh, let me make one further… I did publish this online. I talked about the elephant in the room.
Let’s talk about ageism. Just give me the last… Okay, folks, I am an old guy. I am over 80 years old, but I’m, as you can hear, I’m still alive. And the idea is that… this has been people heard this going around, that I’m too old to do anything. No, I’m not. My mind is still working. I’m an active writer, and all of that.
But I think age brings wisdom. I’ve had a lot of experience in in other things in town. I started the coop, I was president of the Coop. And I’m still active. I’m not running marathons, I can hardly walk down the street, much less run a marathon. But yes, I am old. I understand. I’m old. And so be it. I plan to stay old. That’s my final word on that.
CHMA: Thank you very much, Virgil.
Virgil Hammock: You’re very welcome, Erica.
Correction: An earlier version of this post featured the full audio of an interview with another Ward 3 candidate. The post was updated at approximately 9:15 a.m. on Thursday, November 17, 2022, to include the interview with Virgil Hammock instead. We regret the error.
