Tantramar staff are heading out on the road to talk to and hear from residents in a municipal awareness campaign. The Tantramar Municipal Roadshow starts Thursday in Dorchester, before continuing to four other wards in the amalgamated municipality.
CHMA spoke to Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne and Communications Officer Jeremy McLaughlin to find out more:
“It’s going to give people a chance to put a face to the name,” says Communications Officer Jeremy McLaughlin. “There’s a ton of amazing work that gets done within the community, and a lot of people only see the problem or the solution, they don’t see a lot of the work that happens in between.”
Tantramar CAO Jennifer Borne says residents are invited to “come with their question in hand to ask us, [or] come and just sit in on the session and hear about our municipal services.”
The roadshow will also host sessions in the other four wards of Tantramar in the coming weeks:
- Saturday, May 25, 10am-11:30am at St Marks Anglican Church Hall in Mount Whatley
- Thursday, May 30, 10am-11:30am at the Tantramar Civic Centre in Sackville
- Thursday, June 13, 6pm-7:30pm at the Sackville Music Barn on Station Road, Upper Sackville
- Wednesday June 19, 6pm-7:30pm at St. Ann’s Hall in Westcock
Borne says town managers will attend the sessions, and support staff are being encouraged to come as well. Local fire departments and the RCMP have also committed to attending, says Borne. The sessions will include short presentations by staff followed by a question and answer period.
Municipal awareness campaigns are “not a new idea”, says Borne, and the need for increased engagement was included in Tantramar’s 2024 priority action plan. “We know that local government is the government closest to the people,” says Borne. “So we want to meet on one-on-one, provide information to our residents, talk about ideas, and really share information.”
Borne says the campaign will serve as initial steps in a process coming this summer for the municipality to develop a longer term strategic plan. The municipality has hired a consultant to help that process, and Borne says she’s hoping that residents will “be active participants in the community, in local government, and come out and share your ideas and shape the future of Tantramar.”
Thursday’s session starts at the Dorchester Veterans Community Centre on Main Street at 5pm with a BBQ, then the roadshow session begins at 6pm.
