PORT HAWKESBURY: Brenda Chisholm-Beaton’s latest trip to the annual conference of the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities (UNSM) was no routine matter.
Making her first visit to the late-fall UNSM gathering in Halifax as the mayor of Port Hawkesbury, Chisholm-Beaton joined the town’s Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Terry Doyle, first-term town councillor Jeremy White, and municipal officials from Victoria, Inverness, Guysborough and Antigonish counties on a bus provided by Strait Area Transit (SAT).
While Port Hawkesbury is currently not one of SAT’s municipal funding partners, Mayor Chisholm-Beaton confirmed that town council has spoken to the transit co-operative’s board of directors about making a follow-up presentation to town council early in the New Year with regard to potential future partnerships.
“They’re probably going to bring some stats about how Strait Area Transit is serving citizens of Port Hawkesbury,” Chisholm-Beaton told reporters following last week’s regular monthly meeting of Port Hawkesbury Town Council, her first such meeting as mayor.
“When they come with those stats, I think it will be very important to discuss what that service means to the town and look for ways that we can support Strait Area Transit, whether it be in-kind or cash contributions and making it part of our budget. So that’s definitely a conversation that I’m foreseeing that’s going to take place – we’ll definitely look forward to that.”
As for the UNSM conference itself, Mayor Chisholm-Beaton spoke positively about the Strait area delegation’s participation at the three-day event in Halifax.
“It was an atmosphere that was very optimistic, and I feel like great things are going to happen with regards to the new faces we’re seeing in leadership roles,” Mayor Chisholm-Beaton predicted.
“It was actually a fantastic conference – there was lots of really great material that came out of the different speakers that were presenting. There was a great message of municipal cooperation and also a great message of what you could do at the grassroots level to improve your communities… I really enjoyed all of it.”
This sense of cooperation included a conversation with the new Mayor of Antigonish, Laurie Boucher, along with encouragement from longtime Yarmouth Mayor Pam Mood.
“She said, ‘You know, being a female mayor, if you have any questions, please feel free to call,’” Chisholm-Beaton enthused.
However, the new Port Hawkesbury mayor also noticed a recurring theme among UNSM delegates from outside of the Strait area that were used to seeing the face of Billy Joe MacLean, the town’s mayor for 30 of the previous 43 years, at previous UNSM conferences.
“[They] kind of walked up to me and looked at my name tag and saw ‘Port Hawkesbury’ and saw ‘Mayor,’ and they said, ‘Where’s Billy Joe? Are you the new Billy Joe?’ I must have gotten that about 25 times, and I didn’t know quite how to respond to that,” Chisholm-Beaton laughed.
“I will honestly say that he was missed at the UNSM conference. I did get a lot of support and welcome as the new mayor… It was interesting.”