EVANSTON: Three municipal councils and Cape Breton-Richmond MLA Michel Samson will examine all avenues to re-launch a Community Outreach and Support Worker (COSW) position overseen by the Richmond County Literacy Network (RCLN) for a 26-month period that ended in late December.
A meeting on the issue held Sunday afternoon saw Samson join RCLN coordinator Millie Hatt and board chair Shirley McNamara, Richmond Warden Brian Marchand, interim Richmond Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Maris Freimanis, Richmond councillors Jason MacLean, Alvin Martell and Gilbert Boucher, Port Hawkesbury Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton and Deputy Mayor Trevor Boudreau, and Inverness District 6 councillor John Dowling to discuss the COSW post.
As a result, according to McNamara, the municipal representatives in attendance will bring the issue back to their respective councils and have tentatively agreed to a follow-up meeting, while Samson has pledged to investigate any funding avenues available on the provincial level.
“He certainly seemed to be emotionally with us – whether he’s able to come back from Halifax with money, we don’t know,” McNamara told The Reporter Monday morning.
“He saw the value in having an outreach worker to help seniors and disabled people and other people who feel the need for help.”
The COSW position – launched as a one-year pilot project in October 2014 and continued through the assistance of funding sources including the Municipality of Richmond County, the provincial government and the RCLN – ended on December 30. One week earlier, Richmond councillors unanimously defeated a motion that would have provided $11,333 to allow the outreach worker post to continue until March 31, pending discussions with Port Hawkesbury.
At the time, Warden Marchand declared that the RCLN had refused to consider a municipal proposal to use approximately $10,194 of the RCLN’s reserve funds to help keep the position running in January. McNamara noted that this issue arose again during Sunday’s meeting, and defended the literacy organization’s protection of its reserves.
“We do not have money to swim in,” she insisted.
“We’ve done very well to be able to offer in-kind [services] and to help hold on to the position as long as we have helped. In the future, we have to pay close attention to holding some money in the reserves that we have to ensure that we have literacy programs in the future.”
Despite this disagreement, McNamara reported that two of the five Richmond officials in attendance were “very supportive” and “spoke glowingly” about the work carried out by Jenny Comeau in the COSW position, while Dowling and the Port Hawkesbury delegation pledged to remain in the discussions over the coming days and weeks.
“Port Hawkesbury is very willing to sit and the table and try to hammer out the way that they can best help in the next year or more,” McNamara recalled.
“And [Dowling] was very willing and anxious to hear what was said by everyone, and go back to [his] council and discuss, very openly, what role they can play and how the role played by the outreach worker can facilitate or help people on this end of [Inverness] County.”
