ANTIGONISH COUNTY: The warden of the Municipality of the County of Antigonish says the purpose of the “What We Heard Report” on municipal consolidation was not to measure who was for or against, but to capture the overarching themes uncovered in the community engagement process.
“The next step is going to be, (that) the ‘What We Heard Report’ is going to be pushed out to the public,” Warden Owen McCarron told reporters following the municipality’s regular monthly council meeting on Sept. 13. “And then the public will have an opportunity to comment and review the report to see if the report reflected what was heard.”
From the municipality’s discussions and review of the report, completed by Brighter Community Planning and Consulting, McCarron suggested that the report certainly reflected what they heard in the community engagement sessions.
“It’s not designed for another round of public consultation,” he said. “It’s just to make sure that what we heard in the community sessions got reflected in the report.”
As for what the report consists of, the warden explained the summary document is more of a reflection of feedback from the community, and some of what was heard has given them an opportunity to dig into some details.
“We’re encouraging the public to take a good read of the report,” McCarron said. “We’re going to make it available, councillors will have copies, it’ll be available online, there will be copies at the library, and copies at both municipal buildings,” he said. “If (someone) can’t access it online, reach out to your councillor, or a staff at the municipal office and we’ll be sure to get (them) a report.”
The report is a key piece of what will inform their overall decision-making, McCarron noted.
With the community response period concluding on Sept. 29, both council’s will look to make a decision at some point later this fall, he said, noting a decision is not possible by October.
“We haven’t firmed up a date, as far as when a vote may take place, because we’ll hear some of the feedback from the public input,” McCarron said. “And of course there are still questions that we need to dig into and get some answers to, so council will take that time and (use) what we heard from the report and the public input.”
As for what questions the municipality feels need to be answered, the warden suggested issues of community identity, fiscal capacity, and service delivery have been raised.
When asked if the two-week window was long enough for the community to review the report, McCarron thinks it is.
“We went through an extensive consultation process with over 20 engagement sessions,” he said. “So I think the public interested in reading the report, a couple of weeks will be ample time to read it and feed some input back.”
After talking with the consultants about the timeline for feedback, the warden said that seems to be a reasonable amount of time.
Highlighting the total number of people who came out to all of the community engagement sessions, McCarron indicated it was less than 10 per cent of the community’s population.
“If you take a read through the report, you’ll see lots of variety of discussions that happened,” he said. “One thing that struck us was the fairly low turnout in terms of overall population that came out and expressed an opinion.”
If anyone feels their perspective was not captured, or there is a major theme missing, they are welcome to submit their feedback via email to: info@antigonish.ca, phone 1-833-563-2786, or drop off their written submission to either municipal office by Sept. 29, at 4 p.m.