Pictou County Case Study

Five small towns and the rural municipality, two of those towns now left out, try to convince the people of joining the remaining four together. Pictou county has been wanting to amalgamate the towns for years. It had finally sent an application to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board last year, and was approved. The province has also offered the county $27 million in transition funs for the following five years on the terms that the amalgamation was voted on successfully. The leaders of the towns say that the decision to amalgamate was not based on bad finances and debts owing. The application as stated that the taxes and service levels will not be adversely affected, also that the outstanding debt of each area would be covered by the …show more content…
To most it seems that they will be getting higher taxes and paying for the mistakes of the past they had no say in. The residents argue that the benefits they wanted to achieve could be reached another way, with the already existing councils co-operating with each other. That doesn’t seem like a hard thing to do, except the towns involved aren’t even considering co-operating and are just focused on winning the amalgamation and paying off the bad financial choices they have made. The residents of the towns and rural communities feel like they aren’t being told enough and they weren’t being involved. With having the other two towns left out of the amalgamation, why would you consider a partial join of the towns? It would still be separated and not a true amalgamation they have said to be looking for. If they say its for the good of the county and not just the money to get out of the debt they have made in the other towns involved they should consider a plan that isn’t money based. A plan that would involved talking to the people and each community councils meeting together and making the effort to work together on this would be best for the county not a partial amalgamation to get funding just to raise taxes and pay off