The Municipality of Pictou County will be holding its tax rate for another year.
The residential tax rate will remain at $0.815 per $100 assessed value and the commercial rate will stay the same at $1.825 per $100 assessed value.
Warden Robert Parker said this year’s budget was one of the most difficult to balance without a tax increase in many years.
In Pictou County, property values, which are determined by the Property Valuation Services Corporation, have risen 12 per cent in the last year.
Parker says that holding the tax rate was a high priority of council because of the increase in most property assessments.
Council has approved an operating budget of about $23.2-million for the 2023/2024 fiscal year.
The Municipality’s mandatory education contribution increased by 6.7 per cent to a total of $5.65 million.
Police protection increased by 6 per cent for a total of $4.19 million.
One of the largest new expenses in this year’s budget is $1.4 million for the demolition of the former East Pictou School.
Shortly after noon on Monday, New Glasgow Regional Police responded to a two-vehicle collision at the intersection of George Street and Archimedes Street in New Glasgow.
One of the drivers was charged for failing to stop at a flashing red light.
The intersection was closed to traffic for over an hour, and Police continue to investigate.
Nova Scotia Health has begun contacting approximately 700 people whose requisitions or referrals from VirtualCareNS were not received by the intended services due to a technical problem.
Nova Scotia Health says the problem has been resolved.
About 1.09 per cent of VirtualCareNS users to date were affected, and all affected users will be contacted directly by mail and should receive letters by July 10.
Nova Scotia’s attorney general has asked the province’s chief judge to replace Judge Warren Zimmer in an inquiry that investigated why Afghanistan war veteran Lionel Desmond killed his family and himself in 2017.
Zimmer was set to retire as a judge in March 2022 when he turned 75, a month before the inquiry’s hearings concluded, but his term in office was extended four times over the past 18 months to allow him to complete his final report.
After the most recent extension expired on Friday, Attorney General Brad Johns decided to call in a replacement, saying the Desmond family and the larger community have been waiting long enough for answers.
Desmond fatally shot his mother, wife, daughter and himself in Upper Big Tracadie, Nova Scotia, in January 2017, and the province called for an inquiry in February 2018.
A Nova Scotia folk singer is lending his name to a program that provides healthy food to rural schoolchildren in the province.
Dave Gunning is becoming the artistic sponsor of a drive to set up centres that will stock rural schools in Nova Scotia with nourishing food and other necessities for students.
Gunning says he started to appreciate the problem when his school teacher wife told him about children lacking healthy lunches at her Pictou County school.
The Rural Communities Foundation of Nova Scotia, which operates the program, says child poverty in the province is most acute in rural areas.
The Town is advising that a contractor will be shutting down water to New Glasgow customers on some days over the next week.
It’s to allow for work on connections from the newly installed main to the existing mains.
Paper notices will be delivered to each impacted resident.
Today it impacts all residents at the Autumn Crest apartments; on Thursday it’s Elm Street, Abercrombie Rd. to Lavinia Street and civic 182 Abercrombie Road.
; and on Friday or Monday on Bell Street from Abercrombie Rd. to Lavinia St. civic 110 Lavinia.
Outages can last approximately 6 hours starting mid-morning.
Affected customers should turn off electric hot water tanks and store water for daily needs; and turn off the shutoff valve inside your home to prevent any back siphonage of water.
