Top

Editorial: Why Take Action Now: Eastern Shore’s High School

[Editor’s Note: This editorial represents the opinion of this newspaper about the location and design of the proposed new school. In our own stories, we have interviewed and quoted proponents and opponents of the Eastern Shore Industrial Park site, and have published unedited submissions from proponents. This editorial contains the conclusions we have come to after reviewing what we know. To the extent that our conclusions are in any way provisional, we deeply regret that both the previous Liberal government and the current PC government have refused to release critical information that should have been public before the selection of the site.]

May 12, 2022

Read

2014 Map Discredits School Site Selection Process

By Richard Bell One of the remaining mysteries about the secretive site selection process for the new consolidated junior/senior high is exactly how long ago the Liberal government decided to locate the school in the Eastern Shore Industrial Park in East Chezzetcook.

May 10, 2022

Read

Concerns About Consolidated School

Slide from SST showing features of consolidated junior/senior high. The main entry is at the top in gray. High school on left wing, junior high on right wing. Bright green rectangles are classrooms; dark blue rectangles on the senior and junior wings are labs. The large red rectangle in the center is the gym, with unisex changing room above. Orange is cafetorium. Next to gym, lower pink space is music room, opening to a low stage and the cafetorium. Above music is pink theatre room that can open into the gym.

April 29, 2022

Read

Prov Gov Continues Hiding School Site Doc

By Richard Bell For the last two years, the former government and now the current government have refused to allow the public to see the contents of a March 2020 Public Works technical report on two possible sites for replacing Eastern Shore District High (FOIPOP requests 2020-20456-TIR and 2021-0172-DPW).

April 26, 2022

Read

What Happened to Transparency?

By Richard Bell [Editor’s Note: The Liberals’ commitment to secretive decision-making played a role in their electoral loss. In the PC’s successful campaign, Premier Tim Houston made a commitment to transparency one of his core campaign themes.

February 25, 2022

Read

Keeping an Angel on East Petpeswick

By Richard Bell Residents along the Eastern Shore are up in arms over the possibility that an HRM Municipal Compliance inspector will order the removal of a community-beloved horse from her home at 1783 East Petpeswick Road because of alleged violations of HRM zoning regulations.

February 25, 2022

Read

Regulators Wrestle with Atlantic Gold

By Richard Bell The fate of Atlantic Gold’s ambitious plan for four open-pit gold mines along the Eastern Shore, which the company once called “a string of pearls,” is in the hands of provincial and federal regulators. Meanwhile the company is facing 32 charges under the province’s Environmental Act, although the courts have thus far allowed the company one postponement after another.

February 25, 2022

Read

Lighthouse Links Folds After Province Demands Serious Public Consultation

By Richard Bell The Cooperator has learned that Lighthouse Links withdrew from the letter of Offer to purchase Owls Head Provincial Park and convert it into a luxury housing development with a few golf courses after learning that the province had determined that the company’s plans for public consultation were inadequate, and that the province would require a more thoroughgoing public consultation process.

November 26, 2021

Read

Lighthouse Links Abandons Golf Course Plan

By Richard Bell Lighthouse Links announced on November 23, 2021 that it is withdrawing from the December 16, 2019 letter of Offer that it had signed with the province to purchase Owls Head Provincial Park and convert it into a luxury housing development with a few golf courses.

November 23, 2021

Read

Whale Sanctuary Visitors Centre Opens

By Richard Bell The Whale Sanctuary Project (WSP) took a major step forward with the October 29 opening of its Visitor and Operations Centre in a 100-year-old house in Sherbrooke, not far from the site of the proposed sanctuary itself in Port Hilford. The pathbreaking nature of the project and its potential economic impact on the area was reflected in the turnout of federal, provincial, and local elected officials, including Nova Scotia Lieutenant Governor Arthur Joseph LeBlanc and his wife Patricia, newly appointed federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser, several Guysborough Councillors, and HRM District 2 City Councillor David Hendsbee.

November 03, 2021

Read