St. George Mayor and Councillor Express Concern Over Municipal Reform

New Brunswick is currently preparing for province-wide amalgamation of local governments, which will culminate in municipal elections in November 2022. For the Town of St. George, that means merging with Blacks Harbour, Back Bay, Bonnie River, St. Patrick, Lake Utopia, Pennfield, Seeleys Cove, and Beaver Harbour to become a new municipality known as Eastern Charlotte. The current St. George council will be completely dissolved in January 2023 with new elected officials. 

Councillor Sam Rubin is not only disappointed to see the town amalgamating but also believes municipal reform is giving more power to the provincial government and less to the municipalities. He says that the transition advisory committee that he has been sitting on has not been fairly listened to by the province when making important decision that affect the region. 

"I want to talk a little bit about the amalgamation transition advisory committee," said Rubin  near the end of the regular October 2022 council meeting for the Town of St. George. "The committee is pretty well wrapped up now as things go towards the election. We have three people in this room that have been on that committee, and we have a wealth of knowledge around the table while this process has gone on. We've made suggestions, but we certainly hear different things that are going forward as the government has been engaged with the public. I was a little disappointed by the ward maps that were presented to us two weeks ago--they are the same ones I saw six months ago. They were quite unchanged." 

Rubin went on the stress that he is worried how municipal reform will affect residents as they navigate life with record-high inflation rates. 

"Now, as most of you have received your new tax assessment, the only thing I have to say about that is that it is not the best timing as far as I'm concerned with inflation being at an all-time high," said Rubin. "Bank rates are increasing quite consistently and this is just an extra burden on the family and homeowners in the area. Itr is just an extra little strain on a young family growing up today. It must be very hard, I would think, and even for pensioners--it means the winter time's coming. Heater fuel is going up, electricity is going up, and now the Members of the Legislative Assembly want more money. And the answer from the provincial government is that the municipality should reduce their tax rate. Well, we no longer exist, so that's going to be up to the government. This should be very interesting to see how that's going to work out for us. We know we're going to have less money; we're going to pay more are we going to get less. 

"The other final thing that I I've noticed recently is that the province would like to have a five-year budget. Now, I don't know anybody that can run a household or anything for five years on the same budget year after year after year, especially with increases in the way things are going up with costs of power, gas, and food. That's my rant for today and maybe next month you'll get another one."

Mayor John Detorakis echoed Council Rubin's sentiments by adding, "I am part of the same committee that Councillor Rubin spoke about. We pretend that we are consulted, and they pretend that they listen, and it's unfortunate but this is where we are now. Where do we go from here? I'm hoping that as we move forward and communicate a vision for our region because you have to do the best that we can with what we've got."