ISLE MADAME - Richmond Municipal Council is finalizing a pitch to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (UARB) to maintain the current five-district council structure, with some strategic boundary shifts between districts, for the next two municipal elections in 2024 and 2028.

The UARB had originally requested a final decision from the county by December 31, but allowed an extension to February 15 to allow the municipality to consult its residents again via an internet survey that closed in mid-January and a series of Open Houses carried out across the county over the past month. 

Richmond Council was reduced from ten districts to five in 2016, following a ruling from the UARB during the last municipal boundary review for the county. After a 50-minute discussion at Monday's regular council meeting at the Richmond Municipal Building in Arichat, all five existing councillors voted to pitch the maintaining of these five districts, with a number of additional measures designed to address individual issues from the previous two municipal elections. 

Council is looking to end the division of the municipal seat of Arichat between Districts 1 and 2 on Isle Madame, while shifting the District 2 community of Lennox Passage - located just off Isle Madame - into neighbouring District 3. The community of Grande-Greve, located between St. Peter's and L'Ardoise, would reside entirely within District 4 under the county's new proposal, after being divided between Districts 4 and 5 in the previous two elections. 

The two Isle Madame councillors, District 1's Shawn Samson and District 2's Michael Diggdon, expressed doubt in the efficiency and accuracy of the county's recent internet survey on the issue. While roughly 40 per cent of the 106 respondents favoured a seven-councillor model, Samson and Diggdon suggested that the survey process was open to such abuses as repeat selection of the same governance option from an individual computer at a specific IP address.

The two councillors made these comments during an Open House that they hosted on the municipal boundary issue at Centre La Picasse in Petit de Grat, just two days before the final vote on the issue at the regular Richmond Council meeting.