L'ARDOISE - Officials with a community health centre serving eastern Richmond County have once again made a pitch to Richmond Municipal Council to secure funding that will help them continue their day-to-day operations over the coming year. 

Appearing before the May 8 meeting of council's Committee of the Whole at the Richmond Municipal Building in Arichat, the board chair of the Dr. Kingston Memorial Community Health Centre in L'Ardoise, Juanita Mombourquette, and the centre's managing director, Sherry Sampson, requested a donation of $10,000 for the coming year. The municipality made a donation in the same amount nearly a year earlier. 

Mombourquette noted that, with the assistance provided by three levels of government over the past year, the Kingston centre finished the 2022-23 fiscal year with a surplus of $6,712,41 - "which is good," Mombourquette wryly noted, "because back in January, we were in the red." 

Richmond officials will consider the request as part of their upcoming budget deliberations. 

Also on Roundtable this week:

2:29 - Richmond municipal officials expressed frustration that the head office of the Conseil scolaire acadien provincial (CSAP) have thus far refused to consider cost-sharing for a sidewalk extension designed to improve safety at Ecole Beau-Port, the CSAP's official Richmond County school site in Arichat. 

21:39 - Richmond Warden Amanda Mombourquette provided a recap of her participation in the WindEurope 2023 conference in Denmark. Mombourquette attended the late-April conference with her fellow co-chair of the Strait Area Offshore Wind Task Force, Port Hawkesbury Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton, and the Cape Breton Partnership's Innovation and Economic Development Officer for Richmond County and Port Hawkesbury, Martin Thomsen.

36:27 - Upland Consulting representatives Karen MacTavish and Max Chauvin provided an update on their progress in developing a 10-year Active Living Strategy and Recreation Plan for the Municipality of Richmond County.