Looking back at Shelburne County history

From 1983

The Town of Shelburne was looking to annex land from the Municipality of Shelburne and the matter was to be the focus of hearings conducted by the Nova Scotia Municipal Board, starting Jan. 24. At a recent public meeting called by the warden and municipal council of Shelburne, residents of the municipality opposed to the annexation were encouraged to turn out for the upcoming hearings and express their opinion. A number of businesses operating in the Municipality of Shelburne said they would consider closing or relocating if the annexation was approved because of the increased taxes they expected to have to pay.

A boundary settlement had been reached between the municipalities of Barrington and Shelburne. According to the decision from the Board of Commissioners of Public Utilities, the Municipality of Barrington would gain 3,500 acres of land. The northerly boundary between the Barrington and Shelburne municipalities had been indistinct and subject to various interpretations for many years. “It was the intent of both municipalities to clarify and firmly establish once and for all where that boundary was,” said a local municipal official. It was ruled that the boundary would be the course of the Clyde River for its entire length, from the mouth to the point where it crossed the boundary between Shelburne and Yarmouth counties.

The Town of Clark’s Harbour had decided to stick with the RCMP rather than reinstate a town police force. In October 1982, Clarks Harbour’s mayor and town council had opted to have a study done to see if it was viable to re-establish a town police force. The town had received complaints about the existing policing situation, but the study found that having a town police force would be too costly for ratepayers and so the decision was made to have the RCMP continue to police the town.

Nineteen-eighty-three was Shelburne’s bicentennial year and the committee heading up the 200thanniversary celebrations had met to discuss what was coming up and what was planned. Rita Bower was chair of the nine-member group.

Also in the news in early 1983, Hattie Perry and Robert Harris were to receive awards from the American Association of State and Local History. A reception in their honour was planned for Jan. 19 at the Barrington municipal office.

From 1996

The chairman of a local committee calling for the restoration of surgery and obstetrics at Roseway Hospital was upset over the lack of progress on the issue. Herb Locke suggested it might be time to fill a couple of school buses with placard-carrying citizens from the Shelburne area and go to Halifax. He made the remarks after the assistant to Ron Stewart – Nova Scotia’s health minister at the time – called off an early-January meeting with the local committee, citing illness. The committee had been formed after a public meeting in August 1995, a session attended by over 350 people. Among other things, the committee was seeking statistics from the province to justify the closure of surgery and obstetrics at Roseway.

With less than three months to go before a provincial ban on open-burning dumpsites came into effect, the Municipality of Barrington was getting down to the nitty-gritty of where and how to dispose of its municipal waste. Barrington council had decided to truck garbage to the Yarmouth landfill in co-operation with the Town of Clark’s Harbour, start a blue-bag recycling program, initiate backyard composting in the community and invite proposals from the private sector for establishing a construction debris disposal site.

Construction of the recently opened Barrington arena had gone $225,000 over budget, prompting Barrington municipal council to borrow that amount from its general revenue fund to cover the higher-than-expected price tag. The total cost now stood at $2.329,700. The arena, meanwhile, reportedly was operating at full capacity and there was said to be a waiting list of people or groups wanting to use the facility.