By Jim Brown
jim@peicanada.com

Tignish and O’Leary took different paths at special residents meetings held on the same night.

They were voting on a bylaw enforcement project that would involve the two communities.

On Sept 28 Tignish Council supported the three-year project while O’Leary councillors voted thumbs down.

If both councils had participated in the project, which would receive most of its funding from the province’s Capacity Building Fund, the total cost would have been $349,850 over the three-year-period.

Each community would have paid $55,712. Now only Tignish will be paying that amount.

Tignish administrator Karen Gaudet-Gavin stressed an application must still be approved by the Fund for the project to move ahead. 

“If we get approval it will run for a three-year period to March of 2014,” she said.

Once the application is approved the community will advertise for a bylaw enforcement officer, who would also draft and review bylaws. 

The community needs bylaw enforcement help in such areas as animal control, inspecting new construction to ensure the projects are properly permitted and collecting overdue sewer and water payments.

Tignish also needs help drafting a noise and nuisance bylaw that addresses the needs of residents and implementing and enforcing an unsightly premises bylaw.

Meanwhile, Nancy Wallace, Chairman of O’Leary Community Council, said councillors, after considering the input of residents at the meeting, voted unanimously not to participate in the project.

The three-year project simply couldn’t be justified because of the extended period and the cost, said Chairman Wallace.

Instead, the community will likely adopt a “pay as you go” plan of its own, she said.

In other words, hiring someone to review the community’s bylaws, which would involve scrapping those that are no longer relevant and perhaps drafting new ones to meet the community’s changing needs, she said.

“We will have a review of all our bylaws,” said Chairman Wallace.