With just about 14 days to go before this campaign is over, it’s time we did a quick look back at why I began onerothesay.com.

I am a relative newcomer to Rothesay. I moved here in the late 90’s. Family interests first drew me here. However, it is the new friends we found, the river, and Rothesay’s green space that have kept us in Rothesay.

In 1998 Rothesay was affordable. There was room to breath and, the walks – well the walking paths were everywhere. For anyone who has lived in other places in Canada or as we did for a time, on the edge of the black country in the British Midlands, Rothesay is just right. Not too big, not too small, a community of human scale and with most of its past intact. These are reasons why, perhaps, that Rothesay holds its charm for so many today.

In the ’90s Rothesay grew with amalgamation. As it grew, so did the needs of its residents. It may be fair to say that in 1998 Rothesay could have obtained a better deal from Fredericton to cover the significant shortfall in basic municipal infrastructure that it inherited at amalgamation.

That did not happen. So, while the tax bills for residents in the new areas grew, some by more than 400%, the infrastructure shortfall was never properly addressed and, yes, the problem extends beyond French Village.

Kennebecasis Park resident are paying a hefty “improvement levy” annually to cover upgrades to their water and sewer infrastructure, while residents in other parts of Rothesay are having their streets and water and sewer upgrades paid for by all ratepayers. While K-Park ratepayers have good cause to be unhappy about their annual “improvement levy”, the residents of  French Village, after paying Rothesay taxes for 18 years, simply want to know, “When can our basic needs for safe streets, sidewalks be met?”

A provincial candidate in 2014 said of his experience going door to door campaigning east of the MacKay Highway, “They aren’t demanding frills out there, just basic services we take for granted west of the highway.”  While frills were not asked for in this part of Rothesay either, they have been a significant part of this Council’s agenda for the last four years.

After chasing the field house project until it became just too big to be affordable, Council switched gears and pursued an equally unaffordable new Arena and field house “lite”. They spent on “streetscaping” Hampton Road.. and then there was the Common.

The battle for Rothesay Common was divisive. As a nonresident observed of the online comments over Christmas 2015, “They are savage  [and] obscene…”. While it’s clearly time we moved on from that, we should also learn from it. I certainly did.

I learned that we need leadership that will do the things to make Rothesay a more united community, one Rothesay not two or three or four…

My goal with oneRothesay.com is to help hold the current Council to account for their decisions over the last four years. Why? Because the path to oneRothesay begins in that Council Chamber.

Runaway spending does not bring us together as a community if it leaves some of us behind an increasing affordability gap and if our spending priorities mean we’re paying for frills in one area and not meeting basic infrastructure needs in another, then we won’t have one community.

So I’m writing this blog to share what I have learned about the record of this Council. Highlighting a 250% increase in Rothesay’s debt on their watch might make current councillors uncomfortable. But this blog is about accountability. It is not an exercise in cheerleading.

If I have a bias, (and yes, I have many), it is that after 30 years in public service, I’ve learned that sunlight has a magical way of creating discipline when it shines on government operations. It certainly makes politicians keenly aware that for every action there is a reaction.

Readers should not misinterpret this blog as being anything more than an expression of my opinion. However, I hope you will see that the opinions are based on the facts as we have found them.

If you have any comments or complaints please feel free to email them to me at editor@onerothesay.com