The mayor of Mulgrave says there are no plans to join the Eastern Strait Regional Enterprise Network at this point.
Ralph Hadley says town councillors recently discussed becoming part of the REN, but ultimately decided against the idea.
Hadley tells The Hawk it comes down to money.
“We can’t right now because of finances,” he says. “We have to do quite a bit of cutting in our budget (in 2019-20), so we won’t be able to join RENs- not for a while yet.”
Hadley says news officials in other municipalities are leaving also played a role in their decision; town councillors in Port Hawkesbury and officials in the Municipality of the District of Guysborough voted to withdraw from the REN in February, and will leave at the end of March.
The town and county of Antigonish and the Municipality of the District of St. Mary’s are the only remaining municipal units.
He says they previously decided against joining, but REN officials approached them again.
“We just had some discussion around it,” he says. “They (came) up with some kind of new plan that they were going to be doing and we still said no, we won’t be joining (in 2019-20).”
Hadley says town officials are open to becoming involved, if their financial situation improves in the future.
