The Warden of the Municipality of the County of Richmond says the year went pretty well.
Brian Marchand says they’ve completed a number of important projects.
Marchand tells The Hawk those projects include the Arichat revitalization project, water and wastewater upgrades, and lift station upgrades.
“All these projects are in the hopper, some are complete, some are going out to tendering, but all in all, infrastructure budget wise, there’s been a good amount done this year, so I would say yeah, we did pretty good,” he says.
Marchand says they’re looking forward to next year.
He says they want to keep expanding the wastewater management district, working to upgrade private sewage tanks in the county.
Marchand says, of 200 private sewage tanks eligible for the county’s upgrade program, only about 90 have been.
He says it’s about getting ahead of potential problems.
“Being proactive on our wastewater… so that we can be ahead because regulations are changing, and we want to have those systems up,” he says.
Marchand says their big goal for next year is to keep the tax rate steady.
He says they’ve had to cut a significant amount of grants to avoid raising the tax rate, but he thinks good budgeting can keep it from rising.
“Budgeting is going to be another tough time I guess, with the loss of some tax revenue in our industrial park, so hopefully we’ll be able to maintain the tax rate where it is,” he says. “If we can’t we’ll have to explain to the people why.”
Marchand says he isn’t ready to announce if he’ll run again in next year’s election.
