Former Liquor Store Could Soon House Tourism, Library and Fitness Facilities

RICHMOND COUNTY - This week's edition of Roundtable includes two lively discussions from the latest Committee of the Whole meeting of Richmond County, centring on community and infrastructure development in the St. Peter's area and the potential addition of new electric-vehicle charging stations to different parts of the county. 

At 1:22, we'll hear the discussion leading up to a council decision to ask municipal staff to investigate the costs involved in setting up charging stations for electric vehicles at Centre La Picasse in Petit de Grat, at the Richmond Arena site in Louisdale, and at Point Michaud Provincial Park Beach in Richmond County. This request for information came about just two months after District Five councillor Brent Sampson suggested that the county could benefit from adding to charging stations already located in two portions of Isle Madame and a third in St. Peter's. 

Then, at 11:42, a former municipal councillor for the St. Peter's area and a long-time returning officer for the county, Clair Rankin, makes a financial pitch to Richmond Municipal Council on behalf of the Village Fitness Cooperative Limited, a group established to help develop a fitness centre on the Grenville Street property used for many decades by the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation. Now vacant, the property is now under investigation as a potential new home for such other community initiatives as the St. Peter's branch of Eastern Counties Regional Library and the Visitor Information Centre run by Nova Scotia's Department of Tourism. According to Rankin, the Village Fitness Cooperative Limited would like to see a municipal donation of $10,000 in the centre's first year of operation, with a further $20,000 donated during the second year.