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SYDNEY, N.S. —

Neeta Kumar-Britten can’t help but let out a little laugh when asked about the current furor over the status of a new central library proposed for the Sydney waterfront.

Neeta Kumar-Britten

“It is so simple,” says the past chair of the board of the Cape Breton Regional Library.

“If the province would just simply say all systems are go then the feds will kick in.”

However, not everybody agrees and confusion continues to swirl around the storyline behind the status of a new central library proposed for the Sydney waterfront.

Uproar over the project surfaced at CBRM city hall earlier this week and continued on Wednesday as parties involved in the process spoke out on the matter.

The fires of controversy were lit during a meeting of the municipality’s general committee on Tuesday when Coun. Amanda McDougall put forth a motion asking for an update on the application process for securing funds for the project, the size and scope of which has yet to be determined although proposals range as high as $31 million.

During the subsequent debate, the contents of a letter from Cape Breton Liberal MPs Mark Eyking (Sydney-Victoria) and Rodger Cuzner (Cape Breton-Canso) were revealed before the committee and gallery.

Dated May 7, the letter that was addressed to Mayor Cecil Clarke and council members began with the following sentence: “We were alarmed to hear that you are awaiting the federal government to approve the Cape Breton regional library project.”

The MPs went on to state that it was their understanding that the CBRM had already been advised by Nova Scotia’s Municipal Affairs department to revise its funding application “to account for ineligible costs that were included as part of the municipality’s financial contribution to the project.” It further says that the CBRM should resubmit the project to the province for consideration.

John Phalen

But CBRM public works manager John Phalen told the committee that an application for capital funding for the project was submitted through the Municipal Affairs department on Dec. 18 of last year and confirmed two days later.

“Since that date we have heard nothing from the provincial government or the federal government on our application so it’s still sitting on a desk in Municipal Affairs,” said Phalen.

It would be an understatement to say that the letter didn’t sit well with members of the CBRM council. Clarke objected to many of the statements and suggested the letter, which many council members deemed to be rejection of the CBRM’s federal funding application, essentially put the proposed new library on ice.

“Effective today the project is dead,” said Clarke, on Tuesday.

“The government of Canada will shut down making announcements in June, so what we effectively heard in the correspondence from the federal government is that we didn’t apply in the right way, we should have known better, and that we should reapply and if we do they will just as kind and supportive as they were with the second berth — well, I dealt with their staff on the second berth and it wasn’t very gracious or kind at times, let me tell you.”

Cecil Clarke

That was Tuesday evening and word of the heated debate spread rapidly with Eyking essentially reiterating the federal government’s position in a statement released Wednesday while on his way to Washington where he was scheduled to meet with U.S. Congress members and have a briefing at the Canadian embassy.

Past library board chair Kumar-Britten weighed in on the issue with her view that the province has been ignoring the matter, and Sydney-Whitney Pier MLA and provincial Energy Minister Derek Mombourquette responded after stepping off a flight from Houston where he was involved in offshore energy meetings.

And Jim Wooder, project manager for Martin Chernin’s Harbour Royale Development Ltd, the company with the current exclusive rights to develop the project, said he remains optimistic the undertaking will someday become a reality.

WHAT THEY SAID

Mark Eyking, MP Sydney Victoria

• “The Mayor says the Central Library Project is dead, and we disagree wholeheartedly with his statement.”

• “The Province of Nova Scotia is the lead in submitting infrastructure projects from municipalities to the federal infrastructure department. A municipality does not submit directly to the federal government, the Mayor should understand this given his experience with other infrastructure projects like the new Sydney berth, which the federal government funded.”

Neeta Kumar-Britten, past chair of Cape Breton Regional Library board of directors

• “The feds can access funds, but they can’t swing at a pitch that hasn’t been thrown.”

• “The issue right now is not the municipality, although they are a close second, it’s the province because they are absent on this file, they got to decide whether they want to do this or not, it’s completely up to the province, it’s completely up to Derek Mombourquette whether he wants to make this a priority for his constituency.”

Derek Mombourquette, Nova Scotia energy minister and MLA for Sydney Whitney Pier

• “In March, the province asked me to provide funds to study what would be in the library to take a look at the programming and at the overall operations so they could determine what the next steps and what the overall cost might be – they have money to do that study, we gave them money, the study is not complete, yet”

• “I don’t want to get into the question of whether there is political will, this has been an ongoing conversation in the community for a long time — libraries bring a lot of vibrancy to a community, but if we’re going to do it then it needs to be done in a way that allows us to ensure that whatever council decides that it is something that is based on community feedback and good solid data that suggests what we should put in there.”

Jim Wooder, project manager, Harbour Royale Development

• “We’re waiting to see where the ball stops bouncing and we’re cautiously optimistic as it’s my understanding that the federal government is still in the game and are encouraging the municipality to take certain steps with the province.”

• “But the funding is not the remit of the developer – we’ve spent our time and money, and a reasonable amount of both, trying to get this project well advanced. We believed, and still believe, that the library is properly located at a marquee location on a waterfront.”

If there is a consensus, it’s that there still may be time for the capital funding application to be submitted before the perceived deadline of mid-June. Eyking indicated as much, while Mombourquette said the province cannot not act on the funding application until it receives the project review from the municipality.

But questions remain.

Mayor Clarke said as much following Tuesday’s committee meeting.

“All we need is some direction,” said Clarke, who added that the municipality is ready to answer any queries about the project.

Clarke took particular exception to the MPs suggestion that the CBRM miscalculated its financial contribution to the project by declaring ineligible assets. Clarke said he remains adamant that a $4-million cash layout along with a land donation worth an estimated $3 million is a legitimate municipal contribution. And, he said the CBRM remains confused as to whether the project’s funding formula is on a one-third equal share by each level of government or a 40 per cent federal, 33 per cent provincial and 27 per cent municipal.

In the meantime, it will continue to be business as usual at the 60-year-old Sydney’s James McConnell Memorial Library, a facility that new library proponents say is too old and too small to operate effectively and to adequately serve the needs of the community.

And that doesn’t sit well with Kumar-Britten who said she could talk for hours about the benefits that a modern new central library would bring to the community.

“We are the second-largest municipality in Nova Scotia and yet when you walk through the McConnell you can see boarded up windows, it was closed for 17 days last year because of humidity, there’s no place to park, and if you’re a person with mobility issues you can’t work at the McConnell,” said Kumar-Britten.

“It’s beyond, there’s no space no space for simultaneous programming, you can only do one thing at a time and we can’t even keep the collection the size we want to so there’s an ongoing, constant book sale going on because we have to get rid of books when new ones come into the collection.”

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