Category: Saint John

The city is still trying to figure out what the provincial freeze on property assessments will mean to it.

Mayor Don Darling told the Telegraph-Journal there’s a sense of urgency on how the city’s revenues will be affected and they are looking at ways to compensate for that.  One option is an increase in the unconditional grants from the province to the cities. Darling rejected a suggestion from the government that property tax rates be increased.

The mayors of Saint John, Moncton and Fredericton are meeting later this week and Darling says this will be high on their agenda.

Councillor Blake Armstrong wants a couple of uptown streets closed to cars on five weekends through the summer. That way more events could be held drawing more people to the entertainment district.

Armstrong told CBC he would like to see Canterbury and Grannan streets closed on fridays and saturdays. He’s approached area businesses about it and he says they were excited but skeptical it could be done. Armstrong says other councillors were originally opposed to the idea of closing the streets to traffic but are coming around.

The city does have a proceedure to close streets for special events but it requires 60 days lead time. Armstrong wants to streamline that to a couple of weeks notice.