Three Rivers Mayor Edward MacAulay said “a town hall is becoming more of a need than a want” on Monday at a meeting that was initially meant to be a private discussion between councillors.
The municipality, formed last September after Cardigan, Georgetown, Montague and other surrounding communities were amalgamated, does not currently have a suitable facility for all staff to work in nor a set town hall. The largest and once-favoured option of adopting the Montague own hall as the new hub for Three Rivers disappeared last summer when the building burned down.
Jill Walsh, the chief administrative officer of Three Rivers, said the Montague building’s insurance coverage currently paying for staff to work in cramped quarters in a mobile office will dry up in “one to three months,” amplifying the need to get moving on plans for a new permanent space.
After Three Rivers residents heard that council would be meeting with a planning consultant on Monday to discuss a new town hall, several showed up and were invited by the mayor to cram into a meeting room at the Georgetown municipal office.
Council and residents spent Monday evening defining what a successful town hall would look like to them.
Participants suggested that “if it didn’t cost a lot,” if “all of Three Rivers benefits” and if it was “still a good idea in 2029,” then the town hall could fit the needs of the town. Residents also emphasized that having an eco-friendly building and sufficient meeting spaces for community rental were priorities.
Phillip Hebert, who was a Georgetown councillor until amalgamation and was against unification, said that a town hall should be a symbol to unify the regions brought together last fall.
“What this community needs is to feel drawn together,” he said. “Right now, it’s not a community.”
Other residents suggested maintaining satellite offices in Cardigan, Georgetown and Montague in order to suit the needs of the different areas.
“Amalgamation does not mean ‘just lump them all together’,” said Carla Morgan, a Montague resident of 47 years.
Because Three Rivers is so spread out—it is over three times the size of Charlottetown in area —and has no public transit, many residents and councillors present Monday agreed that a roving council that would cycle through the different communities would be a viable option to make meetings as accessible as possible to the 7,200 residents of the municipality.
The priorities expressed at Monday’s meeting highlighted the municipality’s need to determine a budget for the project and the current gaps in its services to residents before planning moves any further forward.
MacAulay said that the next step in the process would be to host a formal Three Rivers public town hall meeting, though no date has been confirmed.