Tax decreases across Queens highlight this year’s budget. At the most recent Region of Queens Council meeting, a budget was tabled containing a three cent per $100 assessment drop for residential and commercial property owners in Queens.

Properties in Liverpool will now pay $1.93 per $100 residential and $3.03 per $100 commercial rates. Outside Liverpool the amounts range from $1.07 residential to $2.17 commercial unless the property is in Brooklyn. Property owners there add six cents to cover a four and a half cent area rate for the recreation centre and one and a half cents for the cemetery.

Mayor Darlene Norman says following an increase in assessments council wanted to provide some relief to property owners.

“Assessments went up somewhat and the council and staff that there’s a lot of things that happened last year and they weren’t going to happen again but yet there’s room for new things and with the increase we were able to put forward a progressive budget,” said Norman.

An area that saw a dramatic increase was water bills. Council had already approved a base rate increase of 19 per cent and 33 per cent for consumption over the next three years. Norman says the first water rate increase in 18 years will bring the municipality in line with what comparable regions across the province are charging.

“The water people who did our study for the UARB (Nova Scotia Utility and Revue Board), said good municipalities have, every year or every so many years, just a little slight increase so you don’t get something like this happening,” said Norman.

The Queens Community Aquatic Society made a presentation to council regarding the construction of a new outdoor pool. Norman says council will take time to review those materials before deciding how or if they will move ahead with the proposal.

Later in the agenda, council voted to repeal the Region’s vaccine mandate policy to align with the recently lifted provincial COVID-19 restrictions.

They also discussed the composition of the steering team who will lead the development of the new library. The six-member group will include two people from South Shore Public Libraries, two members of the library board and two library users.

A request from the Queens County Historical Society to repaint two prominent murals located on buildings in Liverpool will come back for discussion at the next council meeting.

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