• Do you know that the residents of Districts 9 and 10 of CBRM do not want a Residential ATV Trail (RAT), they prefer an Active Transportation Trail?
• Do you know that the Cape Breton Regional Police Services do not want a Residential ATV Trail (RAT)?
• Do you know that the IBI Engineering group that CBRM taxpayers paid for, recommended that CBRM do not create a a Residential ATV Trail (RAT)? 
• Do you know that taxpayer's dollars paid for a survey in which the residents around the railway told CBRM that they didn't want ATVs on the a Residential Trail?

So just who wanted to bring a RAT to CBRM? Less than 1%-2% (AFAIK) of CBRM population, benefits from having a RAT in our community. If a decision was made (arguably, outside of council) to pervert a decade long Active Transportation Trail project to benefit such a small portion of the population (not the general public) that includes a few public servants making the decisions, then I personally feel that there is a conflict of interest. My feeling are my feelings and nobody can tell me my feelings are wrong :-)

Then a Dartmouth consulting group was granted a $160,871.00 tender (see HERE) to work on CBRM's "Active Transportation Plan". They conducted a public survey that was tainted with Anti-Active Transportation questions about ATVs. I personally made a request to the CEO of the consultant company to remove the anti-active transportation questions and republish the survey. After consulting CBRM officials he declined my request. This means that the survey that we paid for is contaminated and can actually be used to undermine Active Transportation efforts like what happened with the Coal Town Residential ATV Trail and could happen again in Sydney River (see BEWARE SYDNEY RIVER). It also appears that the consultant company may have went outside of the requirements of the tender that specifically asked for Active Transportation plan work, not Anti-Active Transportation. This tainting of an Active Transportation survey just reinforces my feelings of an "appearance of a conflict of interest". Read more about this tainted survey HERE. 

Public servants need to treat the appearance of conflict of interest just as serious as an actual conflict of interest. I touched on the subject of conflict of interest before HERE

Apparent Conflict of Interest

From the article above:

An apparent conflict of interest exists when there is a reasonable apprehension,  which reasonably well-informed persons could properly have, that a conflict of  interest exists.

I consider myself to be a reasonably well-informed person and I am reasonably apprehensive about the possibility here of a conflict of interest. 

So CBRM council (or NS ombudsman) should investigate this screw up in CBRM.

Residents Do Not Want RATs in Our Community

The community did not (and does not) want motorized vehicles on our residential trails. Since the unsanctioned commissioning of the Residential ATV Trail (RAT) we see: 

• ATV Crime is up over 900% (More HERE)
• Private land is being destroyed (See some of the destruction HERE)
• Sensitive ecological systems are being disturbed
• Excessive litter along the trails (Read HERE)
• Residential property value is being destroyed along the trail (Read more about how this RAT affects your property value HERE)
• Quality of life is being degraded along the trail
• Vandalism (Some articles listed HERE)
• Harassment and threats

CBRP Does Not Want RATs in Our Community

"Police did raise significant concerns about allowing off-road vehicles on the Coal Town Trail, because of its proximity to and intersection with community and residential roadways, and the potential impacts it would create for traffic safety."

Engineering Study Recommends Against A Resident ATV Trail (RAT)

We (taxpayers) paid for an independent opinion and we got it from a professional engineering group: Do not build a Residental ATV Trail (RAT)

BUT...

Our Mayor and her family want to be able to drive their ATVs through our backyards. Oh well then!  FYI: You are not welcome to drive your ATVs through our backyards. You are very welcome in our community otherwise!

Official statement from the current mayor of CBRM, in the Mayor's office, promoting the increased use of ATVs in residential areas. This is fact and public.

Let's get the RATs out of our community :-) 

I have to make this statement so it is clear that I am not seen as harassing our elected officials or any groups of people: The following is political commentary related to community damaging and people harming policies that need to be reversed for the betterment of "all CBRM". This article is about recent unsanctioned decisions and actions in CBRM that are causing real community issues and can most likely be correlated to deaths and injuries, that's all.