The following letter was published today. What are your thoughts? Dear Editor. Half a million dollars set aside to celebrate the amalgamation of our municipality by the CBRM Council…are you kidding us? This council should not be celebrating the worst thing to happen to us as this was a “forced amalgamation” and not something the people wanted or supported. It was when we had to give up our charter and then lost the right to hold our provincial government accountable. Since amalgamation, we have watched as the provincial government started to strip everything from Cape Breton Island and centralize all the high paying jobs and services in Halifax and then the equalization unfairness started. Amalgamation represents the time when the young people started to move away seeking better opportunities. Amalgamation represents a time when grandparents were left behind while their children and grandchildren moved away in search of a better life, taking any support with them. Amalgamation for us is the time that we started to be robbed of our “FAIR SHARE” and a time when we started to be used to generate more equalization that we would never see. It represents a dark time in our history and all one must do is think back of what we have lost in industry, jobs and opportunity since that dark time 30 years ago. The CBRM council recently told Charles Sampson and Russ Green, in a presentation to the CBRM Council, that they did not have a half a million dollars to hire a lawyer to investigate if our rights were being violated by the Nova Scotia Provincial Government with regards to excessive taxation and unfair equalization. The equalization payment has grown by billions of dollars since “amalgamation” and yet the CBRM’s share has decreased from $15 million to $13 million. We have residents paying massive residential and commercial taxation in our municipality and this council thinks we should take a half a million dollars and celebrate the worst thing to happen to us in modern history. Shame on you Mayor Clarke and all the council members who voted for this injustice to the people of the CBRM. The council members should have been given more time to think about this issue and check with their constituents to see if this is what we wanted and needed. Council should have had the opportunity to vote on the expenditures individually and not have them grouped together. This was a sneaky move in our opinion to tie the hands of our councillors. “Vote for this or you don’t get that”, kind of a situation. Thanks to the 2 council members who voted against this spending. Steve Parsons and Kim Sheppard both voted nay and did the right thing in our opinion, but we bet both supported most of the proposed spending for things like infrastructure, the Louisbourg Playhouse, sidewalks, etc. Our taxes are too high, and we do not get our fair share. Try spending some money on that issue Russ Green, Charles Sampson & Rev. Dr. Albert Maroun