Matt Smith of North Queens Active Living describes the new track and soccer field project at North Queens Community School in Caledonia to Queens MLA Kim Masland. (Rick Conrad)

Supporters of a long-awaited new soccer field and track at North Queens Community School in Caledonia cleared the final hurdle on Friday afternoon as Queens MLA Kim Masland announced the Nova Scotia government’s grant of $800,000 toward the $1.1 million project.

The Region of Queens had earlier committed $250,000 and a local resident donated land worth $7,500 to expand the field.

“This is absolutely a change maker for our students and our community,” Masland said in an interview after the announcement at the school.

“Our students will now have the opportunity to train at home, to be able to compete in sports that they’ve never been able to compete in before because they didn’t have the place to train. This is about investing in rural communities, this is about investing in our youth, and I’m just so excited about this project.”

The 325-metre gravel track and regulation-sized natural soccer field will mean that the 235 students from pre-Primary to Grade 12 will be able to stay in their community to train and compete. Now, students must travel to Bridgewater or Liverpool or even farther away to Mahone Bay to participate in outdoor school sports.

A concept drawing of the new soccer field and track at North Queens Community School. (North Queens Active Living)

It will also mean that the school will have a place to hold outdoor physical education classes again. As part of the project, its outdoor classroom will also be freshened up, along with a new canopy built by students in the school’s high school construction trades program.

Jake Flemming will be entering Grade 7 at the school in September. He’s on the volleyball and basketball teams and he throws javelin. He said he’s looking forward to using the new facility.

“I think it’s pretty good because hopefully it will help our stuff because we had to kind of practise inside a few times,” he said.

Principal Cindy Arsenault said it’s not safe for kids to use the field because it’s in such bad shape. It’s especially treacherous after it rains because it doesn’t drain properly, and years of damage from ATVs using the field have left holes in the turf.

“So you end up with giant mucky puddles all over, and plus there’s holes because ATVs are here so we have kids stepping in the water and twisting their ankle or falling,” she told QCCR on Friday afternoon.

She said the new fenced facility will get more kids engaged in school sports, which will help lower absenteeism.

“It allows us to bring in some additional sports and some additional things that our kids have been asking for. We could do rugby and some other similar sports, bring back soccer. It means an opportunity not even during school but off school (hours) for families to come and play here and do picnics and we can now start hosting things instead of us driving all the time.

“So for our kids it’s a benefit, they can be involved where they couldn’t before. Now they can come and be on their home field and be participating in sports.”

The new field and track aren’t just for the school to use, it will also be available for the whole community.

Alyssa Short, president of the North Queens Active Living Society, said she and other group members have worked for the past six years to make the new field a reality, though the need for a new field and track goes back decades.

“I have young children here and I know that the impact that it’s going to have on their lives is going to be incredible,” she said, “and I can see for all of their friends growing up with access to something like this it’s going to make such a big difference in their lives and I know for the community at large, there are so many people excited about this and who are going to take full advantage of this and it’s going to have a huge impact.”

Short expects work to begin this summer. She said she hopes the track and soccer field will be ready by the spring.

With a new rubberized track and artificial turf soccer field set to open soon at Liverpool Regional High School, Queens County athletes and community members will soon have two new facilities.

Masland said that will help young athletes from the area follow in the footsteps of Queens County Olympians like Jenna Martin and Sarah Mitton.

“We’re developing future athletes. If we think about Liverpool, we think about our Sarah; if we think about North Queens, we think about our Jenna. And there’s more Sarahs and there’s more Jennas and we have to make sure we have the place for them to grow and to train.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Alyssa Short, chairwoman of North Queens Active Living, details for regional councillors the track and field project at North Queens Community School. (Region of Queens YouTube channel)

A new field and running track will be built at North Queens Community School, thanks to funding from the Nova Scotia government and the Region of Queens.

Regional councillors approved $250,000 this week for the $1.1-million project at the Primary to Grade 12 school in Caledonia.

That’s on top of a planned $800,000 grant from the province.

Alyssa Short, chairwoman of North Queens Active Living, told council at their regular meeting on Tuesday that the field is “almost completely unusable”.

“And so the result is our athletes are not able to train at the school and that has historically been the case.”

Olympic track athlete Jenna Martin went to the school and couldn’t use the field to train, Short said. She had to go to Bridgewater, which is an hour’s drive away.

“There’s very poor drainage, the ground is uneven, it’s compacted,” Short told councillors.

“The water pools up in the middle and so it’s soaked all year round.”

And because it isn’t fenced, ATV riders have further damaged it by “doing doughnuts” in the field, she said.

“It’s to the point that the students are not even able to use the field for recess or for sports or anything.”

The field was built in 1984 with no proper drainage or fencing, Short said. The school’s outdoor classroom is also not safe to use, she said.

The new field will feature a 325-metre track, which is smaller than the regulation 400-metre size. Short said a larger track would have tripled the cost of the project. The field will be fenced, lit and have proper drainage. North Queens Active Living will maintain the field.

“We’ve gone with a natural turf field that will have fencing. And very importantly, it will be a very good quality walking track that will be used by the local community.”

Short said they hope to put the project to tender immediately, and have the work done over the summer and fall so that it will be ready to use next year.

Councillors said the new field and track are vital in a smaller, rural community like Caledonia and the surrounding area.

“I think it’s very important that this project be supported by this council,” said District 6 Coun. Stewart Jenkins, whose area includes North Queens.

“People out in the country have to travel so far for many things and when you start moving your children an hour one way and an hour back just so they can train on a track after they spend all day in school, (that) shouldn’t be unacceptable. I think we should move forward with this.”

North Queens Active Living had requested $250,000 through the region’s community investment fund. Instead, councillors voted to fund the project from their accumulated budget surplus.

This will be the second new track and field in Queens County. A $3-million, 400-metre rubberized track and artificial turf soccer field at Liverpool Regional High School is expected to be ready by early July.

After the funding was approved, Short told QCCR she’s “absolutely grateful” for the municipality’s support.

“I know the school is going to be thrilled, but I think the whole community is really going to get behind it,” she said. 

“It’s going to mean that athletes who have it in them to become athletes have the facilities to follow through on what they’re capable of. And I think there’s probably been a lot of potential lost in North Queens over many years. And I think that having this facility is really going to have a lot more athletes come out of North Queens.” 

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

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Region of Queens administration building. Photo Ed Halverson

At the most recent Region of Queens Council meeting council landed on a site for the construction of a new library, approved a new multi-unit residential development and discussed creating a policy for selling municipal property.

The meeting started with a pair of presentations.

The first by North Queens Active Living detailed the programs they offer and benefit they bring to the community.

The group is currently working towards gaining status as a society.

They’re asking council to continue supporting their work in the upcoming budget to the tune of $16,500.

Next, the Region of Queens Pool Committee outlined their desire to build the new outdoor pool at Queens Place as well as some rough timelines and next steps.

If all goes to plan, their aim is to begin construction in 2024 with the goal of opening the pool to the public in spring of 2025.

Council then followed up on the public meeting held before session and granted the request to convert a multi-unit building in Hunts Point from short-term to long-term rentals.

They also agreed to the name “Ocean Side Drive” for the road going into a proposed development near the hospital in Liverpool called “The Point”.

After much back and forth over the past year council accepted the library committee recommendation to build the replacement for the Thomas H Raddall library at Queens Place.

When the recommendation first came to council in June of 2022 some councillors didn’t want to see the library moved from downtown Liverpool.

Since then, the committee has looked into several different site options but determined any of those would increase the cost of construction by half a million dollars.

Council also considered the Rossignol Centre in which the library currently sits has been put on the market and a quick sale could leave the county without a library.

During the discussion portion of the meeting council asked staff to come back at a future date with options on a policy for the disposal of municipal properties.

Some members of council cited the recent proposed regional airport sale and the upset it caused all parties involved as the reason to have a process in place that was fair, transparent and easily understood when selling municipally owned land.

And finally, council heard from staff that the recent tax sale saw 16 properties sold for a total of $327,450.

Of that, $34,500.58 will pay off outstanding accounts and $292,949.42 will be held in the tax sale surplus reserve in trust for 20 years to give owners the opportunity to recoup the proceeds of the sale.

Council will take their next meeting on the road to Brooklyn on January 24.

The session will begin at 6:00pm at the Brooklyn Community Hall.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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Region of Queens administration building. Photo Ed Halverson

Schools weren’t the only institution getting back to business online in the new year.

Gathering restrictions meant to slow the spread of the omicron virus caused Region of Queens council to meet via zoom January 11.

Mayor Darlene Norman says everyone has learned to be flexible in these times including council.

“It appears to be working,” said Norman. “I wouldn’t want to do this forever; I think there’s something about actually being in the space. But this is just as good, let’s say.”

It was a busy agenda to start the year.

Mayor Norman started the proceedings by discussing Project 1792, an initiative which highlights the anniversary on January 15 of the 1,196 Black Loyalists who boarded 15 ships to return to Africa after the British government broke their promise to provide opportunities in Nova Scotia.

“It’s time to start looking at our past and realizing and learning from it and learning how to be better people going forward,” said Norman.

Council also heard from the North Queens active living committee who are hoping to renew funding for their part time programming coordinator.

That position will be discussed when budget deliberations get underway.

Several properties that were meant to go to tax sale will instead be disposed of via a sealed-bid tender process.

The public has until February 22nd to bid on a dozen properties being sold to recover outstanding property taxes.

The region will be hiring an asset management coordinator to track and assess the millions of dollars’ worth of property and equipment owned by the municipality.

Transfers payments from the federal government are based on an accurate assessment of municipal infrastructure.

“We need to get this done because, your gas tax is based on your infrastructure, and we’re required to have this done,” said Norman. “So, if we want to continue getting gas tax money, we have to get ahead of this.”

Council will also form an ad hoc policy review committee.

Mayor Norman says she, two members of council and municipal staff including the diversity and inclusion coordinator will convene a series of half day meetings to go over the 20-year-old policies.

Norman says the plan is to have policies written in plain language which are easily understood and compliant with current laws and regulations.

“The policies need to all be reviewed; they need to be corrected,” said Norman. “There’s questions such as why was this made, is it still valid in today’s world, is the language diverse and inclusive?”

The committee will bring their recommendations back to council once they’ve completed their work.

The next Region of Queens council meeting will be held live over Zoom January 25.

Anyone wishing to view the proceedings can contact Heather Cook at the municipal office for the sign-in information by e-mail: hcook@regionofqueens.com or telephone: 902-354-3453.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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