Ceremony booklet and submission report can be viewed here.

I’ve been a supporter of Fusion since its inception and attended the inaugural event. I appreciate and have supported all the efforts that Fusion members have made through their initiatives and participation to further improve our great city.

Thank you for the invitation for the launch of your new project, “The Little Easy: Fusion’s Pitch for a Great Youth City”. It was an excellent event and I support the goals of The Little Easy. Not only will it make our city even better to attract and retain young professionals, it would improve the quality of life for all residents in Halifax Regional Municipality. Little Easy objectives parallel many initiatives that I have been focusing on throughout my time on Council and will continue if re-elected in October, 2016.

Over the years I have spearheaded many of these initiatives such as convincing Council to purchase the former CN Rail line to make it a 7.25 km well used active transportation corridor. We are working on connecting this trail to other trails and communities. I have worked to increase bike lanes throughout my district and will continue to advocate for funding to connect them with an overall city wide bike lane network. Cyclist safety is key and as such I convinced the former provincial government to change the Nova Scotia Motor Vehicle Act to prohibit parking on bike lanes.

Working to improve our overall transit plan, I successfully pushed for new transit services and enhanced routes. We need to extend our ridership with efficient service including light rail, high speed ferries and dedicated bus lanes.

As an advocate for affordable housing I will continue to press the provincial government and builders to ensure we not only have affordable housing that includes bachelor apartments but also family dwellings with community amenities. As a supporter on Council for the Mobile Food Market I have viewed the success of this pilot project and support making it a full time initiative to provide residents with access to affordable healthy food.

As a member of both the Spryfield and Quinpool Business Improvement Districts I have worked with these organizations to improve overall vibrancy of these main street areas. We need greater funding for improvements and also a reduced small business tax.

Throughout my time on Council I have focused on protecting our heritage and improving our parkland and open spaces (Dingle, Deadman’s Island, Chain of Lakes Trail). We need to identify key opportunities to establish and protect potential regional parks such as the Blue Mountain Birch Cove Lakes, Purcell’s Cove Backlands/Williams Lake and 100 Wild Islands. It is important for all residents to have access to wilderness areas within easy reach of where they live.

Linda Mosher

902-477-8618

linda@lindamosher.ca

lindamosher.ca

“Because of where it is, sometimes it seems to get lost in the Halifax Shopping Centre,” says Liz Greene, chair of the St. Agnes PTA, and the mother of three boys in attendance at the school.

That’s all about to change, though, as St. Agnes partners with Halifax Regional Municipality to stamp out a more concrete, physical connection to the community, hoping to create a lasting legacy of community partnership for years to come.

“Initially the principal [Brad McGowan] contacted me and he wanted to come in and discuss how the school could integrate with the community,” says Linda Mosher, city councillor for Halifax West Armdale. “They’ve got a large area, but it was quite an unsightly property, and if you look around, it’s quite an industrial area … I know the principal wanted to improve the aesthetics of the school.”

Mosher pointed out a dilapidated bike rack on the premises, which is so grown-over as to be unfit for use, and a pair of bushes that provided potential hiding places for criminals to use, as examples of things at the school that needed a facelift.

“Whenever I came to school, I didn’t even notice it was there,” says Ryan Greene, Liz Greene’s middle son who will be entering Grade 8 this fall. “It was grown over, and mangled, and small, and no one ever used it, so I never even noticed. ”

But this project, dubbed the Legacy Project by the PTA, goes beyond mere practical and safety upgrades to the property. Mosher and the PTA came together with the residents in the area to design a space that won’t just serve to benefit the student body at St. Agnes, but the neighbourhood as a whole.

“I started talking to neighbours and students, and everyone pretty much had the same thought,” says Mosher, who says that the location of St. Agnes allowed for a unique chance to integrate school with community. “They want to integrate with the community with a real statement park and something that the community can use. They want to be connected physically, plus they want to make it safe.”

The Legacy Project, which will be mostly completed by the time students return in September, will feature not just a new bike rack, but also a new pedestrian walk-way that connects the school to the sidewalk, a concrete assembly area, a new flagpole, nine park benches, and a wooden arbor with vines — all for the enjoyment of the students and the local residents, who will hopefully be inspired to take a bit more personal ownership of the school in their midst.

“[Our goal is] to beautify it a bit, and make it more visible, and have people want to notice it and look after it as a community building,” says Greene. “I think, too, that the kids of St. Agnes will take pride in the area, so hopefully they will be willing to help with the upkeep of it.”

Her son Ryan agrees.

“I think they would respect the school more, because they wouldn’t want to mess up all the stuff that’s out there,” says Ryan. “They wouldn’t want to already litter on the park that they just got.”

It’ll also prove a boon to incoming students, like Ryan’s younger brother Adam, who is just about to start the seventh grade this fall.

“Before, when I came here, it kind of seemed a little bit threatening,” says Ryan, who sees other benefits to the new park, such as a better place to study, and an alternative for kids to eat on-site in the park rather than going to the nearby McDonald’s every day. “But with all that stuff out there, it wouldn’t seem as threatening – it would just seem like a nice, calm place that connects with everything around it.”

“I’m actually pretty excited to go,” Adam agrees, who has been inspired by the school’s and the city’s example to be more community-minded himself. “I’d love to be part of a new and fresh Jr. High community.”

And the best part? This legacy is still being written. Thanks to smart tendering on the part of the city planner involved, Mosher says that the project is going to come up significantly under it’s $75,000 budget as is, so she and the PTA are interested in hearing about what more can be added to the Legacy Project to make it even better.

“Do we want public art? What else do we want to add to this? I think we’re going to have quite a bit more money to play with,” says Mosher, who’s eager to hear what students might have to add to the pool of ideas for St. Agnes’ beautification. “It’s not like the project is finished when it’s done.”

For students like Ryan, though, if this new park allows students like him to have a better connection with the community he goes to school in, then mission already accomplished.

“I think it’ll get more people actually trying to connect with the community,” says Ryan. “If we can connect with the community, we can find the problems that are in the community, and we can work together to sort them out.”

You can throw in your two cents on the Legacy Project and potential future additions to it by contacting Linda Mosher directly, which can be done via lindamosher.ca.

Via The Halifax Citizen

A new dog park is set to be opened in the heart of peninsular Halifax sometime in the near future, but it won’t be a park for any Spot, Fido, or Trixie to enjoy. This park is for the exclusive use of pups with jobs, and the people who rely on their service.

Halifax has been home to a service dog park for a number of years now, located at the corner of Cogswell Street and Rainnie Drive. But with the new roundabout being constructed, that needs to change.

“There was a pre-existing service dog park in Halifax, but due to the construction of the North Park roundabout, it had to be decommissioned,” says Linda Mosher, councillor for Halifax West Armdale. “So we had to find another location.”

Mosher’s staff was tasked with finding the new spot, with a number of criteria recommended by the city’s Accessibility Advisory Committee.

“They preferred it to be in the urban core, either Dartmouth or Halifax. They wanted it to be at least the same size as the previous one, or bigger. And it had to be on an accessible bus route near on-street parking,” says Mosher, who says 16 prospective locations were considered before they zeroed in on the park on the corner of Oxford Street and Almon Street. “In the end, the most desirable location was the Ardmore Park.”

You might be wondering why service dogs couldn’t just use any old dog park the city has to offer. Well, owning a service dog comes with a lot more concerns and considerations than just having a pet dog does, and that extends to their playtime.

Stephanie Berry is a local athlete who has retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease.

“I am pretty much blind,” says Berry. “I can only see the difference between light and dark.”

Berry also has a black Labrador retriever guide dog named Jacuzzi, who she has had for three years now. It’s Jacuzzi’s job to guide Berry around obstacles and lead her to and from places, but Jacuzzi’s a dog just like any other, and needs to be able to do regular dog things as well.

“Somebody said, ‘dogs aren’t machines.’ She still is a dog, she’s not a machine,” says Berry. “She has those instincts that a lot of dogs have — they want to sniff things, they want to sleep, eat, and play.”

However, because she’s a working dog, she has special training requirements that could be jeopardized by going to a regular dog park. She could get into treats or toys that she’s not allowed to get into, and she could even be hurt by other dogs.

“There’s always more risk at going to a regular dog park,” says Berry, who estimates that Jacuzzi is worth upwards of $70,000 for the amount of training that has gone into her. “At regular dog parks, you have no control over who’s there, what type of toys the dog is playing with, what types of foods the dogs are eating, what types of bones she’s chewing on, and as a visually impaired person, you can’t see what dogs are there and what they’re doing with your dog.”

Not to mention, there’s the safety of the owner to consider as well.

“It’s a small number of people, but we need somewhere for them to be able to train their dogs in a safe manner,” says Mosher, who estimates around 60 individuals in HRM will be eligible to use the park. “You open it up to [all] dogs, and there could be holes dug, or tree branches that were used to throw there — residents with visual impairments couldn’t see that. It’s got to be safe for them to walk in, and it’s got to be safe for their dogs.”

Council recently approved of Ardmore Park as the location of the new service dog park, and work has already gotten underway. A new fence will be put in, the land regraded, and the city is working on developing a swipe card system so that only eligible users will have access.

But that doesn’t mean this park won’t benefit the community as a whole as well. While they build the new service dog park, the city has opened their ears to residents and will address some more universal maintenance concerns they have at the same time.

“We had a public meeting, because I didn’t want to just all of a sudden, residents wake up one day, and an area that they’ve had that was grassed was fenced in, and only accessed for people that have service dogs,” says Mosher, who includes a four-foot black fence for the dog park as one of the aesthetic boons for the neighbourhood. “From an aesthetic point-of-view, it will make the community look much better.”

For users like Berry, though, the biggest boon the new service dog park will provide is just the peace of mind knowing that it will be a space for service dogs and their owners alone.

“I know for sure that I’ll use it,” says Berry, who did not use the previous service dog park much due to frequent use by non-service-dog-owners. “If you have a swipe card … it makes it a way more secure area, so you know only people with service dogs would be in there. Even if it’s not a huge area, it will still be a nice place to be able to bring the dog and not have to worry.”

The five kilometers of trail will go from Old Sambro Road and be joined with the existing trail that runs across the street from Peter Saulnier Drive (former Cowie Hill Connector). The existing trail will be upgraded to meet the standard of the new trail. The new trail will be about four metres wide, and when it is leveled it will have maximum grade limits (eight per cent), which will make it fully accessible. The surface will be gravel.

The plan is to include wood chips alongside the parking lot to and along the sides of the trail. This will minimize the raw construction look from rocks and debris. The trail will include a branch loop all the way around Withrod Lake. This is the lake that is visible from Northwest Arm Drive; Long Lake is set further back. Long Lake is no longer Halifax Water’s secondary water supply. The Chain of Lakes is the secondary water supply and the trail around it is signed with this information.

There will be a driveway leading from Northwest Arm Drive, and a parking lot is being constructed that can hold 40 vehicles. The lot will not be visible until you are at the end of the driveway, so the natural aesthetics of the area will be maintained. There was no parking in this area as you cannot park on Northwest Arm Drive or Old Sambro Road. The new lot will enable residents to have safe access to the Long Lake Provincial Park. It will augment the other entrance off of the St. Margaret’s Bay Road. The traffic lights will have a new left turn added, when traveling north bound on Northwest Arm Drive.

This project is made possible through a joint effort between Polycorp and Atlantic Developments, in consultation with a volunteer community organization, the Long Lake Provincial Park Association (LLPA). The LLPA will be managing it after the project is complete. Volunteers are needed for this exciting project; please contact the Chair, Donna Flemming at 902-430-3833 if you would like to volunteer.

When asked about the project, Peter Polley of Polycorp described how this trail system will enhance the area and make their Long Lake Village development even more attractive. They wanted to give back to the community and make it even nicer place where people can choose to live in. Peter said “This is going to be fabulous; it is like Point Pleasant Park coming to Spryfield.”

LLPA applied for and received a provincial grant of $40,000. They hired a consultant who developed a concept plan. The plan includes building a new trail at the intersection of Northwest Arm Drive and Old Sambro Road and a new, small parking area at Dentith Road. This trail will connect to the other new trail described above. The concept plan includes picnics areas, benches, pit privies for public use, garbage cans, doggie bags, and many other features including but not limited to a canoe/kayak launch and interpretative panels and signage. An accessible surface for the pumping station will provide a viewing terrace.

It is my hope that we can have connectivity between the Chain of Lakes Trail and these new trail systems. The consultant determined an area where a connection could be made that would lead towards the St. Margaret’s Bay Road. HRM is undertaking an alignment/design study for the Northwest Arm Drive Greenway project which would involve connection from Northwest Arm Drive and St. Margaret’s Bay Road to the new Chain Lake Bridge. Long Lake would be an excellent candidate to add further trail connections.

The seawall at Sir Sandford Fleming Park (Dingle) has seen the most damage. It is more than 60 years old and was built using traditional methods, which did not take into account the rising sea levels. After severe storms such as Hurricane Juan, we hired a consultant to evaluate the damage to the walls and paths due to flooding, wave actions and sea-level rise. The distinct, quarried stone seawalls were evaluated to determine how to rebuild them to last for another 100 years. The study took into account storm waves, high water levels and anticipated future sea-level rise and other climate changes. The consultant report conducted by Coldwater Consulting, entitled the Northwest Arm Shoreline Restoration Study Technical Report can be viewed atwww.lindamosher.ca under the news tab.

After the consultant was finished with their evaluation, I held a public meeting to present the various options the consultant provided to rebuild the wall. The vast majority of residents indicated their preference for rebuilding with natural granite versus an engineered wall. The natural granite walls are the most expensive option, but are aesthetically pleasing and reflect the historic integrity of the Northwest Arm area.

As per the other phases of the seawall restoration, the wall will be made of granite stone. It will be approximately 120 metres long. The height of the wall will be increase to the same elevation of the wall of the previous phases, along with a three-metre-wide asphalt trail. Two culverts will be replaced along the wall. A third culvert will also be replaced along the trail leading up to the wall (approximately 70 m to the southeast). Work on the seawall will commence in the fall. The seawall at Regatta Point has continued to deteriorate and HRM is completing a coastal assessment of the walkway to develop solutions and cost estimates. Staff anticipates a report by September with recommendations on shoreline and walkway protection measures. Wave action and seawall protection will be examined as part of this work. Funds will be recommended for the capital budget.

We are also repairing the boat launch at the Dingle as part of the same tender as phase four of the seawall replacement. The seawall, which is being replaced contains several pieces of granite curb stone. We will be recycling this material as the new boat ramp surface. Generally the work involves replacing the existing concrete boat ramp surface in the same location. Construction for the boat ramp is also scheduled for the fall of 2016. There will be considerable activity at several areas within Sir Sandford Fleming Park at this time: construction of the new natural playground, seawall restoration and new boat ramp surface, so please plan your outings in the park accordingly.

To be considered an eligible participant to register, you must be a property owner who is either the owner of a private property or a property owner who is incorporated as a co-op or not for profit.

This online and mobile app allows you to:

• Sign up for collection day reminders (including holiday changes) by email, mobile app, text or Twitter
• Create, view and print a collection calendar specific to your address
  • Please note that 2016 is the last year for mailout of the collection schedule to every household.
• Receive notifications of special events and service interruptions due to weather

The objective of the new pilot program is to make monthly transit passes more affordable for low income residents. Those participating in the program will be able to purchase monthly adult transit passes for 50 per cent off the regular price. Up to 500 applications will be accepted during the first phase of the program, which will last six months from September 2016 to February 2017.

Applications will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis, and can be obtained online at www.halifax.ca/transit/LowIncomePass.php or in person at the following four municipal Citizen Contact Centres:
• Acadia Centre, Lower Sackville
• Alderney Gate, Dartmouth
• Bayers Road Centre, Halifax (west end)
• Scotia Square, Halifax (downtown)

Please note completed applications will only be accepted in person at one of the above-noted Citizen Contact Centres.

In order to be eligible for the program, you must be a resident of the Halifax Regional Municipality with a combined gross annual household income of less than $33,000. Please note if you are currently in receipt of reimbursement for the cost of transit passes from another agency, including but not limited to the Department of Community Services Employment Support and Income Assistance Program, you will be ineligible for this program.

Following the six-month pilot period, staff will report back to Regional Council and seek direction on the future of the program.

For more information on eligibility and application requirements for the Low Income Transit Pass Pilot Program, visitwww.halifax.ca/transit/LowIncomePass.php.

We recognized the athletes in Nova Scotia who have qualified and have been selected to compete in the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. This is an incredible achievement and is the result of intense training and competition. We also thanked the families of the competitors, coaches, staff, volunteers, and fans for supporting our Nova Scotia athletes as they make their Olympic dreams a reality.

At this year’s Olympic Games, Nova Scotians will be competing in gymnastics, canoe/kayak, sailing, athletics, para-swimming and wheelchair basketball. Our athletes and para-athletes instill a real sense of community pride in the city and across the province, and are an inspiration to aspiring athletes and residents young and old.

With the opening ceremonies of the Olympics just under a month away, excitement is really starting to build, we are very proud of the impressive contingent of Nova Scotia athletes selected to represent Canada in Rio. No doubt we will be seeing many of them on the podium!

It was fitting to have our ceremonies at the RNSYS as the province is sending a record number of sailors to Rio. There are four sailors for the Olympic Games and two sailors competing in the Paralympics. Halifax’s Paul Tingley, who trains at the RNSYS, will be competing in his fifth Paralympic Games. As usual he was very humble about his successes and provided great feedback and advice to the first time competitors.

Thank you to the RNSYS for hosting this event and for their continued support for competitive sailing!