That’s where the townsfolk of the small community of Springhill, N.S., found themselves in early March, when the elected council voted to relinquish town status.
The town that claimed such a rich and often cruel coal-mining heritage, the town that boasted famous daughter Anne Murray, would cease to be a town. Instead, it is to be swallowed into the fold of Cumberland County, a westerly municipal unit that borders on the neighbouring province of New Brunswick.
Many of the town’s 3,600 or so citizens were angry and they demanded answers. How did the finances of the town become so bleak as to produce a multi-million-dollar debt, what would become of the town employees, the town’s police force? What about town services and assets? If this move was in the works, why weren’t the townsfolk consulted weeks or months before it happened?
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