So - down here in Nova Scotia, we have a town - either by mismanagement or ...well, we don't know, because they won't tell us - that is on the point of dissolving its charter and amalgamating with the surrounding county.
The challenges it faces are the same across all of rural Nova Scotia: aging and slowly declining population, high residential and commercial taxes, and few local industries to provide jobs. It's a former coal mining town that still maintains that identity, despite not having a working mine in decades. One of the major things weighing on the town are uncollected property taxes - seriously massive uncollected property taxes. One of the things we have not been told is what happened to the tax collection scheme and why did it go off the rails in only the last few years?
In any event, some town residents are refusing to accept the plan for amalgamation and want to think outside the box on economic development. Their first target is the town's accumulated long-term debt, which stands at $5.1-million. Get that off the books, and everything else can be sorted out.
Now, then - you've got a former mining town. Population now just under 4000 souls, a fair percentage of those seniors. There's a battery plant, a firm that produces plastic packaging / containers, bowling alley, hospital, a few tourist attractions, some federal transfers (a Federal prison is located within town limits) and - perhaps the most important resource of all - a GeoThermal resource that is already (and has for several years) provided inexpensive heating/cooling for some local businesses, with an almost unlimited potential for expansion.
So - what's the fastest way to put your hands on a cool $5-mil ?
via ehMac.ca http://ift.tt/1odblIB
