Word of JDI appearance forces Petitcodiac council to delay spray meeting
A noon-hour village council meeting on plans for herbicide spraying in the Petitcodiac area generated so much interest that the meeting had to be cancelled to allow officials to look for a bigger space.
Petitcodiac Mayor Gerry Gogan said council heard from the group Stop Spraying New Brunswick a couple of weeks ago. It wanted council to sign a petition to ban spraying, and some councillors were considering it, he said.
"I know some of them were in favour of it, others were kind of on the fence," Gogan said. "They would have liked to hear both sides of the story much like I do."
The mayor said people became aware that representatives from J.D. Irving, Ltd. were planning to attend Tuesday's meeting to speak to council.
"Since then, I guess Facebook has lit up and everyone wants to hear what they have to say," he said.
Gogan said he had to make a decision to go ahead with the meeting in cramped council quarters or to cancel it.
"There was three people coming ... two of them from Nova Scotia, so I had to make a decision whether we're going to hold it or not," he said. "Bring them all the way in from Nova Scotia or not. So I decided that we'd do it later and do a better job on it."
A number of people opposed to spraying in New Brunswick showed up at the village office anyway, among them Liz Mallet, a member of Stop Spraying New Brunswick.
"It really came to a head when a couple of weeks ago, we had a representative come to tell us they would be spraying all above us starting today till the 15th of September, within that time frame," said Mallett.
"And it kind of galvanized us all in our community of Parkindale, a lot of us, to make more noise about it."
Next meeting to be held soon
Gogan said another council meeting will be scheduled at a bigger venue, likely the town's Maritime Motorsport Hall of Fame.
He said the Irving representatives would like to have the meeting as soon as possible, and details are being worked out.
Mallett said she's disappointed Tuesday's meeting didn't work out, but she'll be there next time.
"It's sad but true that people feel so helpless in our area," she said. "We're really rural and it doesn't seem to matter what we say. It's not paid attention to, so people say 'what's the point?'
"So any meeting is a good meeting and I hope we can get a lot of people there and it will be an informative and do-something kind of meeting instead of just being the usual nothing happens."
