CORNWALL – The City of Cornwall will hold a public meeting a week from today (Tuesday) in order to create a municipal corporation.
Mayor Leslie O’Shaughnessy told Cornwall Newswatch it has to be done in a public forum, which will happen at the Planning Advisory Committee meeting. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. on Feb. 16 at city hall.
“It’s just a formality that we have to tell the people why we are starting the corporation and what it will be used for,” O’Shaughnessy said.
That’s because two municipalities, in this case Cornwall and Akwesasne, can’t jointly own the harbour lands.
The mayor said Akwesasne has to go through a similar process.
City council also agreed Monday night to allow the mayor and city clerk to sign a pre-transfer contribution agreement with Transport Canada.
“Basically it’s in regards to legal costs that we have incurred for the transfer, when it occurs. The federal government has agreed to pay for that. For us to get our money back we need to have a pre-transfer agreement … so we can get our legal costs back,” O’Shaughnessy told CNW.
The mayor indicated that Akwesasne will be passing a similar motion to get its legal costs back from the government.
The harbour land is a 16 acre parcel, which includes the controversial chemical storage tanks.
It’s widely expected that a deal with the federal government will be done before the end of March.