Amherst, Nova Scotia

8 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 7 AMHERST , NOVA SCOT I A the lights that we installed 11 years ago with a better quality of next generation LEDs,” says MacDonald. “One day you might drive down one of our roads and all the lights are out, but as you drive, they turn on, because LED Roadway Lighting are experimenting with some of their new products.” An electrification strategy is also underway to convert the Amherst fleet to electric vehicles, and the town has just purchased an electric Zamboni. “We want to make sure that we do the electrification of the fleet in an appropriate manner, so we have our bases covered. We don’t want to do it haphazard,” MacDonald explains. Moving ahead, Mayor Kogon looks forward to an increase in population bringing continued vibrancy to the community. He admits, “We are not looking to have monumental growth. There’s a great sense of pride in being a smaller urban center in a rural county. We want to maintain that, we want to maintain our culture, our heritage and our lifestyle, but there needs to be some growth in the business sector and in the population.” MacDonald adds, “Over the years we’ve looked at the switch to the green economy as an opportunity and not just as a cost. We’re hoping that we will continue to be the test community for smart-grid technology going forward. We have laid some of the groundwork, but we’re also lucky, given our geography, to have a really good location for wind development and solar. We’re also right on the land bridge to the mainland. The ability for the grid to become smarter will require connections between regions and provinces. We are well positioned to be in the front row seat to being part of that green economy going forward.”