the site was redeveloped as the Nova Centre, which houses the new Halifax Convention Centre. In October 2008, The Chronicle Herald was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's newsmagazine. On February 3, 2009, the paper laid off 24 employees, the first layoffs in the paper's 136-year history. The cuts represented approximately one quarter of its newsroom staff, but it remained the largest newsroom east of Montreal. These cuts impacted the production department where nine employees were laid off. The company stated that these layoffs were the result of a decline in advertising due to the distress of the current economic situation. In 2014, the Herald issued layoff notices to another 20 newsroom employees. New management Sarah Dennis, daughter of owner Graham Dennis and vice-president since the 1990s, took over as CEO of the newspaper in November 2010. She married Mark Lever in August 2011. Graham Dennis, who ran the newspaper for more than 57 years, died on December 1, 2011 at the age of 84. Sarah Dennis inherited the paper. Lever took over as president and CEO in 2012. Though the newspaper is profitable, Dennis and Lever have aggressively cut costs in recent years. Dennis holds a "far less romantic view of the newspaper" than her father did, a characteristic that journalist Stephen Kimber said has made cost-cutting easy. Dennis stated: "It's a business, and you have to run it like a business. The history is important, but you can't let that determine what you do." Shortly after taking over as CEO, Dennis championed the newspaper's independence, stating: "The fact that we’re not controlled by someone in Ontario makes a big difference in what we can do." She stated that the newspaper would remain independent as long as possible. However, following her father's death Dennis stated that she would entertain offers from potential buyers. Discord erupted in 2011 after the Herald wrote a new contract for freelance journalists that gave the newspaper rights to freelancers' work forever, without any payment for signing over the copyright. Numerous freelancers, including Ralph Surette and Silver Donald Cameron, refused to sign. Dennis stated that the newspaper was simply emulating what other newspapers across the country were doing. The newspaper purchased Bounty Print, a commercial printing company, in 2011. In 2012 they purchased The Casket, a weekly newspaper published in Antigonish, through a Herald sister