Change! The Crowsnest Pass can no longer pretend it is what it used to be.

I have been reading and listening closely to what my fellow bloggers and folks in the community are saying. Going back to the 1970’s when I first moved to this area, it was a thriving coal mining community. Our business sector was vibrant; we had four grocery stores, three hardware stores, three car dealerships, etc, etc. Our schools were full all four of them, there were kids everywhere.
Fast forward to 2008 we can no longer say that the Pass is changing, it is changed. We have two grocery stores, two hardware stores one car dealership. Our tax base is made up of 85% residential and 15% commercial. Our schools are empty every student we have today could fit into our high school and still only be at 90% of capacity. I have been on council for forty two months, I have heard from day one, the kids are coming without our great facilities we are not going to attract families. Well I have news for you, the mines have been hiring like crazy for the last couple of years, the numbers are still going down, you cannot hold up that as our saving grace. At an average of two kids per family, we would have to attract one hundred families here just to replace what we have lost in the last three years. What I am trying to tell you, is that families are not coming in any great degree. Real estate is getting too expensive here, for a decent home $300,000 is not out of line, on a twenty-five year mortgage your cost will be $2466 a month including taxes and heat that requires an income of $100,000 a year or $50 per hour.
What we have become in just a few short years is a weekend retreat for Calgary. Need proof of that in the fall of 2004 around 15% of our homes were owned by non residents (1 out of every 7!) nothing to get alarmed about right? Today that number is over 30% (1 out of every 3!) wow. In 1996, 28% of our full time population was 55 or older, today that number is 37% not many of those folks will be starting families. The only way you are going to attract families here is affordable housing.
Other bloggers statements are true developers are building all around us and yes, we have had some success here but nowhere near, what our neighbors have seen. We need to show some leadership, we need to move forward, we need to clean up our community. We need to realize that instead of spending all our resources trying to hang on to every building in the community that’s more than thirty years old, trying to do two or three of everything and waiting for those mythical children to fill our facilities. Lets take charge and do a few things well, has we grow we can do more things well. However, right now we are spread so thin we cannot do anything the way it should be done.
I read the blog about a tube park, did some research on it, they appear to be very popular, first impression great idea if we want to attract people here we need to do something different. Unfortunately, we do not have a chairlift on our ski hill, could we, should we have a chairlift? How? Well if we moth balled our second arena for the cost of $15-20000 and took what we put into that facility for the next 7-8 years we could finance a chairlift at no increased cost to the taxpayer. If in those year’s we have a sudden influx of kids you can always fire that old facility backup.
The point I am trying to make is we have to let go of the past before we can more forward. We have to live and deal with the facts as they are today, not what they were 30-40 years ago. We are not a wealthy municipality; we do not receive big tax dollars from the mines like our neighbors. We have to use our dollars wisely build a solid foundation first and grow from there. We are all indeed talking about the need for leadership, just in different ways.