TORIES’ OPEN UP COMFORTABLE LEAD; TORY VOTERS “MOST COMMITTED”

Interesting poll on the EKOS web site, check this story out and follow the direction of Canadians opinions on the various political parties.

TORIES’ OPEN UP COMFORTABLE LEAD; TORY VOTERS “MOST COMMITTED”

Also available on the side under Interesting Blogs or Web Sites

2009 Infrastructure Crowsnest Pass

2009 Infrastructure Crowsnest Pass

As of August 4 2009 we have available for Infrastructure the following $3,933,696 that is made up of the following grants;
AMIP-$2,389,635
MSI Cap-$723,052
New Deal-$328,032
SIP-$492,977
We will also be receiving an additional $3,245,195 from the AMWWP program


We will be spending the following: $9,069,330
Blairmore/Coleman Water Connect $127,124
Lagoons $4,553,600
16th ave Blairmore Waterline $6,000
27th and 227st Bellevue $439,288
226st Street Bellevue $188,816
225st Bellevue $193,620
23 ave 207 street $857,294
27ave and 29 ave $1,844,283
223st 29th ave to 31 ave $861,305

So that calculates out to the following;

$9,069,330 infrastructure spending
$3,933,696 in the bank Aug 4th
$3,245,195 from the Amwwp program
$13,306 from the municipality

which leaves a short fall of $1,877,133, which is to be covered by the short-term loan, how do we pay that off?

In March, we will be receiving the following;
AMIP $1,028,662
MSI Cap $578,669
New Deal $344,082
SIP $344,940

Total of $2,296,353

The only municipal dollars of this total of $9,069,330 that we are spending is $13,306 which means the work above is funded 99.85% by provincial/federal grants.

Regarding Lines of Credit the municipality as had in place each year a LOC of $1,000,000 this line as not been used in 2008 or 2009.

I will not publish certain comments

Today I received a comment that without using a name, clearly identifies a person that has belonged to two groups that have experienced financial difficulties over the years. To the best of my knowledge this person as not been charged with any offence, let along convicted so I will not be posting the comment or naming the organizations to give any sense of who this person is.
I have no problem 99% of the time allowing any comment even attacking myself, or anybody else that has stepped in to the public arena to be published on this site.
But I will not publish this comment or similar types of comments.

Dean Ward
Crowsnest Pass Home

Harper Government Invests in Four Projects to Create Jobs in Rural Alberta

The Crowsnest Pass Economic Development Board is developing an implementation plan to provide recommendations on establishing a Discovery Centre for the Crowsnest Pass area. The implementation plan is considered an essential step towards the development of the larger initiative, which will generate new employment opportunities and increased economic activity for the region.

“The implementation plan will identify how the Crowsnest Discovery Centre could have a significant economic impact on the community and outline how the facility will reduce the footprint on the land by incorporating adaptive re-use of an existing structure,” said Shar Lazzarotto, Manager of Community Futures Crowsnest Pass. “We expect the facility to provide employment opportunities and economic generation to the community, and fit in well with the developers plan for the property and the community’s heritage theme.”

http://news.gc.ca/web/article-eng.do?m=/index&nid=482059

Budget parameters have been set in the Crowsnest Pass

Typically budget process in the Crowsnest Pass has gone along the following lines.
Department heads, and all outside groups present their list of priorities and financial requirements for the coming year to our Chief Financial Officer by the end of September. The first draft of budget is presented to council usually in late October with numbers driven by a huge tax increase.
Everybody comes in front of council and justifies there requirements with typically good arguments. But everybody understands that we cannot pay for and do everything so we spend the next two to three months and numerous meeting getting close to a realistic number.
Then the political maneuvering begins where the very vocal minority attempts to ensure that their pet projects are looked after. Suddenly we realize that we are in the month of April and panic sets in because the municipality is getting very tight on cash. So everybody takes a big gulp and passes a budget that they may not be totally satisfied with but its done.
Typically hate to use that word again but because we hold municipal elections every three years and politicians rely on the public having a short memory, the first year is a large increase (11%), the second year a moderate increase (3.8%) and the last year a low one (?%).
Well thanks to having a number of councilors that would prefer to do things differently this year, last night (Sept 15th) the majority of council voted to direct administration to present to council prior to Oct 30 a budget with a maximum increase in expenditures of 3%.
Certainly a good start should shorten the process up by a number of months which only makes sense when your budget year starts Jan 1.

While we are talking about money, we should take a look at municipal reserves. Came across some very interesting information in the last few days. The municipal reserves for the Crowsnest Pass are roughly $1.3 million we have 5700 residents that works out to $228 per person in reserves. How does that compare to the rest of the province?

Broken down by the various types of categories recognized in the province of Alberta here are the numbers.

Cities-$1199 per person
Special Municipalities-$3090 per person
MDs and Counties-$7300 per person
Towns-$1977 per person
Villages-$1257 per person
Summer Villages-$3068 per person

Provincial Tories Lose Seat

What is this telling us? Or more importantly what is it telling Stelmach?

ELECTION RESULTS
- Paul Hinman, Wildrose Alliance: 4,052, 37%
- Avalon Roberts, Liberal: 3,776, 34%
- Diane Colley-Urquhart, Progressive Conservative: 2,863, 26%
- Eric Carpendale, NDP: 148, 1%
- Len Skowronski, Social Credit: 118, 1%
- Antoni Grochowski, Independent: 71, 1%
Total votes: 11,028
Voter turnout: 40.5%

Surprise, Surprise a Match made in Heaven!

Conservatives/NDP
Harper/Layton

Only in my wildest dreams could I have pictured the "Grand Coalition" being the NDP and the Conservatives. The old time socialists must be loving this. I know, I know Jack did it because Harper gave in to "our" demands on EI reform. I can see the self justification happening from coast to coast of this wonderful country of ours.
Good thing Elizabeth May does not have a seat she would not know which coalition to join.
I tip my hat to Steven Harper he is a survivor.

Atlas Road Utilization

Back in August the majority of council voted against granting Spray Lakes Sawmills a road use agreement. Why?
On Dec 2 2008 Spray Lakes and SRD approached council regarding their logging plan for the Atlas Road area.
We as council were concerned, for several reasons. Firstly we do not have a sawmill here any longer which used to be a significant employer in the area. So that leaves our three largest employers in the area; the BC Mines, Government (Municipal, Provincial, Hospital etc) and Tourism.
Obviously the Mines and Government will not be negatively effected by logging but Tourism could be if the logging is not done in the proper areas and in a reasonable fashion. Would we has a council have good reason to be concerned about the logging on Atlas Road?
Yes when we were initially approached there was concern about logging going up the side of the Crowsnest Mountain, and being visible from the highway, there was concern about buffer areas along the river. There was concerns on the impact of the logging on the tourism operators in that area. The greatest concern for myself was the way that the Kananaskis Road had been logged the previous logging season, to which both Spray Lakes and SRD agreed mistakes had been made. That things were being done to clean up that area and ensure that it does not happen again, I certainly felt that between SRD and Spray Lakes there was not enough communication back to make council comfortable that future logging practices would be acceptable to all parties involved.
That is why I choice not to support a road use agreement.
We were informed this week that SRD and Spray Lakes are trying to schedule a date to sit down with council and get a better flow of communications going between the three groups.
On the rumour of the closure of the Atlas Road itself, we has a council have been led to believe that after Spray Lakes finishes utilizing that Road to truck its timber that they have no interest in maintaining the road. If that ends up being the case, then it becomes any issue of anybody else stepping up to maintain the road.

Poll Results for the Crowsnest Pass

Two poll results that surprised me in the strength of the numbers, the questions were;

Would you support the municipality conducting a feasibility study on building a multi use recreation facility?
26 of 31 votes (83%) were in favour

Did Council made the right decision not to proceed with the enhanced policing position?
22 of 23 (95%) agreed

Please be sure to vote on the latest poll as we look at federal politics.

Fall a wonderful time for an election!

Will the government collapse?
Will we have a fall election?
Is it all political posturing? (Think the grand alliance).
Will the NDP sell their souls to work with Harper?
Is Iggy just trying to get as much political mileage as possible, knowing full well the government will not fall. All the grand standing keeps the throw out Harper crowd happy for a while, then when it does not work he blames the NDP/Bloc for not having the backbone. Allows him to stand up during the real election campaign and talk about how he did everything to get rid of the Devil "Harper". The Liberals become the champion of every anti-conservative in the country. We are the only party that stood up to the Conservatives. Great campaign lines.
Why oh why if Iggy really wanted to get rid of Harper and the Conservatives did he not do it in January. Were Harper and the Conservatives different in January than they are today?
Will the Bloc milk Harper for another stimulus package for Quebec?
Will an election make our economic situation worse?
Do the Canadian people really want an election?
So many questions when will we get the answers?