Good follow up for my previous post:
At the council meeting of last week the Mayor spoke about this very issue and
the process that the Municipality would have to go through to achieve the goal
of getting it’s hands on the MD of Ranchlands very lucrative Linear Tax base.
Two ways it can be achieved either by Amalgamation or
Annexation, the first is more of a co-operative approach where the Crowsnest
Pass requests Ranchlands to share its wealth with us and we state all the good
reasons why they should do that and all the benefits we could provide for them.
The Mayor stated that process has been gone through already and just as they
did with previous councils they respectfully declined the offer.
So that leaves Annexation a process where one
municipality takes another over or portion of. Much more of a confrontational
and timely process, by the Mayor’s own admission at minimum a eighteen month
process. That’s not to say that it can’t happen but the argument usually put
forth by Municipalities to grab part of their neighbours is that they have gone
through tremendous growth and need the land.
