Election 2013 Another one joins the race

Well it is official tonight the first of the incumbents Larry Mitchell announced  his intention to run in the upcoming election. Surprisingly during previous council terms most members of council stated if they would run or not at the last meeting prior to nomination day. Any way not one other member of council gave any hint of their intentions (other than Councilor Saje who had mentioned months back that he would not be running)

July 16 Council meeting Crowsnest Pass

CAO Report of Activities

Not a lot was reported the CAO just got back from vacation some highlights:

Insurance Underwriters report should be done by the end of the month

Box clever is working on the municipal web site

On July 25 the new Arts and Culture board will have its first meeting

Donna Stelmachovich was appointed to the Seniors Board

Appointment of Returning Officer-Nobody applied for the position under the MGA somebody must be appointed by August 2 administration recommended that Chief Financial Officer Marion Vanoni be appointed. By vote of council it was determined that this issue be put of until the special council meeting of July 23, to see if anybody else who as previously done the job would be interested.

Stephanie Hamilton was appointed to sit on the Municipal Heritage Board

Task Force on Disaster Prevention-Mayor Decoux proposed that a Task Force of local residents, politicians, provincial experts to come together to provide recommendations to prevent future flooding issues. CAO will bring a list of potential members for the August 6 council meeting.

Live streaming of council meetings-Information was provided to council by administration on the process and costs of this ($20,000) it was determined to defer this issue until the next council meeting August 6.

Number of correspondence were presented

Minutes from various meeting were accepted by council

Bylaws 872 to rezone five acres of land across from the high school in Coleman from Non-urban to Drive In Commercial. Lots of discussion above this possibly being another hotel, condo, storage etc.

Public Input: Aggie Mitchell took the opportunity to spend much of her allotted time talking about how she volunteered for the Sinister 7 race, what a great event it was for the community, how many people it brought into the community and how it supported our local businesses. Mrs Mitchell then went on to talk about how she is so disappointed with all the negativity in the community in her opinion it’s time we were all more grateful for all the positive things we have.    

At this point Councilor Gail moved to go In Camera to deal with (3) land and (2) personnel issues.

One minute later Councilor Saje departed the meeting

After coming out of In Camera Councilor Mitchell moved to schedule a Special meeting of Council on July 23 to deal with the issues of the Returning Officer, Annexation and the hotel    

 Note: Cost of administration $4325 per day

Crowsnest Centre Lands-Development Feasibility Study

Administration brought forth a recommendation to spend $4000 to use Rich Eichler Consulting Ltd to conduct a feasibility study to identify development opportunities for this site.
I was anticipating a large fight over this proposal, when previous council rezoned that land to commercial Councilor Mitchell was furious, in fact Councilor Taje had proposed to put aside that land for future municipal use and Councilor Mitchell strongly supported that position.
So I expected that strong voice to lead the opposition to this proposal, I also expected some members of this council to spearhead the drive to invest into and reopen the centre. All I heard for the last couple of years from those individuals was what a great place it was and all it gave to this community and how critical it was to keep it going.
(Remember the editorials Crowsnest Pass will lose the education consortium if this place closed)
But then again based on their actions most of our elected officials have realised that the municipality could not even afford to operate a library in Bellevue let alone a 30,000 square foot decrepit building that the Alberta government determined to be unsuitable has a hospital 35 years ago.

Any way maybe I'm of base here and the recommendation of this study will be to use the site for future municipal use.

Shocked in the Crowsnest Pass

Why am I shocked? Well after all this community went through with the promises of Billion dollar projects, and all the glitz and glamour that came with them.

Last night at the G+P meeting Councilor Mitchell brought forth the following Notice of Motion.


“Whereas the council of the Mun of Crowsnest Pass passed a policy motion CL.013 in the fall of 2010, regarding endorsement policy for member of the council.
And whereas this policy may affect the goodwill of the community towards new endeavours of commercial or industrial ventures and instill the feelings that the community wishes to discourage new development.
And whereas this type of policy is covered under the Mun. Government Act in sections 172 and 173 (pecuniary interests) as quoted when this policy was brought forward in 2010.
With the above in mind, I Larry Mitchell, councilor of the Mun. of Crowsnest Pass will move or cause to be moved a motion to rescind this policy CL.013 2010 at our regular council meeting on April 19,2011.”

This policy came about because the former Mayor of the Crowsnest Pass appeared in a promotional video for a developer that created a lot of noise in the area over the last five years.

Councilor Mitchell understands as full well as I do that sections 172 and 173 of the MGA refers to pecuniary interests, (which in lay mans terms means no member of council shall participate in any council duty that they may gain financially from personally). That’s why we had a councilor for eighteen months who left the chambers every time an issue with this company came up, because he did have a pecuniary interest. He collected a paycheck from this company.

When this policy came forth it was explained in great detail to Councilor Mitchell that there was a perception real or not that when a municipal politician appears in a developers promotional material, it lends credibility to that project.

Nobody wants to discourage new ventures and it may be appropriate at some point for the community and its leaders to assist in the promotion of new development, marketing plan, economical initiative etc.  

But prior to our Mayor appearing in this video was there a discussion in council? No

Was council as a whole given the opportunity to discuss if this was a good idea? No.

Now this is what the policy states “No member of council shall be permitted to endorse any project, appear in any promotional video, pamphlet, or publication of any type, or attend shareholders meetings acting as a member of Council without first presenting to Council the reasons for such involvement and receiving Council’s approval”

SHOCKING isn’t it? in simply terms it states that for a member of council to do this he/she would have to bring it to council first and receive approval. As a member of the council at that time I found out about this video months after it was released when a local real estate agent emailed it to me.

I would like to hear Councillor Mitchell or any other politician explain to the public how this policy, “discourages new development”