Crowsnest Pass: We are going into debt and why.

Last week at the council meeting (Oct 20) we gave second and third readings to borrowing bylaws 934, 935 and 936 I will explain each in more detail.

Bylaw 934 is for the sum of $1.2 million which will be spent on upgrading the roofs at the MDM facility and the Crowsnest Sports Complex.
The MDM is used by a large number of groups for various programs and the gym is our only community hall that can hold a large crowd or an event of more than 150 people.
The Crowsnest Sports Complex is the arena in Coleman, both of these facilities are in dire need of their roofs being upgraded or they will continue to deteriorate and ultimately we will lose them.

Bylaw 935 is for the sum of $1,672,500 which will be spent on the Frank Wastewater Facility (Sewer plant). With this plant we have a provincial license to operate it that requires the municipality to upgrade the plant by 2019. The total upgrade of the plant will be in the range of $18 million with the expectation on our part that the project will be funded two thirds by the provincial and federal governments. The first phase of the project is for $5 million our share will be the $1.7 stated above, this project/borrowing will not proceed unless we receive the grants or council commits to borrow the full $5 million. The problem with that scenario is if you start the project before you get the grant you no longer qualify for the grants. Second the municipality by provincial law can only borrow up to $19 million so a big chunk of that would be eaten up by the Sewer Plant if we proceeded with that approach.

Bylaw 936 is for the sum of $700,000 which will be spent on either the upgrade of the York Creek lodge or the building of a new lodge. (We expect a decision in the next month). In 2010 previous council had made a commitment of $1 million to a proposal by the York Creek Lodge Board to upgrade the facility. This council felt it was important to fulfill that commitment so if the lodge proceeds we will be taking $300,000 out of reserves and borrowing the other $700,000 to honor that pledge.

How will this affect our taxes? It won't.

This year we are paying out of our operational budget the sum of $450,000 on our existing debt, that amount drops to $75,000 next year, $29,000 in 2017 and 2018.
The annual principal payments on the above: Bylaw 934 $100,000, Bylaw 935 $42,000, and Bylaw 936 $60,000. Our total principal payment for next year would be $277,000 depending on when we borrow the money, if the lodge or the sewer plant doesn't happen until later in the year then we will not see payments until 2017.
Based on the fact that we are paying more than those amounts right now this borrowing should have zero negative impact on our tax bills.          

Ratepayers Association Meeting

Meeting took place last night at the Hillcrest Miners club. I would estimate that there was close to 100 people there.
People were concerned about the following issues:
Taxes/Utility Bills/Franchise Fees
The large amount of dollars being spent on consultants.
Growth in administration and the associated costs.
Thunder in the Valley
Community policing.
Financing of equipment

It was deter minded that the majority of people there were interested in moving the organization forward. The next meeting will be held at the Blairmore Legion Tuesday June 26th at 7pm, there will be elections held at that time for anybody interested in sitting on the executive.

Provincial Education taxes

Interesting article the province is going to collect an extra $120 million from education taxes this year.
This means the pressure on council is going to be even greater than last year to sharpen their pencils and keep the municipal portion of the tax bill under control.
Good luck



http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bigger+provincial+bite+education+taxes+will+hike+Edmonton+levy/6135932/story.html

Crowsnest Pass, Here we grow again!

Just one week prior to the municipality sitting down with CUPE to begin the bargaining process for the last collective agreement that expired at the end of 2011. The municipality continues to throw money around like there is no end to what the taxpayers are willing to pay.
Yesterday our new Public Works/Planning/Engineering director began his duties with the municipality, in addition to that our new Building Inspector began his employment as well.
The strategic plan is working, I just did not realize that we were going to stimulate the local ecconomy by turning the municipality into the latgest non minning employer in the valley.

Wages for these two positions? minimum $200,000 a year. Plus clerical support, plus pickups, offices, computers, cell phones, training, certifications, etc etc. It's going to be embarrassing for somebody to tell the employees union next week that they have no money.

Our building inspections were being performed by a company from Lethbridge that was coming to the Pass once a week occasionaly twice when really busy. Maybe council is anticipating a construction boom in the next couple of years!
Looking at the numbers new development for 2008 was $8,129,570 for 2009 $9,560,945 for 2010 $9,438,361 and for 2011 $6,230,000 a whooping drop of 35%.

Need work "we" are hiring

By "we" I mean the good taxpayers of the Crowsnest Pass.

Just a matter of a few months ago our leaders hired a "New" Public Works Manager, I entered the G+P meeting last night just as the Mayor was introducing the "New" Fire Chief.

If you take a moment to click over to the Municipality site @ http://www.town.crowsnestpass.ab.ca/finance-a-administration/employment  you will see "we" are also in the process of hiring a Building Inspector/Safety codes officer, Development Officer, Director of Planning, Engineering and Operations, and a Manager of Corporate Services.

Wow if I was on the negotiating committee for CUPE I would be rubbing my hands and thinking what a wonderful year 2012 is going to be, nothing better for bargaining than an employer that's flush with cash and willing to spend it.

Least we forget "we" still have the Director of Community Services to come. Does anybody believe that it will end there?


Interesting video from You tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge4X86CxOUY  this story was pointed out to me by one of my reqular readers. Its from the USA but pretty much in line with what's going on in the Pass of course on a much smaller scale. Please take a couple of minutes and check it out.

The drive to seven is on. Paying for it.

After a year of task forces, strategic planning, creation of policy and procedures.
We learnt just a few weeks back that the municipality has been stream lined from the previous cumbersome structure of four departments each with a director reporting to the CAO for a total administration team of five people.
Down to a thrifty three departments with a team of up to six administrators reporting to a CAO for a total administration team of seven people.  

Today I see the next step to the drive to seven is in motion the Director of Planning-Engineering and Operations has been posted. http://www.aamdc.com/classifieds/jobs/guest/detailjob/141-director-of-planning-engineering-and-operations

People keep asking me around town how are they going to pay for all of these positions plus the strategic plan.
I see a number of ways they are going to achieve this.

1. The strategic plan some of those issues are a one time cost so they need to find some easily accessible money. (Back taxes with the big jump in penalties they are anticipating great globs of money to flow in next year prior to those penalties kicking in)

2. Savings from the collective agreement the contract with CUPE is up on January 31st, it was not by accident that Councilor Mitchell was replaced with Councilor Saindon on the bargaining committee I suspect they will probably bring in a high priced lawyer or consultant to assist in this process. There is potentially large savings in the collective agreement the only problem is you have to get the folks sitting on the other side to agree to those changes.

3. The perpetual money generators (more often referred to as taxpayers) the message as already been sent with the increase in franchise fees, ($200,000 per year) and a tax increase last spring of 2% that most people anticipated to be zero.

4. User fees I anticipate that a lot of the fees that people use to pay for various municipal services will be increased.

5. Funding for external groups, many organizations receive funding from the municipality; Museum, Allied arts, Underground mine, Women's Centre etc etc I think you will see less funding for these types of groups.

6. New assessment most people don't realize that every year new assessment increases the tax base by 1-2% which should easily in today's economy cover any cost of living increases the municipality incurs.

It will be interesting six months from now to look back at this list and see how accurate my predictions were!

Change its Coming, Franchise Fees, Taxes

Breaking News:

Well the public demanded change and by jolly Jan 1st Council is going to give it to you.

Yes you will defininitly see change, on your power and gas bill.

The CAO stated last night to achieve the goals and objectives of Council strategic plan the municipality needs to bring in an additional $500,000 in revenue next year, you can achieve that by raising franchise fees, mill rate etc. He went on further to state that if they didn't do franchise fees it would equate to an 8% tax increase.

My doesn't change feel good.

The initial motion by Councilor Mitchell was to keep the Atco charge at the present rate of 15%, and to increase the Fortis rate from 8% to 14% (within the ensuing debate he suggested that it could go to 17% next year). Then Councilor Londsbury made a friendly amendment to increase the Atco rate to 20% which was accepted by Councilor Mitchell. The motion passed by a vote of 5-2 (Saindon, Gail opposed)

What does this mean to you the taxpayer?
Fortis (electricity bill) will increase by $32.64 a year and bring in for the municipality an additional $147,823 a year.
Atco (Gas bill) will increase by $22.32 a year and bring in for the municipality an additional $47,638 per year.  That's a total of an additional $195,461 per year coming out of the taxpayers pocket.
Still leaves the municipality looking for an additional $350,000 in revenue to stasify the goals of the forth coming strategic plan.

NOTE: You can vote at the Pass Herald on how you feel about these franchise fee increases  @ http://www.passherald.ca/index.htm

Better understanding Municipal Taxes in the Crowsnest Pass

Its amazing how politicians positions change before and after an election!

During the campaign there was several candidates that stated they would not support a tax increase, one candidate stated on his literature that he would never support a tax increase, another stated that he would vote as close as possible to zero.

Then the first budget comes along and to our surprise it includes a tax increase, yes I sat in those council meeting and there was three people that voted against that increase but to his credit (Saindon) was the only one that spoke against it, very easy to vote against something and not say a word because its going through anyway.

Now the heat turns up a little bit because there was a tax increase, and because of the wonderful part of the equation called market assessment I have heard of some people being as high as 10%.

Then as I have raised a number of times we all know that during the budget process a number of new positions were created, with the old trick of building in the wages for 12 months knowing full well that the budget does not get passed before April, they are just filling those jobs now so there was at least four months of wages not used, the Foreman's job is still being advertised so that is not going to be filled for at least two more months.

So now the politicians are blaming the province for a tax increase, due to the ASFF and the Seniors Housing increasing their requisitions. Well everybody that been on or around council knows that happens every year. Councilor Mitchell saw that the last three years, I stressed during the election that it was important to have some experienced councilors on the next council for this very type of reason. But one of the present councilors basically stated that, that was nonsense experience was not such a important factor.

Never the less when the ASFF went up by $175,000 and the seniors went up by $18,000 the council had an option they could have taken the dollars saved on wages above and offset those increases, they choice to on the seniors side which will save the average tax payer a whopping $5 this year. But the real issue the ASFF they choose to ignore.

Anyway back to the tax increase they wish to now say the dollars they pick up from Joe Blow taxpayer did not increase this year that its all the provinces (ASFF) fault, its their portion that went up.

Well lets give them some slack here and compare apples to apples lets look at the number of dollars raised by General Municipal Taxation lets put aside the ASFF and the Seniors housing. Where do we find that information? Go to the Mill rate bylaw on the municipal web site. Below is an example from 2009 Bylaw 777 under the whereas you will see a line like the one below it shows the amount of dollars collected by General Municipal Taxation.

"Example 2009 Bylaw 777
WHEREAS, the estimated municipal revenues and transfers from all sources other than taxation is

estimated at $14,354,981, and the balance of $6,360,015 is to be raised by general municipal taxation;

In 2008 the number was $6,277,689
In 2009 the number was $6,360,015
In 2010 the number was $6,432,821
In 2011 the number is $6,555,990

So lets do the math 2009 increased by $82,326.
2010 increased by $72,806.
2011 increased by $123,169

Wow the general taxation went up this year by almost $50,000 more than the previous year, I hope we don't see zero tax increases like this every year. Based on the above numbers previous council did not do so bad.

Then other questions come up, a lot of which have already been pointed out by the commenter's on my blog.
Despite only increasing general taxation last year by $72,806 council managed to do the following:
$450,000 back into reserves
$350,000 surplus
$250,000 equipment purchase out of the municipal budget.

This year despite increasing general taxation by a whopping $123,169 council will manage to do the following:
$100,000 into reserves
Virtually zero surplus except what will be created by putting all those new wages in the budget that will only be used for a portion of the year.
$530,000 in debt taken on to purchase new equipment.


One last point I have heard comments being thrown around regarding reserves and the way they were previously and abused, I have stated before I did not always agree with every Infrastructure project the municipality did, but I would challenge any of the present council to point out a project we should not have spent those reserves on which projects were unnecessary.

Municipal Reserves the sequel.

It is with great interest today that I read Councilor Gallants blog regarding the issue of Municipal Reserves. It makes me very excited to see that one councilor is obviously not going to lose focus on this very important issue, my only hope is that the policy for this issue is dealt with a little faster than the advertising policy. It is now been almost six months since that issue was raised at council and the policy is still not in place. I would hope something as important as the “municipal reserve policy” would not be tangled up so long that it would not be in place for the next budget.

Councilor Gallant comments to the use of reserves as a slush fund by previous councils I guess that resonates well with an audience over a couple of latte’s but the truth is a little bit different than that. I did not always agree with some of the previous council’s decisions on infrastructure, but over the last nine years, the $1.9 million that was taken out of reserves was used in combination with various government grants to get us $30 million in Infrastructure projects completed.

But never the less I always was one Councilor (not the only one) to emphasize the importance of building reserves, that’s why last year the majority of Council agreed that it was time to start rebuilding the reserves, which led to a budget that required a $450,000 contribution to the reserve fund. I am happy to hear that thanks to the prudent financial decisions of the majority of that previous council that there appears to be a $350,000 surplus for 2010. Some may not see that as much of an achievement but looking back over the last 10 years most Irwin led councils ran in the red.

Anyway, the issue of reserves how do you know what is enough. Well first thing I do is compare ourselves to other municipalities they can’t all be wrong, where do you find that information Municipal Affairs, their most recent figures to the end of 2008.

Reviewing 108 towns in the province with a population of 441,647, those towns had reserves between them of $474,622,492 or in simple terms $1075 per person, how does the Pass compare to that? $231 per person.

Should plans be in place for reserves? Absolutely (I caught the comment about lack of planning) but anybody who predicted eight years ago that there was going to be a recession in 2007 for a couple of years and that the federal/provincial governments were going to come forth with a stimulus program for municipalities, I want that individual picking numbers for me for Wednesday night.

Also, keep in mind every year previous councils were provided by administration both long term Infrastructure and equipment replacement programs. Did we always get sound advice, well its not that long ago administration was leading down the path of building a new town shop in Coleman that started out as a $300,000 venture, three years later it was up to $1.3 million if the majority of council had not saw fit to put a stop to that you would have no reserves today. The only point of that statement is to state that long-term plans are only as good as the information being provided to you.

Should taxes be raised to build reserves? Previous council managed to place $450,000 into reserves, and create a $350,000 surplus by increasing taxes 3.2% (Including ASFF and Seniors Housing) this year taxes including those outside requisitions went up 2% not a whole lot of difference 1.2% to be exact which in dollar terms is roughly a difference of only $80,000. However, the only money that was placed into reserves was the $100,000 for the lodge, versus the $450,000 put aside last year.

Let us also not lose sight of the requirement to borrow $530,000 to purchase new equipment this year.

Now let us talk about the issue of needs for reserves how much money should be put aside? I agree with Councilor Gallant the municipality does need to determine what the needs are for the long term. To this end, and yes I know it is only preliminary at this point but Myron Thompson the Director of Public Works reviewed with council a few meetings back the long term Infrastructure plan and the equipment replacement program. He stated that the municipality would need to put aside $430,000 per year for infrastructure and $410,000 for equipment replacement Add that to the $100,000 a year for the lodge gives you a total of $940,000 per year.

How will that amount be raised? If that number is even remotely close that equates to a tax increase of 14% next year (remember that would not include ASFF or Seniors Housing). At this point, nobody as even spoke about putting aside dollars for new recreation facilities. Wow, there better be many inefficiencies out there.

One more thought on the issue of policy, I keep hearing the need for policy because councils and administrations change every few years. I recognize also the importance of policy but let us not lose sight of the cold hard facts on policy. As this council spends a lot of time and energy on creating policy, first, it is only as good as the people enforcing it and second it can be changed by the political whims of future council just as quickly as it can be created.

Tax Increase and Spring Cleanup

Here is the best answer to "Is the municipality going to be collecting more taxes than it did last year"

2010

General Municipal Taxation $6,432,821
ASFF------------------------$2,366,925
Seniors Housing------------$   184,542

Total-----------------------$8,984,288

2011

General Municipal Taxation $6,555,990
ASFF------------------------$2,542,134
Seniors Housing------------$   184,542

Total-----------------------$9,282,666

An Increase of  $298,378 or 3.3% that's not 0%     

Spring Cleanup

Will now be called "Large Item Residential Pickup"
Taxpayers that meet the following criteria will be provided with this service.
Sixty five (65) years or older and those with disabilities (This was not defined at this point)
Will have three items to be picked up.
You will be required to go into the Municipal Office between May 9 to May 20th, you will be required to specify the three items you are having picked up.
Items will be picked up between May 24 to June 3.

2011 Tax Increase, Surprising twist

Well taxes are not going up as much as we were led to believe at the first reading of the 2011 millrate.

As I pointed out in a previous post there was an avenue available to council to decrease the impact of the ASFF and the Seniors requisition.
http://crowsnestpasshome.blogspot.com/2011/03/tax-increase-maybe-not.html

The new positions that this Council felt were very necessary and saw fit to approve, based on the fact that none of those positions have been filled yet it produced some spare dollars in the budget. Which I had argued should be used to offset the additional taxation burdens placed on our residents.
On Tuesday night the majority of council partially agreed by using those budgetted dollars to offset the increased requirements of the senior board.
Councilor Saindon brought forth a motion to have the $100,000 capital requisition for the York Creek lodge and the $18,454 taken out of the operational budget, instead of increasing the tax burden on the residents.
He  used my same arguement that there should be dollars available in the budget from the jobs not being filled yet.
Surprisingly despite there being no disagreement to that statement by administration or any of council, three members of council voted against it (Mayor Decoux, Councilors Londsbury and Mitchell) the question that only they can answer is why?

   

Special Council Meeting of March 29,2011

Special Council Meeting of March 29,2011


Adoption of Agenda:
No additions
Motion to accept the Agenda was passed unanimously

Adoption of previous minutes: None

Delegations: None

Administrative and Agency Reports: None

Business arising from the Minutes: None

Correspondence: None

Committee Reports: None

Bylaws:

1. Bylaw 820, Mill rate Bylaw.
Director of Finance presented the mill rate bylaw provided information on the breakdown of the bylaw. Discussion began with the following questions and or comments: Does administration have a 5-year projection for linear assessment? Yes it going down
Are assessment values based on market values of June 2010? Yes
How does market values for June 2010 compare to values for June 2009? Pretty well the same.
Are power lines part of linear assessment? Yes
Is school foundation charged on just residential? No but our business sector is so small that the residential is hit with the brunt of any increase.
CPR did their assessment go up when they added the by pass line and upgraded their bridges? Administration to check on this, assessor believes it is based on tonnage that passes through.
Is there any change to the mill rate? No not the municipal portion
How much will tax rates increase? Administration stated on a commercial property worth $1.2 million $118 on a residential anywhere from $8-22.
Is our commercial high compared to other municipalities? Assessor explained that our ratio of non-residential to non-residential is 2-1, where Lethbridge is at 4-1 and Calgary is at 5-1.
Councilor Saindon requested where dollars from jobs not being filled and savings on equipment purchases were going. Administration explained that before those dollars were spent elsewhere information would come back to council.
Motion for first reading passed by a vote of 4-3 (Saje, Gallant, Saindon opposed)

2. Bylaw 823, Discharge of Septage into Municipal Owned Septage Disposable Facility.
Discussion: Mayor Decoux wanted to know why this was brought to a special meeting of council. Administration stated that it is a revenue issue needed to be implemented immediately.
Does this policy fit within the Municipal Environmental Sustainability Plan? Administration stated that this is a service that many municipalities provide we need to have it put in place. Motion to passed second reading passed unanimously. Motion to pass third reading passed unanimously.

Notices of Motion: None

Other Business:
1. Maplevue Hall Demolition: Discussion
Request for a 60-day extension on the demolition from the Crowsnest Heritage Board.
Felt that heritage board had many opportunities to approach council previously; it would not be fair on the contractor to delay now.
Felt that the heritage board should be more pro active and approach the municipality with a list of municipal owned building that they would like to have some input on.
Councilor Saje felt if the roof was good should give the heritage board the time to look at it.
Councilor Londsbury felt that the building is an eyesore and should be dealt with also concerned about the old Cameron school in West Coleman.
Motion to proceed with the demolition passed 6-1 (Saje opposed)

2011 Budget passed 0%? (Really)

First of all I would say congratulations to the new council on passing a budget with a 0% increase.


Some comments raised with me today around town regarding this budget.

Why didn't the previous council pass a budget with a 0% increase?

Good question first of all we could have. Last year we raised taxes 3.2%, remember each 1% increase in taxes equals roughly $65,000. So 3.2% equalled $200,000.

How can I make the statement that we could have done 0%.

Well think about this, in 2010 council placed $450,000 back into reserves, council also took $250,000 and purchased equipment. That a total of $700,000 minus the $200,000 (tax increase) that would have left $500,000 divided by $65,000 that comes out to 7.7% yes if the last council had took the same position as this council, taxes could have been "cut" by 7.7%.

Why did they not do that especially in an election year?

I can only speak for myself.

After years of depleting the municipal reserves and arguing that we needed to get our financies in order. I felt it was time and the responsible thing to do to start rebuilding those reserves. In fact on a number of occasions I heard present councilors stress the need for building up the reserves.

Two, previous council had a policy of spending $250,000 each year to replace the aging equipment fleet, not by incurring debt but by actually putting aside dollars each year.

Number of dollars allocated in 2011 to reserves? Zero

Number of dollars allocated to purchase equipment $550,000 all of it in debt.

How many new employees will be hired because of this new budget?

One new Foreman position for public works
One new position for HR
One new position for Community Services, one employee was previously looking after programming and FCSS, there will now be a full time position for each job (1 becomes 2)
One half time position for finance.
One full time position for Agricultural Services this used to be a part time position

Did the Mayor state that over time, positions will be eliminated by attrition, retirement and reassignment of job duties?

Yes he did, do you really think that CUPE is going to co-operate with management to eliminate positions. Do you really believe that positions will not be refilled? we will find out in March.

Another councilor as stated on his blog that at least we did not raise taxes in our first year 11.2% like the previous council.

Well first of all let me say I never voted for that, so I will not take on that responsibility.

Second the last council left the municipality in a much better financial position our last year we left a budget with a surplus of $450,000 to be placed back into reserves. In 2007 the new council was left with a deficit to deal with.

Also this council did not have the anchor around its neck of having to put $100,000 plus into the Crowsnest Centre! another 2%.

The comment was made last night that taxes should have gone up 2-3%, I ask why with no money in reserves and financing new equipment quite the opposite taxes should have gone down.

But the budget is done now which is good, and we will see where things go. The comment was made during the budget process that between council and administration enough savings could be found in the next six months to pay for the back hoe. So I look forward to seeing a huge surplus in 2011

2010, reflecting back and looking ahead to 2011.

Looking back on 2010, I will be the first to admit the election did not go quite the way I expected it to. Certainly in my mind the taxpayers in the Crowsnest Pass made some mistakes, time will prove me right or wrong.
I served the community for the last six years standing up for what I believe to be right, could I have done some things differently that would have hurt less politically? You bet.

Over the last six years I had the pleasure to work with many different types of people, on council some of the people I worked with were very good people that cared very much about this community, people that had the “balls” to stand up for change, those people I have much respect for. It would have been easy to just line up behind the Mayor and carry on doing business the way it has always been done in the past.

The municipal staff, I know at times some of the public sees them as a group of pampered, Monday to Friday employees that put in a minimal effort and collect a good pay cheque.
While I’m sure just like any employer there is a few of those, over the last six years I learnt that the vast majority of your municipal staff put in a honest effort day after day and really care about this municipality and their jobs.

The media, looking back over the last six years I will let the reader decide if I was treated fairly.

The positions council took in 2010, we could have done what previous councils have done, “nothing” in an election year but instead we choose to do our job to the end.

In 2010 I was proud that council achieved the following:

We passed a budget with a 3.2% tax increase, with a goal of rebuilding the municipal reserves, a $450,000 surplus was slated to go back into those reserves.

When the year end financials come in I anticipate that 2010 will be the third year in a row that thanks to sound financial management the municipality will show a surplus, compared to the previous six years it was a strong change in direction.

We froze hiring, government does not need to get larger through the recession of the last few years, the private sector became leaner and more efficient to survive, government
needs to learn the same lessons.

We froze overtime with the exception of emergency situations, if the truth was known that saved a lot of dollars. If government employees are working overtime for reasons
other than an emergency, then the administration should be looking at more efficient ways to do things.

We finally resolved the issue of running two half empty community centers, the community now has a center that is full. What’s really interesting, is I have not met a tenant yet at the MDM that does not prefer being there.

The River Run issue, many mistakes were made, one good thing that came out of it was a policy was put in place that development like this will never happen again unless adequate security is in place.
Over the last six years Council was mislead on this issue, at times by foolish dreams and exaggerated promises, at times by people that were strong advocates of this group, and at times by people that should have known better.

Community Standards was in my mind a huge issue, as far as moving this community forward. The days of having “twenty three” old junkers in your drive way and the God given right to live like a slob while everybody around you is trying to make their residence presentable needs to come to an end. This was a first step in that direction.

Administration, council chose to make changes, were they all dealt with perfectly. I recognize a better job could have been done. But what every politician knows at times processes are manipulated to get the outcome certain people desire.
I’m not going to debate the merits of those changes that were made here, but they are done and now history, anybody that would like to debate those changes should take the time to read the Cuff report, it was fairly clear about some of the issues the municipality had to move forward on.

Over all I believe that council achieved a lot in 2010.

Looking forward to 2011, for me personally I’m not going away the Crowsnest Pass as been my home for 27 years and will be for the rest of my life.
I hope to stay involved I have put my name forward for a couple of committee’s (SDA, and the York Creek Seniors) hopefully I will be given fair consideration by council.
If I’m not successful I will attempt to get involved with other areas that need help in the community.

Looking at politics for the next year, what direction will the new council take with the following issues will indeed be very interesting:

2011 Budget-Will spending increase?

Tax Increases-We all hope it stays low!

Water Meters-Conservation yes, cash cow No

Hiring Freeze-Bigger government is it really necessary?

Overtime-Sure a water line freezes, or we get 30cm of snow on a weekend when else?

Duplication of services-Wait until they get into the politics of this issue!

River Run-I remember a member of the previous council telling us “It’s not a big deal just take a cat and push the piles back into the holes”, It will not be any where near that simple.

Crowsnest Centre-This issue will be talked about a long time after I’m gone, if they decide to fire it back up, where does the dollars and tenants come from for this money pit. If they try to sell it, various expectations are going to be way beyond reality that building is a huge liability for any prospective buyer.

Community Standards-will the new council carry on with what was started, will they back off and soften the bylaw?

Affordable Housing-Everybody agrees the need is here, the golden question how do you
achieve it, the last developer that expressed an interest was also building a 5000 seat arena at the lakes.

New Recreation Centre- great idea, where do you put it? How do you pay for it? How do
you carry the future burden.

Infrastructure-this issue will never end, the problem the administration and the politicians
know that there are lots in the ground to be done. However the public wants to see the visible infrastructure see above.

Anyway here’s looking forward to a great year in 2011 for the Crowsnest Pass.

Crowsnest Pass Proposed Budget Increases 2011

This is only proposed at this point:

Taxes 5.5%
Water + Sewer 10%
Water Meters to be placed in 560 homes a year for the next five years, to be paid for by the resident $500 to be paid over one year, $40 per month.
Debt of $540,000 to purchase a Grader and an Excavator
Almost all the new employee positions that previous council rejected are back.
Spring Clean up will be drastically reduced.
Reductions in FCSS funding for external groups

Added Dec 16th Policing costs for Rummer Runner Days weekend administration was notified by the province that this will be increasing from $10,000 to $40,000

Funding for external groups from the FCSS will drop from $100,000 to $90,000.