The waiting is almost over, the time to step up is very soon.

Only eighteen days to nomination day (Sept 23 by noon), nomination forms will be made available to anybody that is interested starting Monday morning (Sept 9) at the Municipal Office. There are only three council meetings left prior to the election (Sept 17, Oct 1 and Oct 15) so if you want to get a sense of how the process works your opportunities are becoming fewer. I have not seen anybody show up with a note pad in the last couple of meetings. Maybe that is an indication that there are not a lot of people interested or maybe some potential candidates have made up their minds and do not see a value to attending council meetings.  

This election is going to be a big one for the Crowsnest Pass, first of the next council’s  term is four years, so if we make the wrong choices we are stuck with them for that extra twelve months.

Much larger issue in my mind is like it or not Decoux and his group promised change (unfortunately very few people asked what kind of change) but they did deliver change. Today we have the largest administration we have ever had, we have the most regulation we have ever seen in the Crowsnest Pass, more bylaws, policies and procedures than even the most avid bean counter would care to count. We enjoyed a council that promised us a mere 2.5% mill rate increases over the last three years, then attempted to fool us all by slapping on franchise fee increases that today would equate to an extra 5-6% tax increase annually. We saw changes that tore this community apart and led to 2500 plus people signing a petition in what appeared to be record time. At that point you would think a government at any level would have realized it was time to hear the people. Instead the taxpayers of this community got an attitude of “do your investigation you will not find anything illegal here” And a Mayor that used a monthly municipal newsletter to attack anybody that dared to disagree with his direction.  

Now on the eve of the election we see a desperate attempt to buy votes by spending $600,000 of our own money to demolish a building that could have been tore down three years ago long before we spent $70,000 buying a Best Western Name for a consultant, redundant studies and legal fees.

      

We the voters get a choice in forty six short days,  I am sure most of the present council will put their names forth, I am also sure we will have quite a number of other candidates to look at.

My hope for this election is that the public asks questions lots of them when somebody talks about “change” ask them what they mean by that. Do not wait for the public forums each candidate will be lucky if they get five minutes to speak. Seek out the candidates ask them where they stand on the issues important to you. If a candidate is serious, he/she will make their phones numbers, emails and mostly themselves available to address your concerns and questions.  

Do not be easily fooled if a candidate promises you no tax increases for the next four years he is a liar, if he promises you tax decreases he is not only a liar he is a fool.

Remember a candidate can promise you the world but unless he can convince a majority of council to vote his way the promises really mean nothing. So if there is a particular direction you would like to see the municipality head in then you better make sure that there are enough potential councilors that have those common beliefs.

I hope the public does not get fooled by the politicians that attempt to please everybody, it is not possible and those types of people end up not taking a position on anything.

I have often been asked what kind of commitment is required to be a councilor? Time, it is not just showing up every second Tuesday raising your hand 25 times and going home. You will put in an average of 20 hours per week you will attend numerous meeting, and events. You will receive calls, you will be approached by the public where ever you go. If you want to be knowledgeable about issues you will spend a lot of time doing research. You will have to make a lot of tough decisions, some that affect people’s livelihoods and some that involve issues that people have been very passionate about for a long time.

You will get paid for doing this but if you are in this purely for the money you will be disappointed over the last ten years councilors have made somewhere around  $12-14,000 a year and the Mayor $22-25,000 a year.

Lastly make sure you have thick skin there will be times where those calls you get will not be so pleasant, and yes it should never be personal but there are a very small minority out there that like to make it that way.

Kudos  to everybody that decides to put their name up for a very difficult job ahead.  

    

A community divided, the real fix is eleven months away.

My fellow blogger Mr Prince is calling for a town hall meeting, the people that signed the petition are waiting for municipal affairs.

I think this municipality at this point in its short history is deeply divided, unfortunately it is not going to be repaired in the next eleven months. Any one of us can wish for a different out come but realistically it is not coming in the short term. The petition and municipal affairs will run its cause and hopefully something will come of that, if not then people need to be preparing for October 21^st 2013 that will be the communities next real opportunity for “change”.

Why do I feel it’s too late for real change with this council, the issues that have been put in front of the taxpayers over the last two years have been too numerous and two divisive.

Can a town hall meeting fix these issues? I don’t think so, most of the people I speak to could care less about a town hall meeting they have seen them become a platform for our leader to pump his chest, berate anybody that disagrees with him. I was so shocked when I watched a highly educated seventy year old man walk across a room to the sound of a few boos, waving his arms and telling the people to bring it on. (Leadership?)

I sat down last Friday and listened to a veteran administrator tell a reporter the way it is. (Yes it was as bad has it sounds). Communications has not been this council’s downfall in all honesty they have probably done a better job of communicating than any previous council, the problem is not so much communications it is what they have said and done. 

This Council believes in building a Bureaucracy by the time they have restructured they will have gone through more administrators in eighteen months than any other council in our history and have more upper management in place then we have ever seen before. Mean while we have a demoralized workforce that is scared and bullied to the point where a large percentage of them are in fear of their jobs.

This community has no commercial tax base, if we only did what we could pay for three quarters of what happens in this community would not happen. The key for this community is volunteers I came to learn this lesson over the last ten years, are there any volunteers left? Sure there are but not many, with what happened with Thunder in the Valley/Rum Runner Days and the Firemen situation who’s going to step forward. Want more proof of that look at municipal boards despite three months of advertising nine boards are short of members. Why do you think council backpedaled on getting rid of the Swimming Pool Authority two weeks ago? They desperately need to reverse the perception in the public forum as to how volunteers are being treated. What we did not  need is a member of council slamming the public because they didn’t support their way of doing things on the Rum Runner days weekend maybe just maybe the silent majority did not want it to change.  

The public has spoken about how they feel, despite the fact that 2500 people signed a petition in less than three weeks (more than double what is legally required). This council and its members can only focus on the “silent majority still supports us”, “or people were bullied and intimidated into signing”. Tell those people to contact municipal affairs I am sure the powers to be would love an excuse not to deal with this petition. Does it not say that the public has a problem with where you are going?

Look at our tax situation we hear great fanfare about a three year budget that only had annual increases of 2.5%, I didn’t hear anybody from council or administration tell us that Franchise Fees were going to increase more than 300% in three years.

Will the books balance at the end of the year? Of course they will I could spend hours writing about how numbers are shuffled. For example  take a look at Manager of Corporate Services, that position was only filled for three months this year. The other nine months of monies set aside for that position will be used to make the numbers work. My concern is the million dollars a year of administration moving forward how do we pay for that in future years when all the positions are filled year round?

Financial credibility is there any out there, after waiting for three and a half months look at the numbers that were presented for Rum Runner Days, remember the talk about $150-$200,000 not even close.   

Community Peace Officers all those that think these positions are going to pay for themselves raise your hand now. That’s a fallacy that will be proven over time, I can remember the consultant telling council at a G+P meeting that there were 290+ locations in violation of the unsightly premises bylaw how many of them have been cleaned up? Is there a date that they will be cleaned up by? So what happens with the bylaw officers once they are cleaned up?

Promises even though they were followed with a “you can take this with a grain of salt”

CLC gone before first snowfall, sharing Ranchlands tax base, Quebec manufacturer, deal with the hotel developer done in two weeks, two more, thirty days, heavy industry with up to 700 jobs. Politically you can sell hope all you want but sooner than later it has to be realized or you lose creditability.    

I think we have reached the point where the majority (be they loud or silent) do not pay a whole lot of attention anymore to what this council has to say or do. Most people are counting down the time until Oct 21,2013. Will a town hall meeting change that?   

Change in the Crowsnest Pass

I sat on council for six years during that time I learnt that this town has a lot of problems, declining and ageing population, lack of industry and development, duplication of services and facilities that most taxpayers can not afford to support.

Do we need change? Absolutely, change that involves attracting people here, bringing development and industry, looking at where our community could be ran more efficiently. Knowing all of these issues our local government needs to be ran as if it’s on a tight budget, because it should be.

Let’s talk about the change we can not and do not want, over spending the municipality will next year in the final year of this council’s term, take in $1.4 million more dollars out of  the taxpayers pockets than it did in 2010 that’s $400 per home.

They are building an empire that we can not afford, look at the number of staff in the municipal office do we really need more administration.

Municipal peace officers do we want two peace officers? Was that a good change? they wrote 2 bylaw tickets in the month of September, they are being looked at has a cash cow not a tool to clean up our community.

Once again we have consultants in our community talking about “branding” what was so wrong with “Mountain Freedom”? Thunder in the Valley brought this community way more attention than any new brand will. We all know there were problems go talk to the RCMP get the stats for the number of arrests over the last five years, we saw a tremendous decline the event was being ran better every year.

Fire Departments, we spent $300,000 in 2010 operating the Fire Departments how many full time Firemen are we going to get for that figure? Could Fire departments be ran better? Of course every branch of government could be run better, we have to find ways to operate our community on the present dollars not more.

It’s really hard to convince taxpayers of this when you see almost $300,000 spent on a piece of equipment that spends 98% of it’s time sitting in the back of the Blairmore Shop, all the new pickups running around and consultant after consultant.

The termination of a municipal employee should that have happened? We do not know all the details.

Personally, I have no problem terminating an employee with just cause, but there must be a fair process, if you believe you have grounds to terminate an employee you suspend them. You do a complete investigation then you let them go (it’s called due process) you don’t terminate them. Then seek the justification by releasing a press release every second day with a new revelation.

This situation with better communication and due process would have been handled so much better.

Back to the start do we need change? We all know the answer, of course, but I am having a tough time thinking of a good, positive change in the last two years. We need change that involves the people of the Crowsnest Pass.

And for those that disagree with me step up to the plate and point out the positive changes for us all to read.  

The Big Petition in the Crowsnest Pass

Yes I have a large number of people calling me with concerns regarding the petition:

What can we do? I feel like I was tricked in to signing the petition.
I have had the following comments made by people that signed the petition, they claimed to have been told by various people that encouraged them to sign the petition:
If you want to keep the Alberta Stella open sign up
If you want to stop the coal dust sign up
It's doesn't matter if you are a primary resident of the pass you can still sign
It doesn't matter if you are under 18 sign up
Do you really need to know whats on the petition just sign up and help us out

There is something you can do call the numbers at the bottom of the blog and let the minister of municipal affairs know what really happened here. Ask them to verify the signatures on the petition. And please remember your name will be held in the strictest confidence.



Read article 572 of the MGA:

Inquiry
572(1) The Minister may order an inquiry described in subsection (2) if the Minister receives
(a) a sufficient petition requesting the inquiry that is signed,
(i) in the case of a municipality other than a summer village, by electors of the municipality equal in number to at least 20% of the population, and
(ii) in the case of a summer village, by at least 20% of the electors of the summer village,
or
(b) a request for the inquiry from a council.
(2) An inquiry may be conducted into
(a) the affairs of the municipality,
(b) the conduct of a councillor, or an employee or agent of the municipality, or
(c) the conduct of a person who has an agreement with the municipality relating to the duties or obligations of the municipality or a person under the agreement.
(3) The Minister may appoint one or more persons to conduct an inquiry under this section.
(4) The person or persons appointed to conduct an inquiry are entitled to the fees and expenses specified by the Minister and the Minister may direct who is to pay for the inquiry.
(5) The person or persons appointed to conduct an inquiry have all the powers and duties of a commissioner appointed under the Public Inquiries Act.
(6) The person or persons appointed to conduct an inquiry must report to the Minister and the council and, if there was a petition under subsection (1)(a), to the representative of the petitioners.


No where in this section does it state that this action will force the municipality to keep over an arena, nowhere does it state that the municipality will be forced to clear up the coal problem.

If you really felt that you were misled on the petition, phone municipal affairs you can do it for free.

1. Phone 310-0000 they will ask you to put in a 10 digit number 780 427 2225 you will get through to the Municipal Advisers number explain to them your concerns

2. Phone 310-0000 they again will ask you to put in a 10 digit number 780-427-3744 you will get through to Ray Danyluks the Minister of municipal affairs number explain to him your concerns.

3. Remember the numbers above are for free.