Crowsnest Pass Forum Questions and Answers!

Question. Security Deposits on Developments?

The lack of security on the River Run project was a huge mistake on the part of council. This can never be allowed to happen again, we put in place a policy now that development can not start without having sufficient security in place (All of council was in favour of this except the Mayor). Hopefully in the future when a real developer comes in to develop this particular site the council at the time will make sure there is an adequate development agreement in place to clean it up.

Question. How do we attract people to the community?

We continue to build on the initiatives we have put in place, ie walking trails, mountain bike trails, cleaning up the community to make it more appealing. This is one of the most beautiful places in the world there is no logical reason that with some hard work and creative solutions we can't bring more people here.

Question. Marketing of the Community?

Similar question to above, this must become a priority and an area where council must work together with Community Futures, Chamber of Commerce and spend some money. Our marketing budget since I have been on council is $20,000 per year that's a joke. To spend that amount of money is a waste, if we provide a decent budget, and work with those other groups to attain grants we can do a far better job.
The mountain bike project is a good example of that in partnership with the Community Futures the municipality put in $10,000 that eventually gained us in excess of $200,000 to develop Mountain Bike Trails.

Question. Unsightly Premises Bylaw?

This is an effort by the present council to clean up the municipality, (supported by all of council except Councillor Taje). The only goal is to make the community look better more attractive for both the people living here and coming into our area. Nobody as the expectation that every lawn is going to be manicured, that every yard will be a pristine piece of the rocky mountains.
Can we do better than we are? of course.
The bylaw is not perfect and should be reviewed by the next council with the benefit of some experience. For information so far our Bylaw Officer as written two (2) tickets related to this bylaw, he as done a very good job of working with people to give them the opportunity to work within the bylaw.

Question. Highway 3?

Everybody that runs for council says they are going to lobby the province on this issue, going back to the early seventies. We have done that for the last three years, like it or not it will not happen for some time. Over the next few years you will see some minor widening of roads in Frank, and west Coleman, and traffic lights at the Kananaskis and the West end of Blairmore.
If anybody from the Crowsnest Pass tells you that they are going to push the Province in to doing anything more than that, they are dreaming. Keep in mind the road to Ft McMurray will not be completely four landed until 2014.
One good point that a speaker raised is as far as getting people into our town do we really want to push them through the Pass at a 100KM a hour?

Question. Affordable Housing?

The study that was done on affordable housing clearly shows that long term we need it. We have to follow the leadership of other communities in this area and find "credible" developers that will partner with us to access Federal/Provincial Grants and move in this direction.
The municipality does have land available for this.


Question. How does the Municipality support small business?

The municipality needs to talk to the business community (Chamber etc) and find areas where we can assist them, if its a problem with regulations, paperwork, bylaws that are impeding them then we need to address those issues. The municipality purchasing its goods locally as far as I am concerned as long as a local supplier is competitive and can supply a quality product then that's automatic.

Question. What happens with the Crowsnest Centre?

Last council meeting we directed administration to come back with a cost on taking the building down. It will be expensive, but if we want commercial business to come here we have no other place to put it. To attract anybody especially larger companies you have to have property that does not require a lot of work to make it flat, it must be serviced and it must be accessible to the highway. There are 12000 vehicles a day going by this site imagine if we could pull just 5% of them off the highway.


Question. What will we use as a disaster centre during emergencies?

Many communities experience emergency type situations, not many have an old hospital to put people up in. What we do have available, is the following: the present hospital, three existing schools, two arenas, the MDM facility, Elks Hall, Polish Hall, Seniors halls, hundreds of hotel beds and what a lot of people did in years past, is take people in to their homes.

Question. Looking for Bridge Builders on Council?

This is where it is so important to have a strong Mayor on council, one who does not believe that the only agenda to be promoted is his, one who can work with a diverse group of individuals, people that want to move the community forward, and govern it in an effective manner.
You can read the Cuff report and the other corporate review yourself on the municipal web site.
This Mayor did not do a very good job of team building and leading, this Mayor did not provide a willingness to look at change, the spilt in council was created by the steadfast refusal to consider change and in fact put up every road block available to maintain the status Quo.
Being a bridge builder means that you have to be a leader, willing to look at different ideas even when you don't agree and willing to work with other people that don't just show up at meeting and vote your way because they fell they should.

Question. Helping Seniors

This council as committed to support the renovation and expansion of the York Creek Lodge, with 40% of our population being seniors this is so important. We have our seniors living in 280 square foot rooms. We must do a better job for them and I will support whatever we have to do to improve the lodge.

Crowsnest Pass Council Highlights for September 7.

Understanding that its less than six weeks to the next election, it would be very easy for council to sit back and be a lame duck authority.
One thing about this council whether you or disagree with their positions, we have not been scared to make decisions and that will continue until the last meeting of this term.

Some issues we dealt with on Tuesday were:

Agricultural Services Board,

Presently the Taxpayers incur the bulk of the cost of our weed control Inspector and program. By establishing a weed control board the municipal can access up to $150,000 of provincial funding.

Ski Hill Groomer.

The ski hill groomer is running at about 10000 more hours than it should be, and costing substantial dollars to maintain each year. We had a plan to apply for a $60,000 grant from CFEP and for the Municipality to finance the other $60,000 to be repaid by the savings on maintenance costs occurred annually. Our Community Services Director asked that Council authorize him to pursue a different grant that would provide for the total cost of the groomer.

Environmental Reserve Policy

Council took the position that we are going to put in place a 3m wide easement where ever possible along water ways to maintain the public access to the rivers and the ability to maintain walking trails.

Development Agreement Security

Council put in place a policy to ensure that no development will proceed in the future without security in place. I was pleasantly surprised when all of council voted in favour of this policy, with the exception of our good Mayor!

Election Update both myself and Councilor Cole announced Tuesday night that we will be running in the election on October 18th.

Rumour of the day, I am being told that there is a group trying to put together a slate of candidates that would support reopening and refurbishing the Crowsnest Centre.
(Interesting the Nokomis Report in 1989 dollars stated somewhere between $4-7million)

Development in the Crowsnest Pass And Security Requirements

I have been asked by a number of people in the last few days about my Notice of Motion requiring security being provided to the municipality prior to a developer commencing a project.
The Motion appears below, I think we all understand the reasoning for it! maybe not read below, after the Motion.

Notice of Motion
"From this day, forth the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass shall require that all applicants entering into a development agreement within the boundaries of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass.
Shall provide the Municipality one hundred percent (100%) of the performance security that is sufficient to ensure that all of the terms of the development agreement are fulfilled to the satisfaction of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass.
All funds must be in the legal possession of the Municipality prior to the applicant commencing any part of the development agreement.
Under no circumstances will any developer be permitted to commence any type of excavation, stockpiling of materials, or disturbance of the land in question prior to the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass having the agreed to security deposit in its legal possession."

This Motion was debated on Tuesday night, with council choosing to send it to committee meeting to clarify the language (August 24).
The good Mayor attempted to argue that this would stop anybody from doing any kind of work on their properties, which everybody that knows that stuff, is covered of by a development permit.
This motion clearly only applies to development agreements, everybody understands that the purpose of this is to stop the possibility of a developer coming in making a hell of a mess, and leaving the community to live with it for years to come, with no financial recourse to clean up. I am not talking about stopping John Smith from building a shed in his back yard without a Million dollars in security being put up.
Maybe somebody is going to argue that we should take this risk again down the road.

Highlights of August 3 Council Meeting Crowsnest Pass

Lethbridge College is in the process of moving the Education Consortium to the MDM community centre, the lease on the relocation as now been signed by all parties.

The grant funding for our Infrastructure projects is starting to flow in last week we received $850,000 of our MSI grant. To this point the line of credit as not been used.

Council by a vote of 4-2 awarded the engineering for the Sentinel bridge to Stantec.

Two Notices of Motion were brought forth the first by Councilor Taje, requesting that council oppose the relocation of the power lines to the base of the valley going through the Frank area.

The second Notice of Motion was by Councilor Ward to bring forth a policy that no development agreements will be approved or developments allowed to proceed in the future without adequate security agreements being in place.

We also received an appraisal of the Crowsnest Centre which came in at a value of $1.4 million if the land was vacant, and between $1.75 to $2.3 million for the land and buildings. (depreciated replacement value)

Council also set the date for the advance poll at October 13 10am to 8pm at the Elks Hall in Blairmore

Council also selected August Kollee to be the returning officer.

Gold Creek Development in the Crowsnest Pass

July 20 the Gold Creek Development came to Council to seek approval on their development agreement and the amount of security they would be required to post with the Municipality prior to commencing.
They provided information that gave a list of quotes for the various types of work required which came to a total of $738,000, within their documentation I noticed that there was a note attached that stated "the quote could vary by up to +/- 20%" which of course alarmed myself and some of the other councilors.
After some debate came a suggestion from myself that a simple solution which would protect the municipality/taxpayers was to pass the Development Agreement with a condition that the Security Deposit would be raised 20% to $900,000.
Within the debate comments were raised that after what happened at the River run site should we not be proceeding, very carefully. All made sense right?
What occurred after that just blew me away when the vote was called Councilor Mitchell and Mayor Irwin were opposed, Councilors Ward, Cole, Salus and Macleod were in favour. Irwin and Mitchell felt that increasing the Security Deposit was not required.
Thankfully it passed and yes the Developer may feel that the additional security was not necessary but if they live up to their commitments they get all the money back, and the faster they work the faster the money is released, and the Municipality has no risk.
How or why would anybody vote against this?

If anybody does not understand the concerns here I will have pictures of the River Run Development shortly