Crowsnest Pass Update

Update all things political in the Crowsnest Pass

Anti harassment policy, is nothing to do with censorship, or attempting to control the public. We all have a right to voice our opinions, to take any position we like. All this policy is about is if a municipal employee feels that they are "unfairly" harassed it lays out a procedure as to how they should deal with the issue. This is not about censoring somebody who says unkind things about Dean Ward in a letter to the local paper. (I know that would never happen)

Gold Creek goes in front of the SDAB tomorrow night; the majority of council already supported this development. This really is no different from a lot of the other country residential around here. If we the Municipality are going to take a position that we do not want country residential, then we should do that and apply it to "all" future country residential. For five years, we have worked under the position that if an area could be serviced in a reasonable fashion then we would not approve country residential. All of a sudden, some of us decide that we are going to attempt to force these folks to service an area that would make the development uneconomical. When there are country residential areas closer to services, that some members of this council approved in the past but did not force to service.Then we have the same people arguing that this area is so sensitive for the wildlife, but also maintaining that they should be forced to put more homes in to the area.


Other developments in the Pass, we will see what the future brings. Yes, we have had developers come in here creating great expectations. Have they delivered? Judge for your self. Yes, I feel there were times a lot of people got caught up in the glitz and glamour of all the big promises, I don't believe I was one of those people.

Enhanced Policing was defeated by council last night; some people felt that enforcing municipal bylaws was only a small part of the job. I believe that council needs to review the unsightly premises bylaw, tighten up the rules of what is and is not allowed, and put some real consequences into the bylaw.

Corporate review is still on going, we are expecting the final report Sept/Oct, and from reading previous reviews done by Cuff it should have, some strong recommendations attached to it. Then the issue will be whether council is prepared to act on it or not. Through the debate, one of the councilors that were opposed to the process took the position that we would just do a study and then let it sit on a shelf and collect dust. Well that councilor and the rest of us will have the opportunity to not allow that to happen.

Crowsnest Centre the never-ending story, a motion was passed last night to have the municipal lawyer begin the process of removing the tenants from that building. (This is a legal issue and will be the last I comment on it)

Voting patterns of council, I ask the taxpayers to look at who votes with whom, I know I am repeating myself, but our Mayor and the local media have put a lot of focus on the "four" voting the same way on issues. When in reality better than 90% of the time the votes are something other than 4-3. Is it not time the pubic looks at why the "three" always vote the same way?

Food bank, there was discussions over the Food bank relocating to a municipal owned piece of property, that as now been put on hold as they are looking at alternative locations.


Infrastructure, is going to be a big issue here over the next two years it was brought to councils attention last night that we have a lot of projects coming up, that have been approved for funding by different levels of government, but require us to do the work in advance, then we have to wait for the funding, this will at times put the municipality into a very tight cash flow situation. We have to come up with a solution to this problem. Big concern for the future years is our population, if the numbers are down in the next Census we will be faced with reduced funding. This is where the weekenders create an issue in the sense that if the Pass is not their primary residence we do not receive funding for them. (Roughly $1200 per year per person, last census we dropped 800 people x $1200 equals $960,000 per year)


Ice Problems, I have received numerous calls over the last week regarding ice problems at our Coleman arena. The issue is we are having humidity problems due to the wet weather and our dehumidifier as not worked for a long time. This gets back to the issue of the number of facilities we run. Some people can not get it through their head that we only have a certain amount of dollars to spend on our facilities. So then you have to make a choice between putting dollars into operating or maintaining the facilities. To replace the dehumidifier is a $40,000 cost, it was dropped from last years budget because we did not have the dollars available. This gets back to making tough choices or running our arena during the summer and praying for dry weather (Not much of an operating plan).