"Before the first snow falls"

No I am not going to talk about a new Best Western hotel, opening another coal mine or annexing Ranchlands.
We are going to talk about phase 1 of the Decoux/Gallant re-election campaign. For those that have not noticed the security fences are up at the old hospital/nursing home site. A very good source tells me that the hazard material guys will start work next week, with the demolition guys a week or two behind. My source also tells me that the job will take some where around two months give or take a week. I am sure it is sheer coincidence that it could finish as early as the week of October 23.



Please take a moment and vote on the new poll on the right hand side.

Tuesday night time to spend our money.

In the midst of these dark dreary days of August nothing better than to bring a ray of sunlight into our life’s by attending the regular meeting of council Tuesday night August 6, obviously Council and administration are doing everything possible to get their ducks in a row prior to the commencement of the election campaign.

For your information this is a recap of the meeting the issues dealt with, I look forward to the comments flowing in on the issues, council and administrations performance.

CAO Report

Its official Albert Headrick Director of Protective and Community Services is leaving the Pass on August 16.

Community Peace Officers Report great joy in announcing that almost $200,000 in fines have been written after one year in place.

Fire Rescues had 12, 911 calls in the month of July

New banners were installed around town administration received lots of positive response.

Ice is now ready in the Coleman complex

Trans Rockies race took place last week

Devon has donated an air compressor to the community, which will save us having to purchase one in 2015 (savings of up to $50,000)

Uroc is looking for contractors to build mountain bike trails of the ski hill.

Temporary surface repairs will be made at the Coleman drug store area.

Asphalt Paving projects delayed until the end August

Recreation Feasibility study is under way.

Culture and Heritage Board had its first meeting July 26

Tenders for SCADA project came in $200,000 to high will be looking to the province for additional funding.

Municipal Elections

Advance Poll approved for Oct 15

Institutional vote will be done the same as the last election

Voting subdivisions and voting stations will also be the same as last election

Crowsnest Centre Demolition

Four bids received range of $585 to $800K

Dakota Reclamators out of Calgary was the low bidder

CAO informed council that municipal lawyers had reviewed the tender and it was ironclad.

Project to be funded by taking $250k out of MSI capital funding and $350K out of the Mill rate stabilization reserve.

Councilor Saindon was concerned that the municipality was not getting a full priced bid, administration had asked for quotes on back filling the centre foundation once the building was removed this was not brought back to council. He felt the potential cost of this job was more in the range of $700,000.

He was also concerned due to Gene Conklin (Regional Director of Development at Best Western had advised the municipality that to make the land the most attractive to potential buyers it should be fully remediated.

Councilor Gallant stated every hotel has a basement, maybe it will not need back filling.

Councilor Saindon asked if the hotel does not come for three years are we just going to leave an 8-16 foot hole there. He also stated that the hotel was projected to go on the east end of the property the old hospital was on the west end. He also stated clay would have to be brought in and trucked at least 30-40km very expensive.

Councilor Londsbury asked if there was a basement under the entire building, the CAO did not know.

CAO Thompson felt that we should demolish the building then figure out our options of what to do with the hole at that point.

Councilor Gallant felt we did not know where the hotel would eventually go.

Motion to proceed with the demolition at a cost of $585,000 was passed by a vote of 4-2 (Saindon, Sage opposed Gail was not present for the vote)

Hotel Application Fee ($50,000 for Vachon group)

Administration recommended funds be taken out of municipal land reserve.

Councilor Saje referred to a conversation he had with Jeff Carlson CAO of Clay cup developers who apparently working with Medican prior to Group Vachon coming on board.
He stated that Mr Carlson told him municipalities do not put up the funding for the rights to a hotel. He also stated that the Best Western could have been done by Clay cup and that if Vachon group with draws somebody else could pick up the rights contrary to what the CAO had informed council at the special meeting. CAO stated that he had received that information from the head of marketing at Best Western.
Councilor Gallant agreed that it was not normal for municipalities to put up the funding, but Mr Carlsons words did not carry a lot of weight with council due to the fact that they were fired by Medican in November.
Councilor Saje informed council that he did not know Clay Cup was fired in November and that Vachon Group did not come on board until spring.
Mayor Decoux stated that the rest of council was aware that Clay Cup was released by Medican.

Motion to take $50,000 out of Municipal land reserves was passed by a vote of 4-2 (Saindon, Saje opposed Gail not present)

     

NOTE: MORE TO FOLLOW

Hotel deal what's next?

Over the weekend I have received a lot of comments on my blog and around town about the news release from the municipality regarding the loss of the Medican deal.  

A couple of common themes I heard over and over again a lot of people were not surprised. The Municipality made a deal with a company that was under court protection, to save itself from it’s creditors.

How long did the Quebec manufacturer story drag on, and what was the result of that endeavor. The CAO announced after a year that the company realized we were to far from Lethbridge and the ceiling on the old Artic Spa building was too low, I would be taking a look at my management team if it took them a year to figure those things out.

The Mayor as spun this tale for how many months about waiting for Best Western approval. I think lot of other peoples agree with my opinion, that was just a stalling tactic the real issue from day one was finding the $8-12 million to build a hotel.

Everybody know if that kind of money was available,  the demolition would have started by now. I am sure the hotel owners would have been more than able to hook up with a hotel chain somewhere during the next two years while the hotel was under construction.

My concern now is how will council proceed in a desperate attempt to salvage something from this deal just mere months prior to the election.  

I take the following quote from the most recent Mayor’s Corner:

“At this point we are still working with the Vachon group (hotel finders) to attract a Best Western or other hotel chain to build. In order to retain our right to build a Best Western for two years, we need to consider putting up $50,000.00. A decision regarding clearing the property will also have to be made very shortly”.

Unless I am totally miss reading the above quote it sounds like the Mayor is going to attempt to persuade Council to put up $50,000 to retain the rights to build a Best Western.

This is crazy for so many reasons, the first being these are taxpayers dollars, is anyone aware of a government at any level that is in the business of buying franchises, rights etc?

Two if the hotel finders (Vachon group) are so certain that a hotel (with real investors) can be found let them put up the $50,000 they should easily be able to regain their investment with a hefty return from that future group.

Third what guarantee will we have that a new hotel group will have any interest in being a Best Western. Would the municipality limit potential Investors to only those that want to open under the “Best Western” name. Let the people that are prepared to put up $10-12 million pick the name for their hotel.

Then the Mayor talks about a decision regarding the clearing of the property must be made shortly. He is wrong a decision of that significance, should be made by the next council comprised of seven people with a clear mandate from the public.

The municipality in the Medican deal allowed $800,000 for the demolition of the building. That would be roughly half of what this municipality has in reserves, they could take out a loan for that amount. Are those decisions a council should be making in the last two months of it’s mandate? How long before a new hotel developer comes in, how long before the municipality recoups it’s money?

Who will have these answers I don’t know but I do know I will not be listening to the Mayor’s predictions I will finish with a quote from his Oct 2012 Mayor’s corner:

Oct 17, 2012 the Mayor states "I am pleased to announce that after months (and months) of work we have as promised, resolved the problem surrounding the Crowsnest Learning Centre and "old" hospital facility. The new hotel restaurant truck stop complex -is a go! The last few legal details are being ironed out and early next month we and the developers are looking forward to holding a public session to gather your input as to what you would like to see happen"


Note: Cost of administration $4325 per day

Manager of Corporate services ? and a few other issues

Hopefully everybody had a good Christmas.

This morning I noticed on the Municipal Web site under the employment section the Manager of Corporate Services position is no longer listed.

In my mind this could mean one of two things either the position has been filled, or the ghost of fiscal sanity  visited council and administration Christmas Eve and showed them a glimpse of the future. Which led to a stalling of the drive to fill every vacant office in the municipality with an administrator.

If the position has been filled then contrary to what any politician claims we will have the largest bureaucracy in the thirty three year history of the Crowsnest Pass.
(CAO, Directory of Finance and Corporate Services, Director of Community and Protective Services, Director of Engineering, Planning and Public Works, Manager of Public Works, Manager of Corporate Services, Fire Chief, Deputy Fire Chief). Now repeat all of that without making a mistake.

Budget:

Attended a Budget meeting just prior to Christmas, couple of issues of note interesting to hear that the money for the demolition of the Centre is still there for next year despite everybody brimming with confidence that the developer will be tearing the building down at their cost. Also that $1.5 million dollars has been set aside for recreational purposes (very general statement) no specific place for this cash it will have to wait for the out come of a recreational feasibility study. With less than ten months left in this council's term they better get that consultant in quickly to do this study or is this funding being directed towards this council's second term?