Bellevue Seniors Centre Mixed messages

After reading the article in the Herald today I am getting a little confused, was the direction of the municipality to get rid of the Bellevue Seniors Centre after they had received the facilities audit report.
Or did it become such a hot political potato that the direction on the facility suddenly changed?

In the Pass herald article titled "Facility Audit encourages demolishion" dated March 13,2012
http://passherald.ca/archives/120313/index3.htm

The following was stated "The Bellevue Seniors' Centre was found to be in very poor and unsafe condition, and Thompson recommended that the building be decommissioned as soon as possible"

In today's paper http://passherald.ca/index2.htm article titled "Bellevue Seniors raise their voice" Mr Thompson stated the following "I do not think that we have made any indication that we are going to demolish the building" additionally he also stated "Overall, the Seniors Centre was deemed as marginal"

Several concerns the statement made at last weeks meeting provides a different much softer tone than the previous statement made back in February. (That potato getting hot?)
Then going back to that same first statement a determination needs to be made very quickly is that building safe or not? because if the municipality has a report in it's hands that says the facility is unsafe and something happens who is liable?


Side note: Can't wait to see those $70,000 Community Peace Officer vehicles our tax dollars are going to be paying for over the next year.
I remember sitting in a meeting listening to a consultant tell council that the peace officer program would pay for itself including start up costs by January of next year ?

Crowsnest Pass, Budget will spur debate? Maybe

Well so far local politics have been fairly mellow and laid back since the election. I don't say that in a critical way because that's normal, new councilors getting familiar with the job, what administration does, the various programs and services the municipality provides it all takes time.

Ultimately unless you are going to have seven people sit in a room for three years and just play follow the leader, debate will come its bound to. Take any group of seven people you are going to have different goals, objectives, agendas etc. If you are not going to have debate over various issues then you may as well leave six people at home and let one person make all the decisions.

So anyway to the point of my post, I feel that debate is coming especially after reading Councilor Saindon's blog. Then refreshing my memory with what the various councilors had to say during the election campaign, this leads me to believe that their are indeed some issues that are going to create quite a lot of debate over the next month or so, in both council chambers, and out in the public.

Three issues I would like to discuss at this point that I feel are very pressing and relevant based on the various positions taken during the election.

1. Duplication of services.
Previous council had to deal with this issue regarding the duplication of Community centres and arenas. Maybe this council will take a different position than we did and restart the Crowsnest Centre, or put ice back in the Albert Stella? We shall see.

But if they are going to deal with this issue, they will at some point have to look at Town Shops, Fire Departments, Equipment Fleets, even arms lengths groups. Everyone of them very political contentious issues.

2. Water Meters, tough issue 560 meters a year for the next five years. Is the municipality going to charge two rates for water based on having a meter or not? Would that be fair, somebody that wastes water with a meter pays extra, somebody without a meter could waste water for free for up to the next five years. What about commercial users, will they be metered? tough on a business like a car wash? etc.

Cost $500 a meter paid by the owner of the residence over one year, half our taxpayers are seniors, administration as already proposed to increase utility bills. Now seniors are going to have to pay an additional $80 on every utility bill that's tough on a fixed income.

There is no question that we use a lot of water in the Pass, three times the provincial average.
Something as to be done from a conservation point of view, but I believe that by the time this issue makes it through the local coffee shops it will become too hot of a political potato and probably put aside for future review.

3. Spring cleanup, I read with much interest Councilor Saindon's comments on this issue, from what I have seen over the last six years, he is right this is the kind of luxury service this community can not afford. What will be interesting is to see where the rest of council stands on this issue, especially Councilor Mitchell every time this debate came up in the last three years he supported our former Mayor in maintaining this service, in fact if my memory is serving me well he even supported maintaining two cleanups. (Spring and Fall).

Three things that I hope are considered during the debate on the cleanup, Public Works are requesting an additional 1.5 positions in the workforce. If you took the man hours that are used on cleanup it would come to more than those 1.5 positions even in the most efficient years.
Second in the last six years on I was on council I would estimate that well in excess of a million dollars as been spent on cleanups, money that should have been used to buy new equipment that administration is now recommending that the municipality go $550,000 in debt for.
Third how many other jobs were put aside while our public works crew was busy on cleanup, and how much overtime was incurred to get those jobs completed in a timely fashion.

Anyway I think budget will spur some lively debate, lets keep in mind these are only the tip of the iceberg.