Two poll results that surprised me in the strength of the numbers, the questions were;
Would you support the municipality conducting a feasibility study on building a multi use recreation facility?
26 of 31 votes (83%) were in favour
Did Council made the right decision not to proceed with the enhanced policing position?
22 of 23 (95%) agreed
Please be sure to vote on the latest poll as we look at federal politics.
Showing posts with label Enhanced Policing Position. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Enhanced Policing Position. Show all posts
Friday, September 4, 2009
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Enhanced Policing Position Crowsnest Pass
I have stated elsewhere on this blog why I voted against the enhanced policing position, please take a minute and leave your vote and or comments on if you believe Council made the right decision to not proceed with the position.
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).
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).
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Enhanced Policing Position Crowsnest Pass
Would like to clear up some misconceptions about the enhanced policing position in the Crowsnest Pass.
First some background, over the last four years we have gone through four bylaw officers.
We have had trouble attracting people who are fully qualified for the position, several reasons one there is a shortage of qualified bylaw officers available, two until last year the position was only a 32 hour per week position, three the municipality pays their bylaw officer in the range of $24 per hour. Most municipalities around southern Alberta pay in the $30 per hour range.
(Easily confirmed if you go to CUPE Alberta's web site they show numerous collective agreements, that a person can compare to.
Any way when the latest bylaw officer choose to leave us, the option was raised of taking a different approach, that of hiring a "Enhanced Policing Position". Many questions were raised during the debate over that the position;
Availability- we were told originally that it could take up to a year for the RCMP to fill the position, with a bit of luck it turned out an officer became available for July 1st 2009.
Cost- The cost of the "Enhanced position" would cost us in the range of $126,000 per year, which would include the officer, vehicle, uniforms, office support, preparation for court etc etc, our Bylaw Officer cost was roughly $96,000 we were told that the difference would be made up by additional revenue coming in from increased enforcement, and by not spending money training less than qualified bylaw officers every year.
Municipal Bylaw Enforcement- I believe this is the key issue, we were told originally that this officer would enforce all municipal bylaws, (plus being a RCMP member would be free of any kind of political interference). As the process moved along Council was informed that a mistake, a miscommunication had been made, the "Enhanced Officer" would not be able to enforce any municipal bylaw that did not fall under either Alberta or Federal stature.
This means in simple terms that bylaws such as the "Unsightly premises, long weeds etc" would not be enforced.
So what began as a process to replace the Municipal Bylaw Officer, now as turned into determining if we want an additional RCMP member in our municipality, doing what the RCMP already does. (No discredit to the RCMP I think we are very lucky to have the people we do here).
We need a Bylaw officer here the suggestion as been made that those types of "Unsightly Premises" issues only happen during the summer months, that we could hire a summer student from the Bylaw Field to fill that role so now the $126,000 cost will become ?
The Enhanced position was a good idea, when we were working with the belief that we were gaining an additional RCMP member who would fill the role of a Bylaw Officer, that is no longer the case, that is why I will not support this position.
First some background, over the last four years we have gone through four bylaw officers.
We have had trouble attracting people who are fully qualified for the position, several reasons one there is a shortage of qualified bylaw officers available, two until last year the position was only a 32 hour per week position, three the municipality pays their bylaw officer in the range of $24 per hour. Most municipalities around southern Alberta pay in the $30 per hour range.
(Easily confirmed if you go to CUPE Alberta's web site they show numerous collective agreements, that a person can compare to.
Any way when the latest bylaw officer choose to leave us, the option was raised of taking a different approach, that of hiring a "Enhanced Policing Position". Many questions were raised during the debate over that the position;
Availability- we were told originally that it could take up to a year for the RCMP to fill the position, with a bit of luck it turned out an officer became available for July 1st 2009.
Cost- The cost of the "Enhanced position" would cost us in the range of $126,000 per year, which would include the officer, vehicle, uniforms, office support, preparation for court etc etc, our Bylaw Officer cost was roughly $96,000 we were told that the difference would be made up by additional revenue coming in from increased enforcement, and by not spending money training less than qualified bylaw officers every year.
Municipal Bylaw Enforcement- I believe this is the key issue, we were told originally that this officer would enforce all municipal bylaws, (plus being a RCMP member would be free of any kind of political interference). As the process moved along Council was informed that a mistake, a miscommunication had been made, the "Enhanced Officer" would not be able to enforce any municipal bylaw that did not fall under either Alberta or Federal stature.
This means in simple terms that bylaws such as the "Unsightly premises, long weeds etc" would not be enforced.
So what began as a process to replace the Municipal Bylaw Officer, now as turned into determining if we want an additional RCMP member in our municipality, doing what the RCMP already does. (No discredit to the RCMP I think we are very lucky to have the people we do here).
We need a Bylaw officer here the suggestion as been made that those types of "Unsightly Premises" issues only happen during the summer months, that we could hire a summer student from the Bylaw Field to fill that role so now the $126,000 cost will become ?
The Enhanced position was a good idea, when we were working with the belief that we were gaining an additional RCMP member who would fill the role of a Bylaw Officer, that is no longer the case, that is why I will not support this position.
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