ATHABASCA – It was a busy year for Athabasca. Between hockey provincials, festivals, concerts and comedy shows, it was easy to miss some of the things happening behind the scenes at the town office.
Mayor Rob Balay identified a handful of things Town of Athabasca councillors are proud of, including healthcare, business development, and their work with their municipal partners.
“We had great success with our healthcare attraction and retention committee; what’s good about that is that it is truly a regional initiative with four municipalities,” said Balay. “It’s also got representatives from AHS, the Rural Health Professions Action Plan (RhPAP) and of course our local doctors.”
The town tried some new things to help address its shortage of healthcare workers. A March 21 career fair brought 40 students from Athabasca and Boyle together to get some hands-on knowledge of what a medical career could look like, and six med students from the University of Alberta spent September in the community learning about rural medicine.
“We also just entered into an agreement for a transitional housing initiative, so we’ll have a place where when a new doctor or nurse comes, that will be available,” said Balay. “We ran into difficulties finding housing for the new docs that came, so we decided to do this to give the attraction and retention committee one more tool to carry out their mandate.”
This past year also saw Athabasca University re-emerge as a community pillar — Dr. Alex Clark started his role as AU’s president in early February, and the school has since announced Convocation 2024 will be in Athabasca, alongside the end of the controversial near-virtual policy.
“The positive impact that he has had with trying to connect to the community, I think the university has done a great job of building the trust between (them) and the community,” said Balay. “It’s been a major improvement. The announcement of convocation was a great announcement. To hear that they’ll be bringing it back to stay, this is where it belongs.”
As AU continues to work towards its investment management agreement (IMA) with the province, it will bring more staff into Athabasca, something Balay expects to be a big focus over the upcoming months.
“Moving forward, the university's new vision and how can the community work with them in carrying that out is the question,” said Balay. “I know that there was an ask that went into the government for a new addition going forward for the university here in Athabasca, so it’ll be interesting to see how that unfolds and how the community can help the university achieve that.”
On a lighter note, Athabasca hosted seven other communities from March 30 to April 2 for the 2023 U18 Tier 2 Provincials, with the local boys finishing second after bouncing back from a tough opening game.
“Anytime you get to show off your community, I think that always pays dividends,” said Balay. “The organizing committee did a really good job, we heard nothing but good things from all the other towns. Hopefully we get to have more opportunities like that.”
Looking ahead
Athabasca started some long-term initiatives in 2023, including a downtown revitalization project, and some tax incentives bylaws it’s hoping will increase development in the community.
“The downtown revitalization program, the matching grant we’re going to offer to our businesses to try and get some more energy into the downtown core,” said Balay. “I think those non-residential tax incentives, I’m hoping that will start to pay some dividends as well.”
The town also issued residential building permits for the first time in six years, according to Balay. New homes, alongside a Dairy Queen being built beside the Tim Horton’s, are a hopeful sign for the mayor.
“There was some actual growth that has happened instead of the retraction we had been seeing,” said Balay. “That was encouraging, and hopefully the trend continues.”
Looking back on the year, Balay said he has one memory that stood out as a favourite. The Sept. 13 Mayor and Reeves Breakfast, held by the Athabasca Chamber of Commerce, returned for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I really enjoyed the breakfast. It’s one of the highlights for me personally,” said Balay. “We get to engage the community specifically the business portion of it, and I think having the interaction and the question-and-answer period after, that’s a positive thing for our community. I get energized when I partake in an event like that — you don’t always get that opportunity for that kind of engagement and feedback.”
