ATHABASCA – A Grassland-area man who disputed a $14,050 fire invoice after his insurance only covered a portion had the remaining $750 waived by Athabasca County council after an administrative error was found.
During their Aug. 31 council meeting, councillors voted 5-4 in favour of a motion — councillors Tracy Holland, Gary Cromwell, Kelly Chamzuk, Joe Gerlach, and Natasha Kapitaniuk were in favour, while reeve Brian Hall and councillors Ashtin Anderson, Camille Wallach and Rob Minns were opposed — to write off the remaining balance, after a misreading of the policy left Gilbert Duigou with an extra charge on his invoice.
“It’s excellent that the errors were corrected, and I’m happy that the time was given to look into this deeper,” said Kapitaniuk. “Given the time and stress that this ratepayer has had to go through, I agree that we should be able to find a place to right our wrong.”
Duigou, who couldn’t be reached for comment before print, had initially appeared as a delegation at the July 27 council meeting, where he said the five departments that responded — Wandering River, Athabasca, Boyle, Plamondon, and Lac La Biche — had been overkill.
“I thought my insurance would have been sufficient,” said Duigou during the meeting. “We are both seniors living on a fixed income and have just suffered the loss of a lifetime’s worth of work and belongings, in addition to valuable buildings on our property.”
“I’m opposed to just writing off the remaining balance,” said Anderson. “It’s a great thing that administration went through and double checked, but at the end of the day I don’t see the reason to write off the amount, we all have responsibility to carry the appropriate insurance on our property.”
Untimely changes
Duigou’s insurance was a sticking point for the four councillors who were opposed. During the July 27 meeting, he said he had changed the policy less than a month before the fire, which occurred Jan. 22.
“I think the whole process did the right thing here,” said Minns. “The gentleman got the bill, didn’t like the invoice, brought it to council’s attention, and that allowed administration to go back and check the invoice.”
The precedent of writing off the remainder of the now-legitimate total also concerned councillors.
“If we write off the rest, what does that say to everyone else that’s been charged?” asked Minns. “It’s the person on [the other end of the phone] that has to make that call, so if there’s one or two too many fire trucks, oh well. What if there had been one or two too few?”
Gerlach agreed that the over-response was the right thing to do but took issue with leaving ratepayers on the hook for the ensuing bill.
“I agree that over-responding is better than under-responding, but in the dead of winter with snowbanks all over the place, to have five fire halls send units to a situation like that, it was overkill. It’s a good thing, and it’s in the public interest, but to then hand the bill to the guy doesn’t sit right.”
No need for change
Despite the error, Hall indicated that there wasn’t any need to overhaul the system.
“[Regional fire chief Travis Shalapay and interim CAO Pat Vincent] should be applauded for taking the time to go back and recalculate, and they discovered that error,” said Hall in a Sept. 6 interview. “I think this was just a case of simple human error, and a misreading of the policy. I don’t think it was an error that warrants a gigantic overhaul of everything.”
