ATHABASCA – Work on the new Athabasca Tourism and Economic Development (TED) committee are moving forwards, with the Town of Athabasca being the first of the three municipalities to approve a new terms of reference.
At their WHEN MEETING, councillors voted 6-0 (Coun. Darlene Reimer was absent) in favour of approving the new terms of reference with recommended changes compiled by a working group made up of two members from each council, plus some administrative staff.
The new terms of reference allow for a more equal representation on the committee, with two councillors from Athabasca County, two from the town, and two from the Village of Boyle being joined by five members at large.
“The thought was that we want to try and get the best five members at large. If that happens to be someone from Athabasca University or the chamber of commerce, that’s fine. If it ends up being a realtor, that’s also fine,” said mayor Rob Balay. “Further talk is that once there are projects, there’s nothing on having sub-committees and using expertise from other public members to help promote other economic growth.”
Both the county and the village voted to defer disucssion until future meetings — Athabasca County will discuss it during June 27, and Boyle will review them again June 21.
Town councillors did have two small corrections with Coun. Edie Yuill pointing out that it lackied any mention of alternate councillors who would fill in if the appointed councillor was unable to attend.
One concern brought up by Coun. Ida Edwards, was that there wasn’t a clause requiring a repfrom each council in order to form quorum. Under the current proposed terms, quorum would be set at five, of which three would need to be members.
“So, we could have two councillors from Boyle and one from the county and that would be quorum?” Edwards asked, adding she was concerned about important decisions being made without full representation.
“It’s no different than what the (Athabasca Regional) multiplex does,” said Balay. “We have to trust our partners. The one time that there was a controversial issue at the multiplex, the municipality that had all their members there put a motion in to table it until the next meeting.”
How we got here
The town withdrew from the original TED committee at their Dec. 20, 2022, meeting when they voted 5-1 to suspend their commitment pending restructuring, and then voted 6-0 in favour of adding the restructuring plans to the next tri-council meeting.
At the time, Balay had said, “I just find that if you’re using key performance indicators to measure what has been accomplished by the TED committee, I don’t believe that there would be any huge success. There have been a bunch of little successes, but nothing to the extent that I think is worth the current investment under its current format.”
Historically, TED had been made up of the entire county council, plus reps from the village and the town.
