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Lac Ste. Anne agrees to extended contract termination clause, but for a price

Woodlands County council approves five-year bylaw enforcement services contract with Lac Ste. Anne County
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Lac Ste. Anne County community peace officer Dallas Choma, pictured here from a January County of Barrhead council meeting in January 2022, and his colleagues will continue to provide bylaw enforcement services for Woodlands County after the municipalities officially agreed to terms in a new five-year agreement.

BARRHEAD – Lac Ste. Anne County will provide Woodlands County with community peace officer or bylaw enforcement services for the next five years. 

Woodlands County councillors approved the agreement during their Feb. 1 meeting. The agreement takes effect immediately. 

Under the new agreement, Lac Ste. Anne County's community peace officers (CPO) will provide 80 hours a month of bylaw enforcement services. Additional hours of service are possible under mutual agreement. 

Council first discussed signing the agreement at the Jan. 16 meeting. However, councillors decided to delay the decision so they could negotiate changes to the extermination terms in which either municipality could opt out of the agreement from 60 to 90 days to a year. 

In 2020, the county signed its first agreement with Lac Ste. Anne County to provide bylaw enforcement services for $85,000 annually after the municipality dissolved its municipal bylaw enforcement department. At the time, council cited budgetary constraints as the reason to outsource the service.  

As part of the agreement, Woodlands also transferred the title of the two vehicles used by its former peace officers for $70,000, which Lac Ste. Anne paid for in the form of a $23,000 credit over three years. 

When the county was doing its bylaw enforcement in-house, its two CPOs provided roughly 320 hours of service. 

On Nov. 22, 2022, Lac Ste. Anne County submitted notice to Woodlands of the termination of their former contract, noting the last day of the agreement would be Jan. 31, 2023. 

Manager of protective services Sheldon Schoepp noted the municipalities negotiated the terms of the new contract on Jan. 24, and three days later, the county received the contract. 

"It was a fairly easy process," he said. "We wanted to extend the termination clause to one year, which they were agreeable to, but they also came back with an increase in the hourly rate." 

In the original agreement Lac Ste. Anne presented to the county in early January, the hourly rate for 2023 was pegged at $107.25 and increased by three per cent for each year of the contract. 

Under the new agreement, the hourly rate in 2023 starts at $140 per hour, going up by the same three per cent for each year of the contract, starting on Jan. 1. 

Schoepp noted that if Lac Ste. Anne County is not able to fulfill the 80-hour monthly agreed-upon service due to unforeseen staffing issues, Woodlands County agrees that Lac Ste. Anne may reduce the hours of service for a cheaper rate. 

As part of the agreement, Lac Ste. Anne County will provide the county with monthly reports on all enforcement services supplied, including the number of patrols made in a designated area, the number of tickets, tags or warnings issued and the monetary amount of the fines issued. 

 


Barry Kerton

About the Author: Barry Kerton

Barry Kerton is the managing editor of the Barrhead Leader, joining the paper in 2014. He covers news, municipal politics and sports.
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