Barrhead town councillors believe the arbitration process proposed to solve the town and county’s ongoing operation funding disagreement will only be a temporary reprieve.
At least that is the opinion of Town of Barrhead mayor Gerry St. Pierre as told top council through a letter read by chief operating officer Martin Taylor, in his absence, during its regular meeting on Tuesday, April 11.
St. Pierre’s statement was in response to a letter addressed to both the town and county from Municipal Affairs minister Shaye Anderson. The town received the letter on March 28, and this is the first time councillors, as a group, were able to address it. County of Barrhead councillors accepted the letter as information during their April 4 meetin. For details see our April 11 issue.
In the letter Anderson states that because there are still significant areas of disagreement between the town and county over recreation services and funding models and he would use the power granted to him under the Municipal Government Act to appoint an arbitrator who will “issue a binding order that both municipalities will adopt to resolve this matter.”
Anderson’s letter follows a similar letter, by then Municipal Affairs minister, Danielle Larivee, who gave the municipalities six months with the help of a mediation process outlined by the province, to come up with a recreation agreement. If they were not able to come up with one, she said her ministry was prepared to intervene. The deadline passed Oct. 19.
“We must bear in mind that whatever the results of this arbitration, it will only be a short-term solution to the ongoing issues in our community,” St. Pierre stated. “Until we do away with outdated and obsolete systems, our community will be separated by two different governing bodies.”
He went on to say, that this division of governance would continue to hinder both municipalities ability to provide services and create economic development activities.
“I believe that sooner or later, similar to the name of our new aquatic centre [Barrhead Regional Aquatic Centre] we fully recognize that we will have to come together as one regional municipality of Barrhead,” St. Pierre wrote.
Alberta Seniors Master Games
Councillors unanimously agreed to pass on an opportunity to host the 2019 Senior Master Games.
Alberta Culture and Tourism minister Ricardo Miranda invited the town to bid for the games through a form letter sent out to all municipalities in early March.
Deputy mayor Ty Assaf said he believed the town should respectively bow out of the competition.
“I am just thinking of how the future council would feel to have this on their plate, without having any previous experience on how it is run,” he said. “I just find this too soon. Perhaps we could consider it for 2021.”
Barrhead hosted the games, which were then called the 55 Plus Games, with Westlock in the summer of 2013.
Coun. Leslie Penny agreed, saying the town needed some down time before taking on another major project.
“We have been going at it pretty hard and heavy the past while and I think it would be really nice if we could just relax for a little bit,” she said.
