A petition filed with Municipal Affairs by residents of Lac Ste. Anne County has failed.
Concerned with decisions made by their elected officials, Lac Ste. Anne County Ratepayers Association (LSARA) president Christine Yeoman said the purpose of the petition had been to ask the ministry to perform an inquiry into the affairs of the county.
Yeoman told the approximately 80 in attendance at the association’s fourth annual general meeting, held at the Gunn Hall on March 21, the reason the petition had failed was due to the ministry’s exclusion of 558 signatures from the 2,543 collected.
“Our petition was dismissed without the ministry doing any credible due diligence,” Yeoman said, adding the independent audit of the ministry’s review, conducted by LSARA, found 294 errors in the paperwork.
Yeoman said it was her opinion that the ministry had acted contrary to Sections 221 to 226 of the Municipal Government Act.
“After several requests for the names and reasons why these 558 signatures were removed from our petition, Municipal Affairs refused to release the review documents without a Formal Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection (FOIP) act request to access it,” Yeoman said, adding a letter defending the actions of her office was received from former Minister Danielle Laravee on July 22.
“It was an embarrassing letter for the ministry that contradicts the approved ministry policy regarding petition verification, including the purpose and procedures of the policy of which the ministry mandates,” she added.
Yeoman said thousands of volunteer hours have gone into the investigation.
“We filed our petition on October 3, 2015 and we’ve never given up or faltered, not once in the 520 days since. As a concerned group of citizens, we conducted our own research in an effort to understand the process of municipal governance and what our role should be. We understood, from the onset, that if we chose not to act, to not try and hold our council and administration to the duties and responsibilities we elected and hired them for, the consequences of inaction were likely to be more than we could bear as ratepayers.”
Brad Javorsky, LSARA member and director of Division 1, said it was a travesty.
“The biggest travesty of this council is not the new administrative building, it’s not the $16 million dollars or the fact it takes $400,000 to build a bridge when it should only take $200,000,” he said.
“It is the disrespect to the voters, to the ratepayers, to the people who landed on the beaches of Dieppe who gave us the right to stand up and demand accountability from our elected officials. That’s the travesty. When you have county employees saying they are doing this because they can, that, to me, is the very definition of tyranny.”
Yeoman agreed.
“The ratepayers are done with the ongoing waste of our taxpayers dollars and will not stand by quietly while the ones we entrust continue to mock us and squander our future and the future of our children away,” she said.
LSARA’s next move is to send another letter, this time to current Minister of Municipal Affairs Shaye Anderson.
“We’re going to ask why they did not adhere to their own processes,” Yeoman said, adding the association still believes that an inquiry is necessary.
“We sincerely believe we could function much better as a county.”
Among the group’s concerns, as outlined in a copy of a letter to the ministry dated Oct. 1, 2015 and obtained by the Barrhead Leader, LSARA’s members claim rising costs, potential changes to lineal assessments, increases to extant mill rates, the improper allocation of Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) grants, a lack of accountability from council, failing working relationships with individual councillors and the chief administrative officer of Lac Ste. Anne County as reasons for their inquiry.
“Our petition was not solely about the new administrative building,” Yeoman said, adding in her opinion, council’s decision to move forward with the project was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Mayor says squabbling over location or financing is counterproductive
Regardless of the allegations facing council and the ministry from LSARA, the outcome of the petition is between the ratepayers association and the ministry, Lac Ste. Anne County mayor Bill Hegy says.
“The necessity of the new administrative building was never in question and to continue squabbling over its location or financing is counterproductive,” Hegy said.
Public outcry arose from a special county council meeting decision.
“In 2008, there was no public outcry regarding the new building,” Hegy said.
“Neither was there any outcry in the fall of 2013 when, in a unanimous motion, council directed administration to proceed with construction of a new building or in 2014, when council held a special meeting to decide the new location.”
Hegy said the decision to move the construction site from its proposed location in Sangudo to its current location was a 4-3 vote.
“I know the decision meant disappointment for those of us in the east end of the county, but the majority voted on it. I was a member-at-large on the committee in 2008 and we spent a lot of time looking into what kind of building we needed.”
At the time, Hegy said, there was no disagreement regarding the need or financing terms from the public.
“Everyone understood it would have to be financed over the long-term,” he said, adding MSI funding had not yet come into effect and there was $700,000 in reserves allocated.
“I understand with the subsequent downturn of the economy in late 2008 it was decided to defer construction until things turned around again,” Hegy said.
“Of course, when the economy did pick up, so did the prices and we realized we should have built when the costs were more reasonable.”
Hegy said an option to refurbish the now-closed Onoway High School was never on the table.
“It was never an option because of a number of reasons, the most prevalent being the site was needed to replace the sports grounds the new high school was being built on,” he said, adding inquiries into utilizing other sites proved fruitless.
“An important fact that keeps getting pushed aside in these discussions is that the decision to build a new administration office was initially made in 2008 and council reaffirmed that decision by a motion in 2013.”
In addition, Hegy said a 2005 Feasibility Study conducted by Manasc Isaac Architects on the existing administrative building concluded that renovations were not feasible and recommended construction of a newer facility.
“I did not receive any negative feedback from residents in my division, not in 2010 nor in 2013 and I believe the only issue people have with the project is its location, not the price,” he said.
Municipal Affairs stands by decision
Municipal Affairs takes all petitions very seriously and we stand by the results says Tim Seefeldt, communications director for Municipal Affairs.
“The petition received from the Lac Ste. Anne County residents on October 6 contained 2,543 signatures and our reviewer found that 558 had to be excluded,” Seefeldt said, adding under the Municipal Government Act there are a variety of reasons for excluding a petition signature, such as missing or incorrect information.
The department continually looks for ways to improve how it serves Albertans and have taken steps to improve the verification process.
“We’ve established the Internal Procedure for Petition Verification which includes using a photocopy for verification notes, but these procedures are not retroactive to petitions reviewed before May 2016,” Seefeldt said, adding although the MGA does not have an appeal process to dispute a petition sufficiency declaration, petitioners may consider submitting another petition.
“Municipal Affairs understands some residents are frustrated with certain decisions made by their locally elected county council but we must note that local councils are elected to make such decisions,” Seefeldt said, adding not all council decisions will be popular but if councils make decisions within the legislative framework set out for them, those are decisions made within their authority and responsibility.
