The Town of Westlock is mailing out a survey asking residents to list what should be council’s Top 3 priorities for 2018.
The survey will be included in the utility bill and can be found at the town’s website. The results will shape budget and strategic planning discussions for the upcoming year.
“In a small town with an active council and a good administration, you have lots of opportunities and avenues for interaction with your citizens throughout the year, but going into our planning time, we’re starting this four-year term much like we started the last one,” said mayor Ralph Leriger.
“Instead of saying, ‘business as usual,’ I think the things that set the stage for having a successful term was in the planning processes, so we’re doing the same thing this time.”
The survey falls under the town’s communication and citizen engagement policy, which requires them to approach the budgeting process via public consultations.
Responses must be submitted by Dec. 29 and can be delivered in person at the Town Office, via e-mail to [email protected], or by fax at 780-349-4436.
The suggestions will be compiled and released in January.
As a big believer in public engagement, Leriger said it’s important to stay connected with the people receiving services to understand what’s meaningful to them.
He also wants residents to understand the budgetary challenges the community faces and the plans that are in place.
Public engagement is nothing new as budget open houses were held the first two years of council’s 2013-2017 term.
“The information was received very positively,” Leriger said. “Having said that, attendance dwindled, as can happen with public consultation. People live busy lives.”
Last year the town took a different approach and used similar information from those past open houses and printed it in the Westlock News.
“This is just another tool in the toolbox of engaging,” he said.
As for the responses, Leriger said he didn’t have any preconceived notions, but when prompted, he had a few predictions.
“The one thing you do find when doing an exercise like this is that many people don’t have a solid understanding about what services are delivered by what levels of government,” he said, noting that he receives calls about paving Highway 44, or education and health care.
“If you get those kinds of things and there’s enough of them in a common theme, you’d pass them to the appropriate authorities.”
He also predicted some priorities to be policing and continued commercial and light industrial growth that has the potential to create employment.
Of course, he expected someone to write in a funny submission or two.
“I don’t expect I’ll hear maintaining infrastructure because there’s something that isn’t particularly sexy, if you will, about maintaining the assets that you own,” he said. “We have the tendency as people to love to have new things, or build new things, or have new services.”
However, he said that a proper asset management plan would be critical to the town’s financial future.
He also expected there would be “requests for more.” He explained that when totalling the town’s budget and dividing it by category, it is heavily weighted towards facilities, recreation facilities especially.
“A large part of our budget goes towards that, but for some folks that’s never enough,” he said. “Not all good ideas can be funded, but if there’s common themes there, then what you can do is you can put that into a longer-term plan.”
Because this is only the first year of this current council’s term, Leriger said they’re in no rush to finish the budget. So, for the next few months, he said council would pass an interim budget and then delve into the planning process, setting the stage for the next four years and giving councillors something down the line to measure how successful they were.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me to do your strategic plan and lay out your priorities after your budget,” he said. “If it’s truly your priority, then you have to budget for it; otherwise, how can it be called a priority?
“Your planning documents need to be living documents because ... the world can change in a heck of a hurry. You have to keep your eye on the pulse.”
