It’s kind of an open secret that the Town of Athabasca’s council is split evenly into two rival camps.
Almost every council meeting is bogged down with quite a lot of arguing about things that in our estimation probably should only take a few minutes to pass.
There’s really no better evidence of this than the fact that the local press was pulled into whether or not Tim Verhaeghe lives in Athabasca and meets the required residency requirements under the Local Authorities Election Act.
The story, in case you missed it, is on Page 1 and from our vantage point underscores a growing dysfunction at the council table.
Certainly, the media loves stories like this, but is this kind of controversy good for the town?
Probably not.
It’s our contention that the residency issue should have been discussed and settled during an open council meeting, but again the players on both sides can’t seem to agree if that ever happened.
Ultimately we expect that the men and women elected to council are there to serve the interests of this town’s residents, not their own.
Yet despite the back-and-forth, the town’s been pretty lucky so far. Although there are two very distinct camps, both of them seem to only have two members, which keeps both sides in check considering there’s seven voting members on council.
The rest of the council doesn’t seem to have any concrete loyalties to either side, which is good because although they may spend hours upon hours “discussing” just how good, or bad, the budget format is, decisions do get made … eventually.
On the other hand, though, if the split becomes even more pronounced, there could be some dire consequences. There are some pretty major decisions that will be eventually coming down the pipe and without at least the appearance of a functioning council, who knows if they’ll be made — or at least made in the best interests of the town and not made to spite the other side.
Maybe the Thorhild County fiasco should be a wake-up call. Or, at least, maybe it should show councillors that a mostly unified council is better than no council at all.
