Village of Clyde councillors have expressed disappointment, frustration and even anger with a recent report from the Village of Clyde Viability Review Team.
The report, released to the public earlier this month, concludes with the finding that the village is trending towards non-viability based on feedback from members of the public, including at a public meeting held in October.
Council discussed the report at their Feb. 17 council meeting, with the conclusion from mayor Doug Nyal that councillors need to do a better job of communicating the status of the village with residents.
“If this is what residents are saying and we’re thinking something different, we’ve got some work to do,” he said.
Nyal explained village council and administration feel everything is in good shape, but don’t necessarily have the appropriate documentation to prove it — hence the many negative responses from residents.
The report itself is a mixed bag of responses, with no clear consensus from respondents on most issues relating to the village’s viability. Ultimately, councillors said the report didn’t paint a clear picture of the municipality.
“This is a lot more negative than the impression I got at the meeting,” Coun. Don Domingue said.
“It’s way less positive. There’s not a page there that doesn’t knock council for one thing or another.”
The report came about as part of the viability review process, which got its start after a local resident circulated a petition calling for Alberta Municipal Affairs to do a study on the possible dissolution of the village into Westlock County.
Coun. Nat Dvernichuk said he was concerned about not just the contents of the report, but also the fact so many residents bought into the report based on false information — that taxes would go down substantially if the village dissolved because that’s what happened in many other municipalities that dissolved.
“This was an outright lie. This person going out with a clipboard had no knowledge of how or why taxes went down,” he said.
Coun. Neil Olson, a member of the Viability Review Team, said that wasn’t necessarily a relevant issue — under the provincial government’s process once the signatures are on the petition, it doesn’t matter how they got there.
“There’s no bias. They collect the information and report it,” he said.
Olson said the next steps for the committee would be a conference call with the parties involved, an audit of the village’s infrastructure, and a plan from Westlock County for what the situation would look like in terms of taxes and services.
“We have to wait for another report, with infrastructure and the county,” he said. “Right now we just have to let the process run its course.”
