WESTLOCK – Westlock County councillors are looking for additional information on the two-year-old intermunicipal collaboration framework (ICF) the municipality has with the Summer Village of Larkspur, with interim CAO Pat Vincent admitting he has “concerns” with the solid waste management sub-agreement between the two.
Councillors spent more than 40 minutes at their June 21 governance and priorities meeting going over the May 2020 ICF as well as the 2019 waste, winter road maintenance and fire protection sub-agreements then voted 6-1 twice; first to accept the 25-page report as information, then to direct administration to bring back more details on the agreements at the Sept. 20 governance and priorities meeting — Coun. Stuart Fox-Robinson was in opposition on the first, while Coun. Isaac Skuban was the dissenting vote on the second.
While deputy reeve Ray Marquette called the ICF and sub-agreements “one-sided in my opinion” as summer village residents “should be paying more for us to provide services”, Vincent countered that “Westlock County is getting fairly compensated for the limited amount of service we provide.”
Mandated under the Municipal Government Act, the ICF is meant to be a “tool to facilitate cooperation between neighbouring municipalities to ensure municipal services are provided to residents efficiently and cost effectively.” County council review of the ICF follows recent work to an intermunicipal development plan (IDP) between the two municipalities, a document that’s been in the works since 2019 and has yet to be finalized.
An IDP is a provincially-mandated, land-use plan prepared by two (or more) municipalities that share a common border and ensures future development and land-use policy are coordinated — the county signed IDPs with the Town of Westlock and Village of Clyde back in 2019, the same year work began on the agreement with Larkspur.
Public works director James Plain noted that since the ICF was inked “we haven’t received one request to do winter snow removal there other than our own portion of Westlock County” while county fire crews have only been called out once this year.
Emergency/protective services manager John Biro explained that when they respond to a fire within the county there’s a $200 charge “right off the bat and then $400 for every hour, whether it’s one truck or six trucks” while for Larkspur they charge per truck, per hour.
“So, if we have two engines out there it’s $600 per hour including water tankers. There is a difference on what we charge Larkspur,” he said.
Also, part of the fire agreement is a $50 charge for every registered parcel of land in the village — the county bills Larkspur $4,850 annually for its 97 parcels whether any fire service is provided which is a fee Skuban said is “150 per cent higher that we charge (our) residents.”
“Looking at the parcel fee and considering how much we go out there, that’s good enough for me,” he said.
Added Vincent: “If we were responding to 10 or 12 fire calls a year, I would agree with the deputy reeve that we should re-examine it. But based on the fact we’re getting $50 per lot, plus three times what we charge our residents for when the equipment rolls … for the one call a year when the equipment rolls, our taxpayers are not subsidizing the residents of the summer village.”
Bone of contention
One area of contention for Vincent, as well as administration, is the solid waste disposal agreement with agricultural services manager Don Medcke saying he was in “full agreement with CAO Vincent” as there is a “shortfall.” Director of planning and community services Laurie Strutt also noted administration previously took issue with the waste agreement and were told by the summer village they had no interest in re-negotiating until the five-year contract expires.
As it stands Larkspur pays the county $2,500 annually and receives 35 transfer station permit cards for the Jarvie and Pibroch stations — each additional card costs the village $75.
Reeve Christine Wiese noted in her research she found 78 private dwellings in Larkspur, while Medcke said he understands there are 53 residents— regardless, there is a gap which adds up to a shortfall the county has to eat.
“We can track usage by permit numbers but we don’t know weights or volumes at the transfer sites, so the county picks up the costs on the tippage of that,” Medcke explained.
Going forward
While Coun. Jared Stitsen noted the agreements contain clauses on dispute resolution which should start with the CAOs of the two municipalities, Vincent added that “ … now would be the time to give notice to the (summer) village that we would like to re-negotiate that to ensure we’re not subsidizing them in the area of solid-waste disposal.” The ICF notes that if either side wants to terminate the agreement, 90-day written notice must be given two years before five-year term ends.
“An appropriate way to get the conversation going is to put on the agenda for a supper meeting that council is going to have with the council from the summer village and have that discussion and to get it on the radar so they’re aware of what the issues are,” said Vincent.
And while the majority of council were in favour of more information coming back to the September GPC meeting, Skuban was against saying that with a new CAO coming on stream next month, “ … this is one extra thing that doesn’t need to be done until the agreement is closer to the five-year mark.”
“What is council going to do with those numbers in the next year and a half? I just think it would be more prudent to have that information closer to when we can actually do something rather than now,” he added.
Marquette, Fox-Robinson and Stitsen all countered saying they’d prefer to have the information sooner rather than later.
“We do need to have the facts, the basic facts about what we’re talking about. There’s nothing worse than going into a meeting and spouting off all over the place. I’d like to have the information so we can have the discussions up front with them,” said Stitsen.
