Voters in Westlock County’s Div. 3 will be heading to the polls in early 2016 after Coun. Jim Wiese tendered his resignation last Tuesday, Dec. 8.
The shock resignation came after council put to bed $2.2M Tawatinaw Ski Hill lease/sale deal with DK Consulting — a deal that Wiese said is bad for ratepayers and meant he couldn’t continue.
“It just got to the point where I didn’t want to be associated with what the council was doing,” he said. “When you live in a community and you’ve lived here all your life, and you want to live there the rest of you life, you don’t want to be associated with the decisions that I believe are so detrimental to the best interests of the county.”
While the ski hill deal wasn’t the only issue that contributed to Wiese’s resignation, it stood at the final reason.
“You don’t make a decision like this in one day, or one week, or even one month,” he said. “It’s a series of events that build up to the point where you don’t believe that your have any ability work with council anymore.
“The ski hill issue may have been the catalyst, but it’s by no means the only issue. I saw things over the last year, or 14 months, that have built to this decision that I cannot live with.”
In an interview, Wiese expressed his sadness at not being able to achieve the things he set out to do.
“I’m extremely disappointed in myself that I couldn’t influence the council in a positive way,” he said. “I feel that I’ve let the people down in my community that believed I could bring that voice to council, and I really believe I failed them.”
The resignation means that Wiese’s county council appointed postings to area and municipal boards will also come to an end, and that includes his chairmanship of the Westlock Foundation.
During Wiese’s time on the foundation board the organization turned an operating loss into a surplus and saw client satisfaction improve, something he puts down to the quality of people he worked with.
“That was one of the things I took most satisfaction from,” he said. “It’s been an incredible improvement at the foundation.
“It’s been a tremendous turnaround. I don’t take much credit, we have a good board, I work well with Clem (Fagnan) who’s the vice-char and we have tremendous management.”
Reeve Bud Massy was positive about Wiese’s time on council and said that he will be missed.
He especially praised Wiese’s effort to bring differing points of view to debates.
“It’s too bad that he resigned,” said Massey. “Jim brought a lot of skills to our council.
“We don’t always agree, and unfortunately he chose to exercise his option to withdraw his services from the ratepayers of Westlock County.”
Massey said that Wiese would need to explain why he resigned and wouldn’t be drawn beyond suggesting the ski hill deal played a part.
“He made some indication he didn’t like the direction we had went on the issue of the ski hill, but I think he’s the one who has to answer why he chose to resign rather than stay involved in council.”
One of Wiese’s biggest allies on council was Coun. Dennis Primeau. While they were split on the sale of the ski hill, they aligned on many other issues.
Moments after the council meeting finished, Primeau said he was at a loss to explain the shock resignation and also expressed disappointment that he and Wiese would not longer be working together.
“He will be seriously missed, Jim was a real asset here,” Primeau said. “I knew that he was not going to be very happy with sale of the ski hill.
“There were probably other issues in the background, but I don’t know, I’d probably be speculating.
“Overall, outside of the ski hill, Jim on finances was really good.”
Wiese first joined council after winning a 2012 byelection caused by then Div. 3 Coun. Maureen Kubinec’s resignation to seek the PC nomination for the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock riding.
He was subsequently returned at the 2013 municipal election unopposed.
County staff will now have to plan for a byelection in 2016.
A special meeting of the remaining six councillors is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Dec. 15 to ratify the by-election process.
CAO Peter Kelly said until that time there wouldn’t be a clear date for the election but suggested it may take place in early February.
