Officials from Westlock County and the Town of Westlock were recently offered an opportunity to sit down with Alberta’s new Municipal Affairs minister Kaycee Madu to share some of their concerns on various issues affecting municipalities.
Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock MLA Glenn van Dijken took the minister on a tour of his constituency Sept. 16, which included stops in Barrhead, Westlock and Thorhild to give local officials a chance to meet with Madu and help him get acquainted with local issues.
“I think it was a good meeting, I get the feeling he is very approachable, said Westlock County reeve Lou Hall.
“I think it went really well. He talked to us about the financial challenges facing the province and I had an opportunity to explain our financial realities and it was very respectfully received,” added Town of Westlock mayor Ralph Leriger.
The meeting came as a result of a request through the two councils to bring forward the issue of repairing and maintaining the two major highways that intersect both the town and the county, said Hall, but they also discussed issues with tax assessment, economic development, regional cooperation and rural crime as well.
Deputy reeve Brian Coleman said the minister made a very strong statement about government accountability.
“He said this provincial government is going to be accountable and municipalities are going to be accountable. There is going to be a website set up with results for all municipalities. That was one of his main messages and it was a very strong message that he sent,” said Coleman.
County CAO Leo Ludwig noted the first 10 minutes of the meeting involved an introduction speech from minister Madu, which outlined some of the financially-challenging times ahead.
“The expectation is that municipalities are going to share in getting out of that position. That was a pretty strong message from the minister,” he said. “We didn’t help spend them into this, but we’re going to help get them out of it.”
Ludwig went on to say that linear tax assessment is a real concern, and with the province continuing to change the rules, that assessment value goes down even further. The formula to allocate Municipal Sustainability Initiative grants was also discussed at length.
“There’s been talk about that for a while now from (Rural Municipalities of Alberta) about the formula that’s used for MSI and that it really needs to be fixed. Whether or not that will happen, I don’t know,” said Ludwig. “There’s no easy fix to it, but it’s something that should be fixed.”
Overall, officials were happy to be able to meet with the minister and share their views on behalf of their municipalities.
“I was pleased with the access we had to the minister and look forward to continued dialogue,” said Leriger. “I was very candid, as I always am, and the minister listened carefully and it was evident when I met him last week at AUMA, so that’s encouraging to me and I would like to highlight that.”
