Councillor Wright Disqualification Case Dismissed
Councillor Wright, representing Division 8, (Bearspaw), was demanded by a majority of Council to resign over an alleged pecuniary interest and indebtedness to the County of over $50. At that same Special Council Meeting she refused, and the Council block of 6 votes then decided to pursue the matter in Provincial Court, at the ratepayers cost.
The matter was resoundingly dismissed by Justice N. E. Devlin after a May 17th court date. In regards to the alleged pecuniary interest, the matter was “too remote, speculative and uncer-tain to be material.” With respect to indebtedness, he concluded it was “a careless and irre-sponsible mistake”, but went on to declare that RVC Council conduct “fell well below the ex-pected standard of democratic due process.”, concluding that the Council majority’s motiva-tion “was the product of political animus towards Councillor Wright,
and a desire to remove her for reasons unrelated to the tax debt.”
Bullying was clearly exposed.
County Peace Officers to Patrol Provincial Highways
Until recently, County Peace Officers had no jurisdiction on Provincial Highways. As part of on-going downloading of costs onto municipalities, the Province enabled the County to recently apply for approval to have jurisdiction to deal with speeding, dangerous and/or distracted driving, running stop signs, and other Traffic Safety Act violations taking place beyond just our own County RVC roads. This will likely make good sense to most residents that our own Peace Officers can maintain safety throughout the entire County, and will surely relieve some frustra-tions were heard about from Administration that the Peace Officers felt handcuffed at not being able to ticket flagrant and dangerous offences on Provincial Highways.
Spruce Bud Worm Community Meeting
After hearing that Clr. Kamachi would not be able to attend a recent meeting at the Bragg Creek Community Centre, I did attend to ensure someone from Rocky View Council was pre-sent to listen and learn. In the end, Reeve Henn was also there at Mark’s request and I heard statements that the Reeve would take the matter back to Ag Services and ultimately to Council for consideration, which may involve requests to the Province. From listening and learning, I can say that it is a very complex issue for the community, as although some County lands are impacted, it involves mostly private lands and private trees.
In the meantime, addi-tional comments and concerns from residents about pests can be directed to the County’s agricultural Services folks at any time by emailing agservices@rockyview.ca.
Moving Forward on Process to Recruit a new CAO
As mentioned in my last column, the process is lengthy, and if this Council can get the ball roll-ing, the new Council that arrives in October will have a significant head start on the recruitment timeline. On June 30th the Request for Proposal (RFP) for a Recruiting Service to find the new CAO went out. The RFP was to close on July 21st and a report will be given to Council shortly afterwards. This may not be until September.
Please e-mail me if you would like to be added to my e-mail list for potential future e-mail and on-line communications Kevin.Hanson@RockyView.ca or call 403.463.1166.
Kevin Hanson,
Councillor, Division 3
Kevin.Hanson@RockyView.ca or call 403.463.1166.
