Gateway Signage: New Gateway Signage will mark the main highway entrances to Foothills County. Installation of the new signs is expected to be completed by March 2020. Our signage replacement was long overdue. Since our municipal name change was contemplated and we wanted to reduce costs, we waited until the official change to “Foothills County” occurred on January 1, 2019, before proceeding with this project. Progress was made on design and planning throughout 2019, but weather delays kept the signs from being installed earlier. We believe this will add a nice feature identifying our County boundaries.
Foothills Fire Department has a New Chief and Deputy-Chief: We welcome our new Fire Chief Rick Saulnier and Deputy Fire Chief Scott Young and look forward to working with you in your new roles!
The High Country Rural Crime Watch AGM: is on Monday, March 2, 2020, at the Priddis Hall at 7pm. You can meet the new Fire Chief and Deputy Fire Chief at this event, as they will be guest speakers on the topic of the Foothills County Wildfire Mitigation Strategy. Details will be shared about the strategy and 2020 plans to provide FireSmart education/wood-chipping events along with community associations in the NW of Foothills County. Additionally, RCMP Staff Sgt. Laura Akitt will join us for an open discussion about identifying policing priorities for the Turner Valley RCMP Detachment area.
Volunteer Firefighters needed: On another Fire Department-related note, Foothills County is looking for Volunteer Firefighters to serve the Priddis area and other areas in the county. If you are interested, please come out to meet our Fire Department reps at the Crime Watch AGM event or contact our Fire Chief: Rick.Saulnier@FoothillsCountyAB.ca
Fair Deal Panel visits Priddis: Thanks go to our MLA Miranda Rosin, her staff and the panel for hosting a meeting at the Priddis Hall on Feb. 5, 2020. It was very well-attended and it was great to see so many people come out who care about our province and federal relations.
Current State of Affairs in the County: While we navigate through 2020, our hope is to keep this a pocketbook-friendly year. However, we sure have our work cut out for us. To give you a background about what municipalities are facing, read on. Our municipality is facing losses and changes including additional policing costs, uncertainty of an education tax increase, Calgary Metropolitan Region Board costs, Intermunicipal Collaboration Frameworks with our 14 neighbours, other cost-sharing arrangements, oil and gas industry revenue loss, proposed changes to industrial assessment for wells, pipeline and machinery & equipment, with more assessment review in the upcoming years (electric power generation, transmission & distribution, then telecommunications, cable & railway). Foothills County has experienced accumulated O&G losses starting in 2015-2019 of $3.9 M, with a recent loss of $67,000 from 2017-2019. The original loss of $5.5 M was offset by “PERC” and “DIRC” provincial grants and by the associated linear assessment being zeroed out. Obviously, we don’t have that income now. With all this in mind, your council continues to watch our spending and is planning very carefully.
The Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) in Question: Foothills County believes there is value to regional collaboration and have undertaken many planning processes, aside from the CMRB. Also, during our work with the forced growth management board, CMRB, we have put our best foot forward as we participate. With work under way on the growth plan, we have recently heard from the growth plan consultant that we are in really good shape with the planning that has already been done in the region. So, that leads us to wonder about this aspect of the board. Do we really need to deal with this during these challenging times when we could be using our resources on our own community? At the Rural Municipalities of Alberta Convention in the Fall of 2019, we supported a successful resolution to request dissolving the Calgary and Edmonton region boards, or to significantly revise them (voting structure, appeal mechanism and Regional Evaluation Framework). When it comes to dealing with the growth management boards in Alberta, the rural municipalities surrounding Calgary and Edmonton are looking for a “Fair Deal”. We are asking for this situation to be evaluated as an item of Red Tape Reduction, since it is a significant cost to us when we have other planning processes in place that are already working. Ultimately, the provincial government will be taking a look at this and giving us an answer soon. Again, we believe in the value of collaboration and providing services in an economical manner, but we can do this without a growth board, which is essentially another example of non-elected government bureaucracy. A less costly alternative could be a voluntary collaboration of any municipalities in the region that want to participate, meeting on a less frequent basis than our current schedule, about matters of collective interest, such as transportation and economic development, etc.
Best Regards,
Councillor Suzanne Oel
For Other News & Updates:
Please visit my website: suzanneoel.com
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