Four candidates running for two seats on MD of Bighorn council reserved for the Exshaw ward met Tuesday evening (Oct. 16) at Exshaw School for an election forum hosted by the Exshaw Community Association (ECA).
Incumbents Dene Cooper and Paul Ryan and candidates Janet Brygger and Anthony Cinkant fielded questions from the ECA and about 35 Exshaw residents for two hours, with questions and concerns focusing on qualifications, communication, understanding of government process and procedure and the long-term future for the hamlet. Much of the conversations was dominated by the June flood.
Voting for the municipal election will be held at the MD of Bighorn administrative offices Monday (Oct. 21) from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters must produce photo ID issued by a Canadian government – federal, provincial or municipal, or an agency of one of those three.
The ECA began the evening with three questions for the four candidates:
What is the biggest issue facing the MD in the next four years?
What do you feel are the responsibilities of the MD in the flood recovery process?
Are you in favour of small tax increases to increase our reserves for future capital projects?
An open question and answer period followed that portion of the evening.
In regard to question one, the biggest issue facing the MD over the upcoming term, Cooper said, is ensuring the next council is organized as a cohesive team so that it can move forward with financial and structural programs in place. With the dual-administration currently in place, one side for regular municipal affairs and the other for flood recovery, Cooper said voters should take a hard look at the candidates and ask if they are familiar with and understand policy, budgeting, finances, the Municipal Government Act and rules of the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board and the Municipal Planning Commission.
“These are not trifling matters and it is a steep learning curve,” he said. “You need experienced councillors and you’ve never needed them more.”
Building on Cooper’s comments, Ryan compared this area to his spending time at the community of Slave Lake largely destroyed by fire in 2011. “What we are in for is a very difficult and complicated process of dealing with the province.”
He added that given that a lot of time over the next four years is going to be spent negotiating with the province to cover the costs of flood repairs, it will take experienced councillors.
“We do know the province isn’t going to pay for everything. We do know if we are negotiating invoices and we have to have experienced councillors. Sending experienced councillors back who know the MGA is the biggest benefit.”
Brygga, meanwhile, responded to the first question saying the biggest issue the MD faces is restoring ratepayers’ confidence in council to effectively manage the municipality.
“Do you feel we are managing our waterway effectively?” she asked. “Do you feel we are communicating with our neighbours? Are you confident in our ability to manage our finances? I am not confident in our local government, in how they are managing our affairs. Quite frankly I think they can do better,” she said referencing a letter residents of Pigeon Mountain Drive wrote to the provincial government expressing their need for help to access their homes.
“Within two days we had large machinery and work crews and things started happening. We shouldn’t have had to write that letter I just don’t feel confident that our MD is looking after us; they can do better, I can do better,” she said.
For his part, Cinkant responded by saying, “Fear. It’s been an effective tool. I really have no idea. There’s many things, there’s many answers I’ve come up with. I really don’t know which one would apply. I have no idea.”
On question two posed by the ECA – What do you feel are the responsibilities of the MD in the flood recovery process? – Cinkant responded by saying, “What I said earlier about council making sure whatever assistance is available, federal or provincial, it gets transferred into the community and they are aware of what is made available?”
“For the flood recovery situation, all the council can do is try to make all the federal and provincial offers as far as aiding the situation available to the community and keep on what is being aided to the community as far as recovery goes,” he said during opening comments.
In response to question two Brygga said, “it’s critical we return our community back to the state it was before the flood. We need to get our displaced residents back into Exshaw. We need to get back into our homes. The priority for me is to get our flood mitigation program going in an efficient manner,” she said, adding with her background in small business, she’ll be careful with how costs are managed.
Ryan, meanwhile, said the MD’s responsibilities in the flood recovery process began after the state of local emergency was lifted and council was once more in authority, the heavy equipment was brought in, the disaster recovery program was implemented and engineers were hired to undertake creek mitigation plans. Long-term solutions, however, will take longer.
“We’ve got a lot of money to spend here and we’ve got $8 million in the bank, but we want to keep that money and spend it wisely and get the province to pay for what we can,” he said.
Cooper said the scale of the disaster was enormous and all five communities in the MD were affected.
“There aren’t other rural municipalities with their hamlets that affected, the costs will come up as tens of millions of dollars per resident, that was how much it rained. A 14-day state of emergency is extremely long,” he said.
Cooper added that the DRP is a provincial program that the MD aligns with, but does not run.
In response to the third and final question – Are you in favour of small tax increases to increase our reserves for future capital projects? –Brygga said ratepayers “need to take a good, hard look at how the MD is run. We need to take a good hard look at how the MD is run. We need to analyze and improve the efficiency of how the MD is run.
“We need to streamline our operations and get things working in a straightforward manner working with the MD organization, council and administration. The idea of having a small tax increase may be necessary, however, we need to focus on how to reduce the costs rather than increase taxes. We need to run the MD as a business and balance income with costs. How can we ask our ratepayers to bail out the MD when our ratepayers are recovering from the flood?”
Cinkant said he wouldn’t raise taxes. Instead, he’d work to attract outside resources.
“I would rather try and motivate external money to come into Exshaw with regards to building residential areas and get more residences into the community to create more income, rather than tax approval,” he said. During opening comments, Cinkant said his goal was to see the municipality buy 85 acres for sale on Exshaw Mountain above Windridge Road and have the land re-zoned to allow for more residential development.
Ryan said the MD’s reserves are healthy.
“We have more money in reserves than we ever had and it wasn’t that long ago when this MD was almost broke,” he said, referring to the Telenet Affair when former MD municipal administrator Dale Nichol invested $2.3 million of the MD’s reserves in high-risk investments.
“We have sufficient reserves to meet the needs. We have the lowest mill rates per capita in Alberta and we have the highest reserves per capita. I would think our reserves are quite good,” he said.
Cooper said the MD with its 1,400 residents has a low overall income and has to be careful with its budgeting, otherwise the consequences can be severe.
“We’re not wealthy, but healthy… and I think healthy not wealthy, that is a good safe place to be,” he said.
Cooper added the MD has some $40 million in infrastructure expectations, but the ability to fund only $10 million of that, which means only one in four projects can be undertaken.”
