George Cuff says the City of Cold Lake needs to rethink its strategy for how it deals with its most significant neighbour, the MD of Bonnyville, and that its neighbours should also put more effort into regional co-operation.
“The three key municipal leaders need to sit down and say ‘let's start again, and let's work on a constructive agreement,'” Cuff said shortly after delivering a presentation on his 206-page inspection report on the city to a packed banquet room in the Lakeland Inn on Wednesday.
“Let's ask our three CAOs to meet first and let's have them come up with some alternative solutions to move us forward. Then let us sit down as three councils and see whether or not we can come to some kind of agreement,” Cuff said.
Cuff, the provincial government's hired gun inspector who reviewed Cold Lake's operations in the wake of the city's request for a dissolution study, focused a significant number of comments in his report on the strained relationship between the city and the MD, but he also said the Town of Bonnyville has a role to play in fostering more regional co-operation.
In his written report, Cuff said last year's mediation process that ended in Bonnyville and the Village of Glendon signing a new community development agreement with the MD wasn't a success, but a failure of sorts.
“The review which we have undertaken suggests to us that the approach taken by the city has quite simply not worked. We note that this is a two-way street: neither the MD nor the Town of Bonnyville emerge unscathed in terms of being obligated to bear their fair share of the blame for a lack of regional co-operation,” Cuff wrote on Page 199 of his report.
“The result of the latest mediation process was not three successful municipalities and one failure but, rather, a failure by all to find a workable solution. It would appear the three (the MD, town and Village of Glendon) knew that the city would not ‘buy in' to the proposed agreement, but were content with the arrangement. That is regrettable,” Cuff added in his report.
“The level and tone of discussions and communication between these principal partners in the region has not been conducive to fully understanding the needs of each other nor to striving for a reasonable balance. The ‘good of the whole' has escaped the elected leaders of each of the municipalities and each must bear a portion of the responsibility for making this work as the future unfolds.”
Cuff said both in his report and after his Wednesday presentation that the assessment-rich MD has dollars to give its neighbours.
“The assessment dollars which so richly bless the MD (and which it has shared more than required with its neighbours) should be extended with an open hand to help fund the two principal service centres (and to the Village of Glendon), which anchor the region.
This sharing of wealth should be based on a common ‘service envelope' mentality which would see the leaders of the four municipalities (MD, town, city and village) meeting with advisors to determine what services could rightfully be a part of a service envelope and what funding on an annual basis could be justified,” Cuff wrote.
Speaking after his presentation, he made it clear he believes the rural government that collected $34 million in municipal taxes in 2009 has money to send in Cold Lake's direction.
“I think there's more money to be had, quite frankly, from the MD of Bonnyville. I don't think that's been plumbed hardly at all. So I think if the City of Cold Lake is able to make a good representation relative to A) the co-operative agreement, and B) unique projects like the arena, then I think there's money at the table that could be accessible by Cold Lake,” Cuff said.
He also said both following his presentation and in his report that a municipality that puts cash into a project in another municipality should get a say in the governance of the project.
Cuff's report concluded the MD does want to help its neighbours who aren't blessed with the MD's industrial tax base that carries much of its tax burden.
“We conclude that the MD is serious in its offer to share in the costs of facilities where it could be demonstrated that its residents were also utilizing the services/facilities. Such an offer in not an open chequebook, but at least represents an open hand,” Cuff wrote.
He said residents of a region aren't hung up on who sits on what board, or who pays the tab for facilities or common use.
“The average citizen doesn't care whose serving at board meetings,” Cuff said. “What they want to know is we've got facilities we can be proud of and that cost a reasonable amount of money, because we're cost sharing.”
Cuff speaks with some authority on that issue, having served as mayor of the City of Spruce Grove, which built a huge recreation centre with a partnership with Parkland County and the nearby Town of Stony Plain.
In addition to specific agreements that see the MD pay towards the ongoing costs of services shared with Bonnyville, Cold Lake and Glendon, the regional community development agreement now in effect pays Bonnyville almost $745,000 annually, and Glendon over $115,000 annually. It would pay Cold Lake $1,013,000 annually if it had signed the agreement. Those amounts would all increase to pay even more from 2013 to 2018.
Cuff's call for more co-operation among municipal leaders in the Lakeland region wasn't a huge surprise, and both Cold Lake Mayor Craig Copeland and MD Reeve Ed Rondeau were vowing to keep talking with their neighbours.
“We're always interested in continuing in our relationships with the four municipalities, or four partners, if you will, in our region,” Rondeau said.
“We're very interested in sitting down with the City of Cold Lake to discuss the regional community development agreement, and to further discuss partnerships,” Rondeau added.
“Mr. Cuff didn't surprise us by saying we needed to improve our relationship with the MD of Bonnyville,” Copeland said. “We'll try, and we'll see how it goes.”
Cuff's report makes five recommendations for Cold Lake that specifically touch on its relationships with its neighbours.
They include:
• that the city develop and commit to a strategy to improve relationships with municipalities in its area, and that such a strategy be filed with Alberta Municipal Affairs within 60 days
• that any new capital projects which the city believes warrant an additional share from the MD should first be discussed with the MD. The city must formally request the MD's participation in such projects (for example a new arena) and should offer the MD a governance role consistent with its investment
It also recommends that city council engage in discussions leading to the signing of the regional community development agreement.
Missing from Cuff's final recommendations on pages 201 to 206 of the report is a formal recommendation to stop construction of Cold Lake's new $15 million arena at the Energy Centre before it starts, but that recommendation does appear on page 137 of the report where Cuff addresses the issue of long-range planning for Cold Lake.
The entire report can be read on or downloaded from both the city and MD websites.
