April 27 2017 Lac Ste. Anne Council Meeting

Lac Ste. Anne Council Meeting Highlights April 27 2017

By Anita Blais LSARA Member 

Once again, it was difficult to discern what was going on for a number of the agenda items. For both of the following agenda items, a member of council made a motion to go with “option 1”: a lease agreement with the George Pegg Bontanic Garden Society and a maintenance agreement with the Birchwood Estates Community Service Society.
The questions here are: how many options were there, what were the options? Why is the public not entitled to know what these options are? I had asked for a copy of the agenda and supporting documentation; the recording secretary said I could have the information after the agenda was adopted. The assistant county manager indicated that they only had "lead sheets", but none of the information was provided to me.

For the agenda item called “Senate of Canada Contribution Award”, there was some deliberation on whether or not to place an ad in the paper asking the ratepayers to nominate someone and giving the reasons why they were being nominated. My understanding was this this was a request from a senator or MP to put forward the names of two individuals who have volunteered and contributed to improving the community. The county manager, Mike Primeau, advised council that due to time constraints (response request was one month), council should just put forward the names (could talk to the ratepayers asking for suggestions). The decision was made that council would bring forward names to the next meeting. Well, that rules out any suggestions from Division 4 and Division 5, as they do not have any representation.

For several items Mayor Hegy indicated that the particular item had been discussed at previous council meetings; therefore there was little discussion on the matter and council just voted on it.

For the selection of the Agricultural Service Board Members at Large, 6 applications were received for 5 positions. Mayor Hegy asked if they should just put the names in a hat as he assumed they were all well qualified. (Was he joking or serious - I don't know the man well enough to say) The head of the ag services (name was never mentioned and I can’t find it on the website) didn’t appear to be too happy with this and indicated that he wanted a well qualified board and that members should be chosen similar to an employee hiring situation. County manager Mike Primeau said that there was no selection criteria at this time but they would figure it out prior to the next term (one time it was indicated that it was a two year term, and once it was indicated that it was a three year term). The final decision was made to amend the bylaw (at the next council meeting) to allow for a six member board (in addition to three council members).

Again, sometimes it was hard to hear what staff (mostly the assistant county manager) were saying to council as they had their backs to the ratepayers in attendance. It was also sometime difficult to hear what the Councillors were saying.

There were two other ratepayers who attended the meeting compared to 30 at the last meeting and a young reporter from the Mayerthorpe (and Whitecourt?) paper. It's too bad there weren't more people there, they had lots of chairs this time!

Apparently there is a "council session highlights" section on the county website, but this has not been updated since last year: http://www.lsac.ca/government/council-session-highlights

Thanks,
Anita

Thanks Anita for attending and providing this update!

LSARA