CREMONA – The minister of Municipal Affairs has appointed an interim administrator to conduct the village’s duties in the absence of a functional council.
In August, three members of council submitted their resignations – former mayor Tim Hagen as well as deputy mayor Joe Canaday and Coun. Jody Dick. Councillors Shane Goebel and Autumn Schmidt had remained on the council that was left without quorum and thus no longer had the legislative authority to make decisions or take any actions.
In a ministerial order dated Sept. 9 and signed by minister Ric McIver, Doug Lagore of Transitional Solutions Inc. was appointed as the village’s official administrator with all of the powers and duties of council. The appointment is to remain in effect until Nov. 30 or until quorum is restored in the event that happens prior to Nov. 30.
Meanwhile, Karen O’Connor remains the municipality’s chief administrative officer. She said navigating through the process has been an entirely new experience for her that all started with preparing an agenda, which is available on the village’s website, for a meeting on Sept. 17 with Lagore.
While Lagore has largely carried out his duties remotely, O’Connor said he did attend that meeting in person.
“It was your basics, just appointing dates and times and all that for the nomination day and the bylection date,” she told the Albertan on Sept. 24 during a phone interview.
O’Connor said he conducted “an outstanding meeting” that was called to order at 7 p.m. and following numerous resolutions including accepting for the record the resignations as well as financial reports and correspondence was adjourned seven minutes later at 7:07 p.m.
Endeavouring to as much as possible maintain local autonomy, O’Connor added that the ministry has requested Lagore not delve too deep into council affairs or make any major decisions.
“That’s why we had put the byelection date so early,” said O’Connor, adding residents will get a chance to vote in a new council on Monday, Nov. 4.
“The biggest thing is to get this byelection done and over with.”
The nomination period began on Wednesday, Sept. 18 and nominees have until noon on Monday, Oct. 7 to submit their package along with a minimum of five signatures, she said, after which those who submitted nominations are granted a further 24 hours to for whatever reason rescind before any of the names are officially made public.
“They have 24 hours to pull their nomination back if they change their mind,” she said.
“The biggest thing is you got to be engaged to be a council; you can’t just put your name in the hat and wing it. Well, you hope anyway,” she said.
The village might be small compared with a city or even a town, but larger municipalities tend to have more people dedicated to certain specific tasks or departments.
“They have people that are wearing those other hats, and I wear the same hat for a lot of positions,” she said, adding the situation for council is the same.
“Even though it’s a smaller community, the responsibilities are still there; the commitments have to be there,” she said.
“A lot of people underestimate that.”
Sandra Ryan has been appointed as the returning officer while O’Connor will serve as the substitute returning officer.
A special meeting to be conducted virtually was also set for Sept. 24 simply to accept the minutes from the Sept. 17 meeting “because we have to get payables done,” she said, adding, “We haven’t been able to pay any payables since the second week of August.”
The next regular meeting, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 15, will deal more with matters of business the village must address.
Although Lagore was directed not to make any major decisions that should be made locally, she added there are certain pressing items that have to be dealt with including the matter of water utility payments that will be reviewed.
“I’m going to revisit that because I’ve had some residents concerned regarding how (the billing is) set up,” she said, adding the municipality had adopted a flat rate that prompted a lot of single people in homes to protest in favour of a per-usage approach.
So up for discussion will be whether to replace the flat rate and instead increase to $4 the amount charged per cubic metre of water “and see if that’s going to be feasible for the village to survive,” she said.
Additionally, the inter-community collaborative (ICC) agreement with Mountain View County is due in September. The in-depth document and master agreement outlines cost-sharing for services such as the library, Family and Community Support Services, as well as emergency services.
Lagore was provided the pertinent documentation about the ICC, but “I’m not sure if he wants to make any decisions because it is a big agreement with the county,” she said.
A ministry spokesperson told the Albertan in response to follow-ups that any questions village residents may have regarding the upcoming byelection or requests to speak with the official administrator should be directed to the village office, which can be reached by calling 403-637-3762.
