CREMONA – Village of Cremona residents are tentatively set to vote next spring on whether to remain a municipality or dissolve and be absorbed into Mountain View County following a lengthy process that will involve public consultations.
A municipal viability advisor with Municipal Affairs and the team’s lead for the upcoming viability review outlined the process by videoconference on Tuesday, April 15 during a regular meeting presided over by Doug Lagore, the official administrator appointed by Minister Ric McIver following the recent resignations that left council without quorum.
“Whenever a municipality changes in some way, our team is involved along the process,” said Ross Zimmermann, who has a background in urban planning with experience working for municipalities across western Canada.
“At its core, a viability review is an objective and impartial accounting of the municipality,” said Zimmermann.
“We focus on several themes, including community governance, administration, services, finances and infrastructure,” he said.
“It results in a viability review report that is shared with the public. After this report is published, we share it with residents and they vote on the question of dissolution,” he said.
“Because village residents are ultimately responsible for voting on the future of their communities, we want to ensure that they have the information they need to make an informed decision.”
The reviews are collaborative and community-focused and there will throughout the process be several public engagement opportunities so residents can learn and ask questions as well as provide feedback, he said, adding the village and county administrations will also be involved.
The ministry will also create a committee called a Viability Review Support Group, which is composed of representatives from the village and county as well as municipal associations.
Recommendations that are brought forward through the process “will be specific to the challenges or the viability concerns of the village, and they must be addressed if the village votes to remain,” he said.
Before presenting a tentative timeline, Zimmermann said, “One thing that is unique to this particular viability review is the 2025 municipal election.”
As there is currently no council with an appointed official administrator in place, “A majority of the external-facing work will actually be taking place after the election,” he said.
Until then, the ministry will coordinate with the village administration to collect pertinent information and work collaboratively on completing an infrastructure audit, he said.
“After the election is complete, there is a series of public information sessions planned,” he said, adding the first of which is tentatively planned for November and will serve to introduce the project to the community and the newly-elected council.
There will then be a mid-review public information session at some point early in 2026 when an updated report will be distributed to all residents so they can digest the document and decide whether to dissolve or remain. That will in turn lead to a final pre-vote public session with the vote tentatively scheduled for April, he said.
“There are many things that might come up between now and then, so we just want to emphasize that it is just a tentative date,” he said.
Municipal Affairs hosts the vote and once electors decide one way or another, “the minister will either issue viability directives based on the recommendations in the report, or he will recommend dissolution to cabinet, in which case the village would become a hamlet in Mountain View County.”
The village will also play an important role by helping to complete the infrastructure audit through an engineering firm as well as providing input and helping to advertise public information sessions.
All of the information compiled by engineers will be used to create a 10-year capital and operating plan that prioritizes projects and their estimated costs that the village can expect both for capital upgrades as well as operational improvements.
A program called the Alberta Community Partnership, which the village had already been approved for in principle but simply needed to go through the official application process, will provide funding upwards of $120,000 for the audit, he said.
Following his presentation Zimmermann opened the floor to questions and Karen O’Connor, the village’s chief administrative officer, said a member of the public had one.
“If we opened up for residents to ask questions, we’re going to get swamped with questions here tonight,” said Lagore.
“I think we should wait until we have the information session,” he said, asking Zimmermann if that would be appropriate.
Zimmermann said residents would have an opportunity to bring forward questions at the first public session in November.
“By that point, we’ll have plenty more information specifically about the village to share,” he said, adding there at that time will also be an online survey available.
After the presentation, Lagore allowed a couple of questions, which included one resident asking what would happen in the event voters decide to dissolve.
“Mountain View takes over all operations at that point, and it will be their decision as to whether they maintain a satellite office within village,” said Lagore. “We’ll try and keep as much information out to everybody as we can as it comes forward.”
Answering follow-up questions, Zimmermann told the Albertan on April 16 a vote to dissolve would not necessarily be permanent.
But while a hamlet could go through a formation process, there are no recent precedents as such. Since 2000, there have been amalgamations, annexations and dissolutions but no new municipalities have been formed, he said.
“There would always be that opportunity if there was justified reasoning,” he said.
“In general, that bar would be very, very high” and there would have to be “extenuating circumstances explaining why the hamlet requires its own separate government,” he said.
And in the event the village council remains without quorum following the election, the process would continue under an official administrator appointed by the minister.
As the viability review is a process led by the ministry, Zimmermann’s team would proceed the same with an official administrator as it would with a full council.
The review is more community-focused and is more involved in engaging residents and the village administration than council as an entity, he said.
“We can move forward with or without a council,” he said.
After residents have voted, their decision will guide the minister’s recommendation to the cabinet. Legislatively speaking, the cabinet makes the final call, he said.
But the cabinet has never gone against a recommendation from the minister, and a minister has never gone against the recommendation of the vote, he added.
“Historically, that has never happened.”
