DIDSBURY - A lack of provincial government funding to address aging infrastructure in many communities, including Didsbury, remains an ongoing concern, says mayor Rhonda Hunter.
The recent Alberta Municipalities (ABmunis) convention in Red Deer saw municipal elected officials voice concerns to government ministers about funding levels allocated to towns and villages.
“The message that municipalities are hearing from our government of Alberta isn’t the message that meets the growing needs to address aging infrastructure,” Hunter told the Albertan.
The ABmunis represents more than 200 municipalities, including urban municipalities near Mountain View County and Red Deer County.
During the convention, Minister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver, “Gave no indication that our continued asking is going to realize a much-needed change in funding” coming from the Smith government, she said.
“Our municipality has necessary critical infrastructure projects that just won’t have enough future funding and many will face delays in getting completed,” she said.
“Increasing property taxes is not the answer to our infrastructure deficits – an increased provincial funding pot is.”
The issue of vote counting also came up during the convention, with premier Smith saying her recently imposed ban on electronic vote counting machines will remain in place, said Hunter.
ABmunis members passed a resolution calling for electronic machines to be permitted.
“It is clear that hand counting will prevail, the old fashioned, costly, time-consuming process of counting paper ballots, which I disagree with based on the past successful use of electronic voting systems,” said Hunter.
