INNISFAIL – Members of town council and the chief administrative officer are heading to Edmonton this week to attend the Alberta Municipalities’ (AM) 2023 Convention & Trade Show.
They're at the Edmonton Convention Centre from Sept. 27 to 29 with important local issues in mind but they won’t badger any high-ranking provincial officials with a demand to rethink its six-month moratorium on alternative energy projects developed by municipalities.
That’s because Innisfail council would not move last week on Coun. Jason Heistad’s call to have an emergent resolution on the issue to pass on to AM officials for consideration at this week’s convention.
The town is currently in the planning process to develop a $3.5 million solar farm in the new Southwest Industrial Park that could eventually bring in annual revenue of up to $500,000; a significant boost of revenues for the municipality.
However, council members were told the municipal solar farm application to the Alberta Utilities Commission won’t happen for another two to three months and the moratorium is scheduled to end on Feb. 29, 2024.
Heistad’s proposed resolution also faced the problem of not having a specific call to action that council could agree on, or even defined, at council’s Agenda & Priorities Meeting on Sept. 18.
There was also the reality that the only municipalities that had public concerns with the moratorium are Caroline and Innisfail, which the later has already sent letters of concern to four provincial cabinet ministers and the premier.
“On a personal level I think that AM at times play in the middle too much,” said Heistad on Sept. 18. “They're not going in the corners; just like a hockey game player that doesn't want to get a little dirty and throw some weight around.”
Nevertheless, council opted not to consider drafting an emergent resolution regarding the provincial moratorium on renewable power projects for the AM convention.
“The concern was whether Alberta Municipalities would even accept this as an emergent resolution because it likely wasn't broad enough; it wasn't impacting enough municipalities,” Town of Innisfail Mayor Jean Barclay told the Albertan after the Sept. 18 council meeting.
“We'd already done a considerable amount of advocacy with our letters. We were asking for an exemption because of where our potential solar project is located on the kind of land it's located on.”
With that council resolution issue settled, Barclay is now focusing on the AM convention to have a productive 15-minute chat with Ric McIver, the provincial minister of municipal affairs.
Included in council’s agenda package for Sept. 18 was a detailed letter sent on Sept. 14 to McIver from Barclay about the town’s plan to build a new $28.3 million Aquatic Wellness Centre.
Her letter said the town is now embarking on the project’s financing phase, which will include town savings, fundraising, a contribution from Red Deer County and a hoped for $10 million investment from the province.
“We did determine that we were moving ahead with getting a design in place down at the Arena and to do that the funding has always been that next step,” Barclay told the Albertan.
Barclay added she also plans on talking to McIver about the six-month moratorium on renewable energy projects but with only 15 minutes to chat there’s a chance it won’t be discussed at all because potential funding for the new wellness centre facility is now the priority.
“I'm sure that they're aware of our concern but I'm likely less concerned than I was when the moratorium was put in place because we're still able to submit, and our submission isn't ready to go out,” said Barclay of the municipal solar farm issue. “And it has to be approved in our budget in November. There’re several steps that we still need to take.”
