CARSTAIRS-DIDSBURY - The head of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) recently toured Mountain View County recently as part of a provincial tour.
Barry Morishita, AUMA chair and mayor of the City of Brooks, visited Olds, Didsbury and Carstairs on Aug. 28 meeting with councils and staff and touring each town.
The AUMA represents urban municipalities across the province including towns in this region.
Morishita told the Gazette the tour was about getting out into various communities and finding out what their priorities are, as well as some of their challenges and successes.
"We're trying to communicate what is happening from AUMA's perspective provincewide," said Morishita. "Just getting to know the communities and understand the things they have to go through to get work done. It's really been helpful for us."
Morishita said the tour of Didsbury went well.
"Having not spent a lot of time in Didsbury myself, myself and Tanya Thorne, the councillor from Okotoks and the director for AUMA towns south, we had a little tour and got to see some of the things that make Didsbury unique and special," he said. "You certainly have some natural beauty that lots of communities would love to have.
"One of the things we find is that smaller communities are challenged on the resource side in terms of being able to get all these jobs done. We think there is an onerous amount of provincial regulation and reporting that communities have to do in order to be compliant."
Morishita said he has toured about 50 communities in Alberta and that there are a number of issues that stand out.
"Everyone is concerned about the overall funding support," he said. "We all recognize the province is in a time of restraint and we need to get the house back in order. We certainly want to be part of the solution for that. We're also mindful at the same time that we know we have to provide services while keeping the tax rate stable."
Morishita said they are also aware that towns are looking at economic development and attracting businesses only to be met with red tape, particularly from Alberta Transportation.
"There are some common themes and Didsbury is certainly not unique in the broad spectrum," he said. "But they have their own unique challenges as well."
Morishita also enjoyed his tour of Carstairs and meeting with officials there.
"They certainly have the challenge of a lot of county development around them -- I think Didsbury does too," he said. "Attracting business is a tough go -- that's a struggle, but they're working really hard at it. Residential development again, Carstairs continues to have success there."
Morishita said Carstairs has some of the same issues as Didsbury and other municipalities, including delays caused by red tape.
"That's unfortunate," he said. "Especially coming at a time when Alberta could use every bit of economic activity. It's disheartening to hear that some provincial rules and regulations -- sure they should be there, but it shouldn't be taking this long to get things done."
Morishita said that municipalities are leading the way in making it easy for developers and development to happen only to be met with these slower processes at the provincial level.
Carstairs mayor Lance Colby said the meeting with the AUMA officials was very beneficial.
"I think it went very well," said Colby. "It was interesting listening to them. We got updates on the MSI (Municipal Sustainability Initiative). We expect a cut as the government moves forward. We're not sure, maybe 15 per cent. No one knows right now. We have to wait for them to come out with it."
Colby said they also discussed at length the considerable amount of red tape municipalities have to deal with when working with the provincial government.
"We talked about concerns in dealing with the government," he said. "It seems like it always goes through what we feel is too many different hands when you're dealing with them before you get a result. Sometimes you give them what they want but then they turn around and say that's not good enough."
Colby said they talked about different ways the government could streamline those processes.
"It was a good summer tour," he said. "We just basically talked about the concerns and what they heard. From what I gather most of the communities have the same concerns about highways and intersections in their town, which are controlled by Alberta Transportation."
Morishita said it's important for AUMA to work with the new government and help them understand how municipalities can be partners and part of the solution to some of the deficit issues and red tape.
"I think that's job No. 1," he said. "I think our other job is to advocate for our member municipalities on some of these issues like autonomy when it comes to development and better and more efficient ways to do things."
Morishita said they also try to promote regional collaboration and cooperation.
"We're trying to make sure there is fairness in the way services are provided and funded and that there isn't a disparity from one community to another relative to the services they think are important," he said.
