It was a small budget item ñ a $20,000 contribution for playground equipment at Carstairs Elementary School ñ but administration recommended taking it out and councillors feared it would set a costly precedent.Coun. Al Kemmere, however, wasn't going to let it go without an argument.ìThis was a request from Mountain View County taxpayers,î Kemmere (Div. 7) said. ìI believe it's a good investment in the Carstairs community. I would prefer to keep it in, but I'm one of seven.îìI'm for keeping it in,î Div. 2 Coun. Patricia McKean concurred.ìI'd like to keep it in,î Div. 3 Coun. Duncan Milne said, ìbut I'm afraid we're setting ourselves up to be asked for every school playground.îìWe've already put money in Didsbury High School, the CLC in Olds,î Kemmere persisted. ìWe've had a request to contribute to the football field. These are schools our kids attend. I wish the province would fund it, but they don't. It's a $200,000 investment and they're just asking for 10 per cent.îDiv. 1 Coun. Kevin Good, who had previously argued against the expenditure, acknowledged: ìI guess a precedent has been set.îMcKean agreed and Milne capitulated. ìKeep it,î he said.ìSundre needs $16 million for an arena,î Reeve Paddy Munro said. ìIt's tough to say where all the money's gonna come from.îBut, Munro added, ìI'm not gonna be the guy to say no to a playground for kids.îThe $20,000 was kept in the budget.Meanwhile, Munro's last-ditch effort to cut expenditures was stymied at the same Jan. 24 policies and priorities committee meeting.ìI'd like to ask all of the directors,î the reeve said at one point during the meeting. ìWhat else can we take out from our budget? I'd like to go around to all the directors.îThen-interim CAO Tony Martens filled the uncomfortable silence that followed,ìWe've looked to where we can cut five per cent without looking at programs or services. For some departments it's pretty small, what we can cut,î Martens said.ìObviously if there's one department that would make a big impact it's operational services. But we didn't want to go into programs or services because that's council's decision.îBefore the other directors spoke, deputy reeve Bruce Beattie, who chairs P&P, intervened.ìI think it's very difficult to put directors in that position,î Beattie told the reeve. ìIf (the budget) is still too high we can say they can go back at it, but I don't want to have them come up with it today. I don't know if it's fair to ask each director to do that.îMunro said he was hoping to avoid telling the directors to cut three per cent or five per cent from their budgets.ìI was trying to give them the chance to be proactive.îBeattie, who had earlier advocated making ìsome intelligent decisions with regard to reducing our tax burden,î reminded Munro that council had given staff direction to be prudent throughout the budget process, thus ending the discussion.
