The new year is shaping up to be a very busy time for Mountain View County (MVC), with the municipality dealing with everything from taxation to the new provincial carbon levy, says Reeve Bruce Beattie.
One of the key issues the county will be watching in 2017 is the process to update the Municipal Government Act, which sets out many of the rules and regulations for local government operations.
“We've got the new Municipal Government Act that is being rolled out, with the regulations expected to be in place by August or September, prior to the new (municipal) election,” said Beattie.
“There are a number of questions that the government is consulting on. Particularly impacting Mountain View County may be the handling of how intensive livestock operations are taxed. We've seen what Lethbridge has brought in and hasn't been particularly popular with the agriculture sector in that area.
“The government is in the process of consulting to see if there are other options that they might be able to provide to municipalities to deal with that kind of thing.”
All municipalities, including MVC, will be dealing with the province's new carbon levy on energy consumption.
“We are going to see the impact of the new carbon levy and how that rolls out relative to how it may impact county operations,” he said. “I don't expect the impact to be significant, but we will certainly see what the impact will be going forward.”
Councillors will be continuing to work on the 2017 budget, he said.
“I expect that we will follow the same pattern that we have followed over the last three years, and in fact for the six years since I've been on council,” he said.
“We've tried to keep the taxes (increase) of between one and two per cent range so that we don't see any major increases. We've kind of maintained that conservative approach. From a financial perspective the county is in good shape and I think we want to make sure we leave it that way for the next council.”
Councillors will also be reviewing the local road network maintenance system, he said.
“We will be looking at the road network and the changes we've made in how we've managed the road system and the maintenance system,” he said. “We will see if we've been successful in that.
“For two years in a row we've made some significant changes and those seem to have worked so we will see if that follows through for another year. That is one of the areas we will be looking at.”
The health of the provincial economy will also be of interest to MVC, he said.
“We will be watching to see what the economy does and if we have to make adjustments over the coming year and see if we see some recovering in the oil sector. Hopefully that recovery will continue,” he said.
There are a number of planning issues coming before council in 2017, he noted.
“We certainly have the continuation of the discussion around the Rocky Mountain motorsport park proposal,” he said.
Beattie says he plans to make an announcement “very soon” in the new year about whether he will run for re-election in the Oct. 2017 municipal election.
“It is going to be a busy year for sure,” he said.
