OLDS — Council is considering hiring a summer student to fill in as a bylaw officer when at least one of the town’s two community peace officers go on vacation or falls ill.
That discussion came up on April 6 when council received a presentation from finance director Sheena Linderman.
She indicated the town is expected to receive an extra in tax revenue because the assessed value of property only fell by 1.1 per cent last year, not two per cent, as anticipated.
Councillors are expected to take another look at the summer student bylaw officer position in a later meeting.
Council was told the summer student would cost about $15,000 for wages and uniform.
Director of protective services Justin Andrew stressed that student would only serve as a bylaw officer, not a community peace officer.
He said their duties would be to address complaints about unsightly premises, vegetation overgrowing sidewalks.
“You know, all of those kind of pieces that are very time-consuming," he said.
In addition, they could be tasked to undertake a thorough evaluation of graffiti on public infrastructure such as electrical boxes and phone boxes as well as scouring back alleys for it so that.
The idea would be to “make sure we had a handle on it so that a proactive program could be undertaken,” Andrew said.
Councillors Mitch Thomson and Heather Ryan spoke against the position.
Thomson stressed that he believes the town has “exceptional CPOs and they definitely do their job,” but added “I don’t know that we need to have seven-day-a-week bylaw enforcement in the community of Olds.”
Ryan said she believes in the concept of seven-day-a-week bylaw coverage.
“But I don’t think we need to fill in the gaps that are there just for bylaw enforcement,” she said. “I think they’re doing an amazing job right now and I just don’t think we need to increase the service level at this time.”
Coun. Mary Jane Harper noted the town is planning on hiring 15 summer students this year. She suggested they stick to that total, but include the summer student bylaw officer in that group.
Chief administrative officer Michael Merritt raised concern about that idea.
“I have concerns with tradeoffs begin made, unless we revisit a lot of other things,” he said.
Deputy mayor Mary Anne Overwater and Coun. Wanda Blatz spoke in favour of the summer student position, saying there needs to be coverage for people who become sick or go on vacation.
Coun. Debbie Bennett echoed that thought.
“Nobody knows when they’re going to be ill, folks. Nobody knows how long they’re going to be ill for. An accident may happen and someone can’t attend to their work schedule,” she said.
“So this one I believe is one we can look at having over a four-month stretch.”
Mayor Michael Muzychka agreed, adding he sees the position as being “relatively cheap” for the service it provides.
"I think part of the risk that we run if we don’t fill this position when one of our two CPOs go on vacation, the workload on the one that remains is astronomical. I think we risk burning out our employees in that manner,” he said.
He warned against eliminating one of the other anticipated summer student positions to make room for this one, saying the summer student budget has already been cut “to the bare bone” over the last couple of years.
“We need that help," Muzychka said. “There’s a lot more work during the summer months than there is in the winter months.”
Blatz suggested another possibility might be to train an existing town staff person to provide that coverage on a part-time basis.
Coun. Mary Jane Harper offered her support for the position as well.
“I know our biggest complaints are normally over the summer, in reference to unsightly premises,” she said.
"If a summer student’s position can react in a timely manner to all these complaints that we receive over the summer, then I think it’s well worthwhile.”
Ryan pointed out she never said CPOs shouldn’t be able to go on vacation during the summer.
