OLDS — Town council has voted to apply for a provincial grant of up to $200,000 on behalf of several area communities in order to improve emergency preparedness.
In addition to Olds, municipalities that could be involved include Mountain View County, Carstairs, Cremona, Didsbury and Sundre.
The goal is to make emergency management in all those communities as efficient and responsive as possible.
Olds has agreed to serve as the managing partner for the Alberta Community Partnership Grant application. The town is now waiting to see how many – and which – municipalities agree to sign on.
During council’s Jan. 11 meeting, chief administrative officer Michael Merritt said the town had previously applied for a similar grant, but that money dried up, due to budget cuts.
When staff saw this new grant come along, they decided to go for it in order to improve emergency management throughout the district.
He said it’s expected each of those municipalities will support the application because improved emergency management benefits all.
A report to council said the COVID-19 pandemic underlined the need to improve emergency response.
“Up until recently, our participating municipalities have experienced short, isolated emergencies, such as severe weather events and have assisted the neighbouring communities when needed without a formal and holistic framework in place,” the report said.
“Our municipal partners want to evaluate and build from the challenges experienced and lessons learned through this COVID pandemic.
“The partnering municipalities and regional partners all have lessons that were learned during the pandemic and developing long-term plans for the region that is founded on identification of gaps, shared planning documents, pooling tools and resources to supporting future emergency situations would be the preferred and responsible undertaking at this time.”
Merritt said if the town does not receive resolutions of support from the surrounding municipalities, it will withdraw the grant application because it’s for “regional purposes.”
“But since they expanded this grant to include emergency management because of COVID-related (inflation) we believe this is a good thing to take advantage of at this time and would not cost the town money to basically do this,” he added.
Coun. Mary Anne Overwaters asked if the town will be compensated for time and effort spent organizing it.
Merritt said meeting-related expenses and consultation fees will likely be covered, but he was doubtful staff would be directly compensated for their time.
“But this will be a time saving because we are kind of leading the new Mountain View emergency framework as it currently is," Merritt said. “And to have everybody on board in a much more comprehensive study and framework I think is to the benefit of everybody.”
He said especially as a result of the pandemic, the town has learned a lot and would be in a good position to lead other communities.
“It’s not hard for us to get up and running and to engage council in our various emergency situations at this time," he said. "So there is a tremendous saving and I guess there’s also a peace of mind for the community and the communities.
“So we, having advanced our emergency team quite significantly in the last few years, I feel very comfortable that while we would be the lead, we don’t see it as being a true cost to the town. It’s something that will even enhance the team’s abilities to do even more.”
Mayor Michael Muzychka agreed.
"I look at this as an insurance policy; that if we ever have a regional disaster, it’s going to pay for things down in the future as well,” said Muzychka.
Coun. Mary Jane Harper asked if town staff would still be doing much of this work with or without the grant.
“Just with less resources, yeah,” said Jennifer Lutz, the town’s deputy director of emergency management.
