SUNDRE – The Town of Sundre's council recently agreed to cover the rental fee for the Sundre Community Centre, where the family of the late Marty Butts is planning to hold a celebration of life on March 15.
Butts had more than 30 years of service with the Sundre Fire Department, nearly 10 as chief. His ousting from the position in 2020 was very divisive for the community.
He died Nov. 22 during a fire at his Mountain View County property west of Sundre where he operated No Surrender Fire Services.
Chris Albert, the town's director of corporate services and acting chief administrative officer during the regular Feb. 10 meeting, said administration supported the family’s request to waive the rental fee of $367.50 including GST and recommended council approve it.
“This waiver would come from council’s discretionary spending,” said Albert.
Councillors Connie Anderson and Chris Vardas were not present on excused absences.
Coun. Paul Isaac moved to approve the request to waive the fee with the funds drawn from council’s discretionary fund.
Speaking in support of the motion, Coun. Jaime Marr told her colleagues for consistency’s sake there should be a procedure guided by policy with a committee that considers fee waiver requests as they come in.
“In this instance, it’s appropriate for us to waive these fees,” said Marr. “But I would like to stress the importance of policies and having a policy in place for waiving fees.”
Mayor Richard Warnock said per existing policies and procedures, council’s approval by way of motion is required any time a fee is not charged.
“Administration does not have the authority to waive fees,” added Albert.
Appreciating there is an opportunity to consider fee waivers as they are brought to council’s attention, Marr said, “Publicly, I just like council to remember that we can create new policies, and perhaps there is a time and a place for us to discuss some new policies.”
As waived fees must still be accounted for, there was also a brief discussion on the wording used in the motion.
“There’s hardly a better word in the English language than ‘waive’ for these situations,” said Warnock, musing aloud alternative phrasing such as “to not charge the fee.”
While still technically a waiver, Albert said that based on how administration does its accounting, it would be “quite appropriate” for the motion to state that council “fund” the community centre’s rental fee with the expense covered through council’s discretionary fund.
“Fund is probably the best word to use,” he said.
The motion was amended as such and carried unanimously.
