A petition aimed at stopping the East Side Servicing project because of the proposed cost to property owners has been deemed invalid by municipal officials, allowing councillors to consider moving forward with the more than $19 million project.
Interim Sundre CAO Wanda Watson-Neufeld made the determination Friday after a week of scrutinizing the documentation to ensure it met all the requirements of petitioning under the Municipal Government Act.
“It does not meet the requirements,” said Watson-Neufeld.
Missing and incorrect documentation and information were the main reasons why the petition was deemed invalid, she said.
East side petitioners say they are now considering legal action.
“We're going to stay ready. We're not done yet,” said Rick Scown, east side property owner and co-organizer of the petition.
After being informed of the municipality's determination Friday through unofficial sources, Scown said petition organizers made quick work over the weekend of spreading the news.
“I wasn't surprised. They (town administration) don't want to talk to us about this. It's like we're living in two different countries.”
Without a valid petition, councillors were expected to consider second and third readings of a local improvement tax bylaw and a borrowing bylaw related to the project during last night's special council meeting held after the Round Up's press deadline.
Both bylaws - one to borrow $4.5 million from the Alberta Capital Finance Authority to help pay for the project and the other to set the tax rates by which property owners on the east side would pay it back, received first reading in February.
Scown presented the petition of opposition, signed by over 90 people, to municipal officials March 4.
“The cost being proposed is far too much,” Scown said. “It looks like the 280 of us on the east side are going to pay the whole cost of the sewer and water, and the sewer and water that is being set up is set up to handle 15,000 people.”
Property owners of the 68 residential parcels on the east side of the river would be charged $24,000 plus interest per parcel.
Owners of the 55 parcels of industrial and commercial lots will be charged $1,329.87 per front metre.
The municipality proposed borrowing the $4.5 million - $1,632,000 residential and $2,868,000 commercial/industrial - and allowing property owners to pay it back over 20 years.
Grants in the amount of $8,689,853 and $5,918,826 from the municipality at large will finance the remainder of the $19,108,679 project.
Had the petition been declared valid, the project - which has been talked about for decades - would have been on hold for a year.
Petitioners though did not satisfy requirements under the MGA to include the required statement of representative, said Watson-Neufeld.
“Off the top that made it not valid,” she said.
Even if it had been included, Watson-Neufeld said there were other issues with the petition.
“There were a number of petitioners that did not have affidavits,” she said.
Correct land descriptions were also missing from sixteen of the petitioners, and names were spelled incorrectly or missing altogether for other entries, she said.
While the petition was signed by the required two-thirds of the affected property owners, Watson-Neufeld said at first glance, they did not represent the required half of the total assessment of the affected area.
Scown said east side property owners planned to gather at the special council meeting last night to further support their position of opposition.
