Fractious environment the current state of things for municipally-elected officials, says AB Munis president

“Fractious is how we are feeling as elected officials in all of our orders of government, not necessarily between orders of government, but how we’re facing and dealing with issues with our residents,” he said.

“The same residents who vote for me, vote for our provincial government and federal government. The fractious piece comes from the dynamics and environment we’re all working in right now. We can continue to have those conversations with the province, [but] it doesn’t mean we’re always going to agree.”

Gandam called the conference a, “resounding success,” and noted that even on the most contentious of topics, respect for one another was upheld.

But there is a clear divide between Premier Danielle Smith and the wants of municipalities.

As we reported Thursday, there was no clearer example of this than when 85 per cent of municipalities voted in favour of allowing electronic vote tabulators, and Premier Smith stuck to her guns saying municipalities are just going to have to do it the old-fashioned way.

This, despite municipalities clearly communicating that counting ballots by-hand poses several not insignificant challenges.

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NDP leader Naheed Nenshi claimed Smith’s position on them is based on conspiracy theories.

“Our members have repeatedly said the the use of machines increases the accuracy of vote-counting, saves money and provides quicker election results. We are taking a science-based and rational approach to this issue,” Gandam said.

“Albertans trust price-scanning technology when they buy their groceries; we believe Albertans can have the same level of confidence in vote-counting machines. If it’s good enough for businesses, surely it’s good enough for municipalities.”

He added that voters will likely be unhappy when election results are delayed and local governments are stuck with the bill.

Gandam also spoke to the prospect of the Alberta government actually paying full property taxes on provincially-owned buildings. On Thursday, Premier Smith expressed an openness to exploring the matter, but wouldn’t give a definitive answer.

Instead of paying property tax, Gandam explained, the government gives grants to communities in which its properties are located, and those grants are used to pay for the delivery of required municipal services, such as roadways, water services, snow-clearing and emergency services.

But there’s a catch.

“[These are] the same services residents pay for through their property taxes. This approach worked well until a few years ago when the provincial government gave itself a 40 per cent cut,” he said.

“The costs associated are massive and continue to go up. We’ve called on the government to reverse this cut so that municipalities and residents do not have to find the money to pay for differences from their own budgets.”

Gandam then shared thoughts on the underfunding of municipal infrastructure, saying you don’t have to look far to see where it is, “crumbling.”

“This challenge is made more difficult by the fact Alberta’s population is growing rapidly. More than 200,000 people have moved to Alberta in the last year and the provincial government allocates just $722 million per year to the Local Government Fiscal Framework (LGFF),” he said. “It’s a start, but another $1 billion per year is needed.”

He noted too that the overall infrastructure deficit is pegged at $30 billion.

Then there’s the matter of policing, which a majority of municipalities have stated for a couple years now their definitive collective position on; that being that they don’t want a provincial police force.

Premier Smith made a remark Thursday that Alberta now has two police forces: the RCMP and Alberta Sheriffs. She also said, “The RCMP has not been able to fill the need that we have. We pay for 1,911 officers and they have 400 or 500 vacancies, and we cannot allow for municipal or for rural communities to be under-policed.”

The NDP’s Nenshi chided the remarks Thursday, saying he was sure that even the sheriffs who were in the conference room likely weren’t sure what Smith was talking about in that respect.

On Friday, Alberta RCMP issued a statement on the remarks, saying the premier is inaccurate in her summary of things, and that the current strength of Alberta RCMP officers is regularly miscommunicated.

“In the interest of clarity, the Alberta RCMP has a total of 1,772 police officer positions within the provincial policing contract. Our current vacancy rate within provincial policing is 17.3 per cent or 306 positions. Of those positions, 124 are currently unfilled,” the RCMP statement reads.

“The other 182 are officers who are not currently at work for a variety of reasons, including illness, maternity-related leave, and other special leave. These are statistics that are shared with our provincial partners every month.”

The statement goes on to acknowledge that police services across Alberta are struggling to hire, inclusive of municipal forces, but notes that Alberta RCMP are processing 1,400 applications. That number could double by the end of the year, they say, and represents an increase of applicants by 77 per cent over the last five years.

Alberta Sheriffs, which is an arm of the provincial government, were not able to be reached for comment on Friday, nor were spokespersons in Justice and Public Safety & Emergency Services.

Gandam’s entire media availability is available below:

Alberta Municipalities says it will be publishing a comprehensive list of resolution results early next week.

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by Josh Hall | @Vancan19

Fractious environment the current state of things for municipally-elected officials, says AB Munis president

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