By Liam Verster

Municipal Collaboration

Regional Governance Study will look to improve collaboration between town and MD of Fairview

May 19, 2020 | 2:14 PM

The Municipal District of Fairview #136 and the Town of Fairview are bringing in a consultant to do a Regional Governance Study, and determine how to improve the collaborative efforts that go into providing services for residents in the two communities.

The Town has acquired an Alberta Community Partnership Grant, which will be used to pay for the consultant and the study.

Currently, the Town and MD collaborate on providing a range of services, including recreation, fire services, family supports and services, and the municipal airport, but Reeve Peggy Johnson says there are always ways to improve services.

“We’re looking at how we can work better together. We already have positive collaboration , we already work together on many things, and we’re just looking at how we can strengthen those things and how we can be more effective and more efficient.”

She adds that any improvements would likely benefit residents in both the rural and urban areas.

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“From my perspective, as a rural person, what’s good for the town is more than likely going to be good for me, because I go to town to do my shopping and whatever. And I would hope that the town people would also believe that what’s good for the rural municipality surrounding the town, would also be good for their town.”

Through work with the public, Town and MD staff, and observing the current collaborative efforts between the two municipalities, the consultant will come up with recommendations. Those recommendations will then be taken back to the public, for consultations and engagement, before any action is taken.

Johnson says public feedback is incredibly important to this study.

“If we don’t have community involvement, we don’t know what the taxpayers want. We do not want to do something that they don’t want.”

She adds that they’re never going to be able to please 100 per cent of the people 100 per cent of the time, but they want to make sure that whatever they do in the future is beneficial to the community as a whole, and public engagement can help determine those needs and wants.

Mayor of the Town, Gord MacLeod, says he doesn’t know what the consultant would recommend, nor does he want to speculate, as he would like to avoid any outside influence on the study. However, something both he and Johnson agree on, is that this likely won’t lead to an amalgamation of the two municipalities.

“A lot of people see this as a potential amalgamation, but no, what we’re trying to do is see where our strengths and where our weaknesses are, and where we [need] to collaborate more to be more effective and more efficient for our citizens in both of our municipalities.”

The consultant has not been hired as of yet, the deadline for proposals is June 15. Once the consultant is selected, the time line for the study will be established. MacLeod says he would like to see it done sooner rather than later, so they can get to work on improving services for the residents right away.