[0:00] Welcome everyone. Very happy to see you here this evening as we,

[0:04] again, stick to council's direction and leadership in relationship to their want

[0:08] for transparency.

[0:10] We began this journey about five and a half, six months ago, as you're aware,

[0:14] and we had an incredibly challenging situation.

[0:18] And not to say that it's still not challenging, obviously it still is,

[0:22] but a lot of work has been done

[0:25] over the last number of months, and we wanted to share that with you this evening

[0:28] and let you know where we stand today.

[0:30] The other thing, as I mentioned in past open houses,

[0:34] is we are here to hear from you. So

[0:38] questions, and any question, is on side.

[0:41] If there's anything you want to ask, there's no questions that we won't try to

[0:44] answer. The other thing, again, and the last

[0:48] couple of town halls we've had have been, quite frankly, fantastic from a

[0:51] public engagement perspective. We've really appreciated the

[0:55] openness, the patience with us. There's frustration, we

[0:59] understand that, but it's been very respectful.

[1:02] And again, the big word for tonight is respect.

[1:06] And

[1:07] again, we'll show the crowd respect, and hopefully you'll show council and

[1:11] administration respect.

[1:13] We have information to share with you tonight, and we're going to basically

[1:18] let you know a little bit about all the work that's been done over the last number

[1:21] of months. Before we get going,

[1:23] I'm going to have each of the councilors introduce themselves to you this evening,

[1:27] maybe give you a couple of comments before we begin on what their thoughts about

[1:30] tonight are, and we'll move on from there. Okay.

[1:34] Which end am I going to start on? I'm going to start on this end because you

[1:37] deserve it. So go ahead, Travis, you're number one.

[1:40] You just introduced me.

[1:43] I'm Travis Curry, first-time councilor, same with everyone else here.

[1:50] Long time listener, first time councilor.

[1:52] I'm from Gibbons,

[1:54] and I know several of you here.

[1:57] And

[1:59] I think that's

[2:00] about it for now, I suppose.

[2:07] Darryl Burak, first time councilor.

[2:10] Glad to see you guys showed up tonight.

[2:11] Tonight, we're going to be going over the

[2:15] budget and where we're sitting. We encourage everyone to ask as many

[2:18] questions as possible. Put us on the spot, we don't mind.

[2:22] That's kind of what we're here for, and we want to make everyone as

[2:26] comfortable as possible with what the future of Gibbons is.

[2:33] Darren Longstaff.

[2:35] Been a resident here since 2001,

[2:38] so

[2:39] this means just as much to me as it does to the rest of you, and the rest of

[2:43] the council, I'm sure.

[2:47] Good evening, and thanks everybody for coming out.

[2:52] Not a very pleasant evening to be out and about with the strong winds.

[2:56] You'll see tonight by the presentation, this is just the start of a long road

[3:00] ahead.

[3:01] We have an important engagement at the end of June,

[3:05] two dates for a viability review, June 24th and

[3:09] 25th. So write those dates down on your calendar.

[3:13] Very important for our town.

[3:22] Good evening. My name is Robert Zmarlic,

[3:25] first time councilor.

[3:26] Been living in town since 1979. And

[3:31] welcome everybody for coming tonight, and please ask questions.

[3:35] The other thing is you'll hear information on our budget, and I'm also excited

[3:39] to hear about some cost-sharing proposals that

[3:43] we have in the works. So, thank you very much.

[3:49] Again, welcome all. Ashley Morrison, first-time councilor.

[3:53] I

[3:54] recognize most faces here, so I think you already know that.

[3:58] We're really happy that you come out to these forums.

[4:00] Please, this is your opportunity to ask questions and hold us

[4:04] accountable if we're not doing what you are expecting us to do.

[4:10] Thanks.

[4:10] Is this on?

[4:12] Sharla St. Germain, first time councilor.

[4:14] I've lived in Gibbons since 2012.

[4:18] We're glad you all came out. Thank you.

[4:22] Yeah, we just want to hear from you. We want your voices heard. Thank you.

[4:27] Okay.

[4:29] So with that, I have some information to share with you tonight.

[4:31] I'm going to go through it as quickly and painlessly as I can, but admittedly,

[4:35] there's a lot of financial kind of information I'm going to share

[4:39] with you that

[4:41] may not be

[4:43] overly easy to understand, but I'll do my best to explain it in the best

[4:47] way and easiest way that I can.

[4:50] One of the things, again, I'm using a mouse tonight.

[4:52] Again, I don't have my clicker, this will be difficult, is one of the key things

[4:55] when it comes to municipal finance that we want to make sure is very clear to you

[4:59] as our residents

[5:01] is that

[5:02] municipalities are in the business of one very simple thing, and that's to provide

[5:06] quality of life for people. It's not as complicated as we make it.

[5:10] But we clear snow, we cut grass, we provide fire and emergency services,

[5:14] fill potholes,

[5:16] have family community services to help support people, have recreation

[5:20] assets, those types of things. And every day it really adds to people's quality of

[5:24] life. And that's really the business that we're in.

[5:27] And there is a... Do you mind doing this for me right here? Okay, thanks.

[5:31] There is a very simple

[5:35] equation to that, and that is that to be able to manage

[5:39] to deliver the quality of life and the services that we provide, we have to charge

[5:43] taxes, utility rates, and fees and charges.

[5:46] And one of the key things about the municipal business that sometimes is

[5:49] misunderstood is we don't take a profit

[5:53] home. It's basically a break-even business.

[5:55] So we do our best, and basically the budget process is pretty simple, is we do a

[5:59] lot of work to basically determine exactly what the costs

[6:02] areAnd then we turn that into a tax rate, and from a water

[6:06] perspective and sewer and refuse, we turn that into a utility rate, and that's

[6:10] it. So there's not a lot of mystery behind that.

[6:12] We just do our best to really, in a sense, flow the cost through

[6:16] taxes and utility rates.

[6:19] This is a slide. I know probably many of you can't see that.

[6:22] These are slides I created back in the early 2000s, by the way, when I was

[6:25] presenting budgets for Strathcona County.

[6:28] And there's a very simple concept that we have to follow in municipal government,

[6:32] and that is balancing budgets. It's

[6:36] not legal through the Municipal Government Act for us to

[6:39] basically have what we call deficit budgeting, so we have to balance

[6:43] budgets. And admittedly, that was a big problem for the town of

[6:47] Gibbons for years, is that essentially, you were running

[6:51] on unbalanced budgets for many years, and that was

[6:54] essentially being balanced with transfers from basically debt,

[6:58] operating debt, which I'm going to share some information with you tonight.

[7:01] When you do that, eventually you run out of debt, run out of cash reserves, and

[7:05] you hit a wall, which happened last year, which essentially was running out of

[7:08] those reserves. And so you have to balance your services costs

[7:12] to the revenue coming in, and if you don't do that, you'll eventually run out of

[7:14] money, which is what happened here.

[7:18] There's eventually three key things that we look at when we're budgeting.

[7:22] We have capital. So one of the key things municipalities take care of is hard

[7:26] assets, roads,

[7:28] vehicles, buildings, ice plants, recreation

[7:32] assets, family community services buildings.

[7:34] Basically, the assets that we own or are helping

[7:38] deliver services each and every day.

[7:40] So the grass doesn't get cut by itself if we need a mower.

[7:44] Your fire doesn't get responded to by just a bunch of firefighters running with

[7:47] buckets of water. We need a fire truck.

[7:50] The list goes on and on and on. So capital assets are absolutely key and

[7:54] critical to delivering services each and every day, and so we must take care of our

[7:57] assets. And we do this through asset management, we do this

[8:01] through transfers and reserves, and in some cases, we do this through taking out

[8:05] debt to sometimes maintain or replenish the assets we have.

[8:09] So a very important thought is capital.

[8:12] The second component of good municipal budgeting is essentially taking care of

[8:15] operations. So every day we have people working.

[8:19] Every day we have electricity and heat that's

[8:23] warming our buildings. Every day we're using things like fuel.

[8:26] So we have significant costs that go out the door every

[8:30] day to basically serve you. So again, snow

[8:34] clearing means labor, it means fuel.

[8:37] Using this asset site means electricity, it means heat.

[8:41] So we have general operating costs that we have to budget for and take care

[8:45] of. So a very important thing to consider. I just want to share this with you.

[8:48] The number one challenge for municipal government, bar

[8:52] none,

[8:54] is inflation. It's the most challenging thing municipalities deal with from a

[8:57] financial perspective each and every year. I've been doing this for a long time.

[9:02] What's the biggest challenge we have right now?

[9:03] Municipalities across Canada, well, quite frankly, across the world, we're

[9:06] significantly challenged because of the cost of fuel.

[9:09] One of our main commodities to help support you each and every day

[9:13] has literally doubled in the last three or four months, and so that's become very

[9:17] challenging for us from a budget perspective.

[9:20] The final thing is

[9:24] we have what's called restricted, unrestricted surplus, essentially reserves.

[9:28] So we put money in the bank just like you do in your household.

[9:30] So you're going to put money away for rainy days, you're going to put money away

[9:34] to take care of your car if it breaks down.

[9:37] You're going to put money away maybe for applying for a holiday.

[9:40] Municipalities, in a sense, aren't all that different.

[9:43] We put money away, though, for things like replacing our

[9:47] vehicles. We put money away for fixing up buildings occasionally,

[9:51] maybe the ice plant. We put money away for rainy days and possible

[9:55] disaster mitigation, and so having money in reserve is key and

[9:59] critical to sustainable municipalities. And again, sometimes this is misunderstood.

[10:03] People go, "Well, you're putting all this money away and it's sitting in the bank.

[10:06] Well, you're overtaxing me." That's not the case.

[10:09] That said, there

[10:11] is work that we do to ensure that the reserves are basically at the right balance.

[10:15] So this is called optimal balance, basically methodologies.

[10:18] But at the same time, we want to ensure that we have money in the bank.

[10:21] Again, as you know, this was another critical thing that we had to discuss

[10:25] early in basically our time with you.

[10:28] We didn't have any money in the bank.

[10:29] It basically went out the door to basically pay for

[10:33] capital assets that went into the ground for development and for other things over

[10:37] the years, and so we're looking at replenishing that now.

[10:40] Now, moving along, the specific of our operating budget.

[10:44] So we are looking at our tax revenue increase of

[10:48] 8.2%. This results in

[10:51] basically 5%, 5.2%

[10:55] for

[10:56] basically our general base budget.

[10:57] And as I mentioned before, this is to cover off the services that I just talked

[11:01] about. It also includes things like inflation, changes to

[11:05] service levels, and whatnot. The one thing we were here about five

[11:09] months ago, that number was over

[11:12] 120%, is what we started with when we looked at this budget as we

[11:15] began.

[11:17] So a lot of work has been done to basically get it down to what we consider was

[11:21] manageable. Now, some will say, "Well, 8.2% is

[11:25] very high and that's a lot." And I don't disagree that that may be challenging,

[11:29] but I also want to state that this is basically the average in

[11:33] Alberta right now. In fact, there's a lot of municipalities that are higher than

[11:36] this right now. So 8.2%, we believe, is not

[11:40] an unreasonable amount considering the challenges we've

[11:43] had. About 5% is going into

[11:46] basically covering off our base, and 3% is going to

[11:50] replenishing those reserves I just talked about.

[11:53] So this is basically part of our long-term financial plan, where we're going to

[11:55] start putting money away so we can start taking care of tomorrow.

[11:58] And again, something that we do have to do to make sure the

[12:02] municipality survives.

[12:04] This is a balanced budget.It reduces the

[12:08] long-term risk because we are going to be preparing for future financial

[12:11] needs. And again, it's a multi-layered strategy, which I'm going to talk about here

[12:15] in a few moments. Moving on. One of the things that's very important to note is as

[12:19] we look at the challenges that we face as a town,

[12:23] we are literally between, say, for example, our comparatives Bon Accord and

[12:27] Redwater, still close to 15% to 20%

[12:31] less than they pay for the same house for taxes.

[12:34] So that's an important thing to note, is that we're actually a little bit lower

[12:37] than our comparables. We're a bit higher than

[12:41] Thorhild County and Sturgeon County, but when we compare to the towns, we're

[12:45] actually lower than the others. So to say that we're maybe

[12:49] in a tax position that was unfair or unreasonable, we're not.

[12:53] So I think that's important for us to realize as we move forward.

[12:56] One thing I would say is important to note, though, is that when we look at our

[13:00] comparables like the county,

[13:02] a person who lives in the county pays less than half

[13:05] of the property taxes for the same home.

[13:08] And so I think that's an important consideration as we start talking about

[13:11] collaboration and working together. Okay? Moving on.

[13:15] So how did we do this?

[13:18] One of the things that we looked at was basically understanding that we're going to

[13:21] have a leaner, basically, organization.

[13:24] This meant making some tough decisions.

[13:28] One of the key things about municipal government, and a lot of

[13:32] people have a hard time understanding this when they start first looking at the

[13:35] municipal business, is that we are a people-driven business, which

[13:39] means the grass doesn't get cut without a person on the mower.

[13:43] The fire truck can't show up to a fire call without a firefighter.

[13:47] The recreation complex doesn't get opened without a person working there.

[13:51] That also means from a cost-cutting perspective,

[13:55] we actually don't have a lot of areas that are really basically easy to

[13:59] find a lot of money in other than staffing in a lot of cases.

[14:02] So in the case of

[14:06] the town, we really did a lot of work looking at the organization and

[14:10] trying to determine what were the right service levels for a town of this size.

[14:14] So we actually eliminated approximately what would be the equivalent to 14

[14:18] positions within the town. Now, one of the things I want to

[14:23] maybe make clear right now, just again, maybe create some, I guess,

[14:28] calm in basically the decisions we made, is that of those 14

[14:31] positions,

[14:33] all but two

[14:35] were with the town for less than two years.

[14:38] Many of those positions, around seven to eight, had been hired within the last two

[14:42] years for new work to be done.

[14:44] That means we had a significant increase in service levels and basically this

[14:48] idea that we're going to be doing a lot more work over the last years because of

[14:52] the thought that a lot of development is going to come in because of the investment

[14:55] that we put in. It didn't materialize.

[14:57] So in my mind,

[14:59] we feel we're not actually significantly cutting out service levels.

[15:02] And again, there are things that have changed, but is it a monumental change

[15:06] where we're not going to be filling potholes or clearing snow or cutting grass?

[15:10] No, that's not going to happen. There are some changes I'm going to share with you

[15:13] tonight, but on the most part, we feel it's manageable.

[15:16] But it's manageable

[15:18] because we're going to change the way that we look at performance and the way that

[15:21] we train people as well, and I'll share that with you in a few moments.

[15:25] The staffing changes supported about $1.2 million in savings,

[15:30] and then we looked at other things.

[15:31] And we did an extensive review of your actual results over the last five years.

[15:35] We also made some hard decisions in terms of maybe some things that we can't do

[15:38] right now. And so we found about $400,000 in savings

[15:43] in goods and services, about $300,000 savings in contracted and

[15:46] professional services, and $200,000 in savings in repairs and

[15:50] maintenance. So when we look at things, that's over $2 million in savings

[15:54] altogether, and a 1% increase for the town is, what, Ryan?

[15:57] About 35%.

[16:00] 37,000. So 37,000 is a 1% increase.

[16:03] So quick math. Ryan will figure it out for me, but $2 million is a

[16:08] savings of

[16:10] a lot. So I'll get Ryan to figure that out, and we'll go from there.

[16:13] Next slide, Ryan. Sorry.

[16:17] The next thing that we did, again, as we were talking about reserves,

[16:21] that $2 million reduction in costs

[16:25] was also complemented with us looking at revenues that we

[16:29] determined or thought were not realistic.

[16:32] And you had about almost $3 million of revenues that were not

[16:35] realized in your actuals when that was budgeted,

[16:39] and we fixed that. That said,

[16:42] we have done a bunch of work on looking at the developments.

[16:46] The infrastructure was put in the ground, and we worked very hard and

[16:49] diligently to develop frameworks on what's called a local

[16:53] improvement bylaw, and we're looking at your offsite levy bylaws.

[16:57] And the changes that we're going to make in those

[16:59] will result in development agreements that are enforceable.

[17:03] And we've received legal opinions on that.

[17:05] That does mean that we're now going to be in a position to recover the money

[17:09] we put in the ground.

[17:11] So we have put that money in the budget, but have also

[17:14] offset that with transfer to reserves.

[17:17] So if it doesn't work,

[17:18] and we end up with challenges from a legal perspective with the people that

[17:22] we're going to be looking to recover the money from, we just don't transfer the

[17:25] money to reserves. So our base budget is no longer at risk.

[17:28] We have no risk in terms of our ability to basically run services or have

[17:32] to increase taxes or put ourselves in a situation where we have to take out

[17:36] significant loans to cover our budget. That is no longer the case.

[17:39] We have balanced the budget with money we know that is assured, basically tax

[17:42] dollars. So that's a very important consideration that we've made a change on.

[17:48] We believe right now, base transfers, by the end of this year, we'll be able to

[17:51] transfer $1 million into reserves, and possibly up to three

[17:55] million.

[17:57] And if things work out, and things look like they're starting to work out, we

[18:00] could see a balanced budget and a replenishment of our reserves of up to

[18:04] $3 million by the end of this year, which is a significant

[18:08] change.

[18:09] It's still just the beginning, but it is a significant

[18:12] change.Again,

[18:16] this is critical to building our long-term financial sustainability, and I

[18:20] can't stress this enough, we can no longer budget just basically

[18:24] based on a balanced budget without putting money in the bank.

[18:27] We have to just stay sustainable.

[18:29] This means having the ability to handle a water line break,

[18:33] or if we had a roof failure or something significant, we need to be able to

[18:37] take care of those things. That means that we do need to replenish our reserves.

[18:40] And so we're going to work very hard on that.

[18:43] Next move. Okay. Capital projects.

[18:45] And so this is an area, admittedly,

[18:48] we've had to really tighten our belts on.

[18:52] Our debt capacity is very stretched, so I'm going to share exactly what our

[18:56] debt is tonight. But we decided we didn't want to take out any additional debt.

[19:01] We have to be very careful with our grants.

[19:02] We've received permission to use some of our capital grants and turn it into

[19:06] operating funds, which again, is a really positive thing from a cash flow

[19:10] perspective to get us on track. But that also means that we had to tighten our

[19:14] belts and deal with having to use maybe some of the capital assets

[19:17] we have and not change over things very quickly. And so we've really cut this back.

[19:22] That said,

[19:23] we have our SCID Survive Bet program, so this is positive for us.

[19:27] We have to upgrade our reservoir, so we're going to do

[19:30] that. And

[19:32] we're buying a vac truck. So I think this is something that was a

[19:36] real sore point for everybody, and I think we went from

[19:40] monthly pay of about $15,000 a month, which is what it costs,

[19:44] down to-

[19:45] I was going to say it was 11,5 for a while.

[19:48] Okay.

[19:50] But it's gone to 5 now.

[19:50] Okay. So we're down to about 5,500 a month, and we own it now, so that's a

[19:54] big difference as well. Okay?

[19:58] So again, debt funding,

[20:02] which is really important, is capital does tie to debt, and sometimes

[20:06] there is good debt. I'm going to explain that here in a few moments.

[20:09] But I can guarantee you this budget now is not taking out any new debt, and we're

[20:12] certainly not covering operations with operating loans any longer, which is a very

[20:16] important consideration. Okay? Moving on.

[20:20] So we are working on a long-term financial plan.

[20:22] Elements of this are a long-term financial plan.

[20:25] But if you saw the budget presentation, and maybe some of you have,

[20:29] we are looking at

[20:31] tax increases that are similar to what we've had this year in future years.

[20:35] And again, if you look around Alberta, most municipalities from a

[20:38] long-term financial planning perspective are forecasting between 5% to

[20:43] 9% every year for the next three to four years because

[20:46] they're having to combat with inflation.

[20:48] So we're not all that different than other municipalities right now.

[20:50] So we feel our plan is reasonable, challenging, but

[20:54] reasonable, but it is a plan to get us back on track.

[20:57] And simple math, this includes significant buy-down of

[21:00] debt in future years, replenishment of reserves in future years,

[21:04] and a balanced budget. And like I said, I give this council all the credit.

[21:09] They were able to achieve this in five and a half months, which has people honestly

[21:12] around the province calling and going, "How the heck did that work?

[21:15] How did they do that?" Hard decisions.

[21:17] The

[21:18] council is willing to make some tough decisions, which we appreciated.

[21:21] It allowed us to do the work that we needed to do.

[21:23] So, this does include future debt buy-downs.

[21:27] There's been some thought that we're not buying down debt, that's not accurate.

[21:30] We are buying down debt.

[21:32] We have renegotiated, though, with the province on a bunch of debentures,

[21:36] about five or six of them, I believe, we've turned into one debenture, and

[21:40] we renegotiated to get our principal payments down for basically three

[21:44] years, so we don't have to make the principal payments.

[21:46] That is providing us with the runway to start putting money in the bank and plan

[21:50] for our debt buy-down plan in three years.

[21:53] So there is concern and everybody says, "Well, what happens in three years?

[21:56] You don't have money to pay off the debt.

[21:57] What happens when the principal payments come back?"

[21:59] We then switch over to the reserve plan that we're going to have in place to start

[22:03] paying down the debt. So we're smoothing it out by putting a bunch of money in the

[22:05] bank. We should have considerable money in the bank after three years with the plan

[22:09] that we've developed. Okay?

[22:11] So the three-year financial outlook, again, is consistent.

[22:15] It does have measured and consistent tax increases.

[22:17] The last thing we wanted to do was have a spike like this.

[22:21] When we first looked at it, we're looking at 120%, and then we did a bunch of work,

[22:25] we got down to 60%, and now we've got it down to 8.2,

[22:29] and then looking at seven and seven and seven is our forecast, but it's like this.

[22:33] And so we know what we're going to be looking at, right?

[22:36] Rather than this and this and this and this.

[22:38] And so we feel it's consistent and we feel it's reasonable, and it

[22:42] solves a lot of the issues that we had when we first started.

[22:44] So I think that's a good thing. Okay? Okay, moving along.

[22:49] So

[22:50] did we have to make service level adjustments? Yes, we did.

[22:54] Now, one of the things that I will say, I've been doing this for a long time.

[22:58] I've worked in very big municipalities. I've also worked in small ones.

[23:01] My favorite job of all time was CAO of Bruderheim, where it was my first

[23:05] small town CAO job, and I loved that place.

[23:07] It was a lot of fun, but I learned a lot there.

[23:10] But I'll also say this, is that the service levels that were basically funded

[23:14] here were way beyond what a municipality this size would normally have.

[23:19] And I'll just say it, when we started working, there was a

[23:22] lot of time staff had basically

[23:26] to plan, I guess, let's put it that way.

[23:28] And we kind of right-sized that down to where we feel the resources are now

[23:33] at the right levels for the services that we want to provide.

[23:37] And

[23:39] we feel it's manageable, and we do believe that we'll be able to deliver good

[23:41] services. That said, there are going to be service level changes that are

[23:44] unavoidable. We'll talk about those tonight.

[23:47] But we will say, we believe we'll be able to overcome this with strong

[23:51] performance management.

[23:53] The municipality before we came didn't have performance appraisals.

[23:57] They didn't

[23:58] have basically team meetings to talk about the goals that we had for the week.

[24:02] They didn't have basically professional development plans.

[24:04] We're now putting that all into place.

[24:06] And so we're looking at developing a structure where we have management,

[24:10] supervisors, and basically performance management and supporting staff to get

[24:14] better and plan better in terms of the work that we do.

[24:16] So we have less people, but we're going to work in a smarter way to be able to

[24:20] deliver services in a more meaningful way and in a cost-effective way.

[24:24] So more efficient and more effective is our goal. Okay?

[24:27] Moving on.So

[24:31] this isn't simply cost reductions, but it does move towards accountability,

[24:34] transparency, and performance-driven results.

[24:37] One of the key things this council has said that they wanted from us

[24:41] was accountability. Accountability and transparency.

[24:44] So we're here tonight to share with you exactly what's in the budget, which I've

[24:47] been doing,

[24:48] but it doesn't stop with the budget. The budget's the beginning, not the end.

[24:52] And what I mean by that is,

[24:54] we had our summer student in today, and he's been working on the last couple of

[24:58] days on developing a forecast year-end for the

[25:01] town and working on a quarterly report, which we're soon going to present to

[25:04] council, which means here's what we spent, here's what our actuals were,

[25:08] this is what we planned, and we're going to be doing that every quarter.

[25:11] So basically, a quarterly report, which will speak to the budget and where we're

[25:14] at, and we're going to allow and again, welcome any questions that they have in

[25:18] terms of how we're doing. We're also working very hard to manage our

[25:22] finances on an ongoing basis. So like I said, it doesn't stop with the budget.

[25:25] There isn't a fan belt,

[25:27] an oil change, or anything that really

[25:31] is going by right now without me saying okay to it.

[25:34] So I'm going over everything that people want to do.

[25:37] I'm actually reviewing every invoice and every basically request for funding.

[25:41] And so we're really trying to tighten our belts and create basically what I call

[25:44] financial literacy among our staff.

[25:47] We just can't spend whatever we want any longer.

[25:49] And actually, the staff have been great about it.

[25:51] So we're really changing the way that we are spending and changing our

[25:54] accountability model for council.

[25:56] So we're also looking right now at developing financial policies.

[26:00] We are working on a procurement policy, a debt management

[26:03] policy, and a reserve policy. Three key policies we

[26:07] believe are critical to the sustainability of the municipality.

[26:10] We don't want this to ever happen again.

[26:13] So procurement, why procurement?

[26:15] To make sure that it's really understood that we have to be accountable to council

[26:18] to spend. We can't just do whatever we want.

[26:20] We have to go to council, and there's got to be checks and balances for us to be

[26:23] able to take things on from now on, right?

[26:25] And we have to do that in a very transparent way.

[26:27] And ultimately, that's also going to be very, very transparent to the public.

[26:31] So we're changing the way that we spend.

[26:34] Debt management policy, we don't want to get into debt for the challenges that we

[26:38] have today. Operating debt, absolutely not.

[26:41] To cover off imbalances in our budget, we can't do that anymore.

[26:44] So we're creating a debt management policy that will

[26:48] keep us responsible and make us basically spend in the right

[26:52] ways when it comes down to taking out debt, right?

[26:54] And I have to say, there is good debt, and I'll explain that here later on in the

[26:57] presentation. The final policy we're looking at is reserve policy.

[27:01] As I said before, we have to start putting money in the bank,

[27:05] and we have to have restrictions on it.

[27:07] And by restrictions, I mean what happened was you'd had no debt

[27:11] management policy here. It was all in basically unrestricted surplus, which

[27:15] meant it could just be spent and not really with any plan.

[27:19] We're going to change that now so that we have restrictions on how it needs to be

[27:22] spent, and if we want to change that in any way, we have to go to council.

[27:26] Let's go to council to ask them for that permission to be able to spend it.

[27:28] So again, an additional control that will help support everything.

[27:32] Now,

[27:34] what is this going to do? It's going to help restore our financial discipline.

[27:38] It's going to align our services with sustainable funding.

[27:41] It's going to help us rebuild our reserves.

[27:44] It helps reduce our financial risk and strengthens our governance

[27:48] and accountability. And so we haven't just fixed the

[27:52] budget. We're trying to fix basically the way that we do business in a very

[27:56] different way that will allow us to make sure that this never happens again.

[27:59] And I can say with great authority, we're not going to be here much longer.

[28:03] So this is something that will last the test of time for you, again, with

[28:07] other administrations that come in because the rules will be in place.

[28:11] I think that's a very important consideration.

[28:13] The budget process will be aligned to build trust and transparency.

[28:16] And here's the thing. This council was very clear with us at the very beginning,

[28:21] we want to rebuild trust with our public.

[28:23] That is absolutely key. And that means rebuilding trust between administration

[28:27] and council. We worked very hard to do that, but this is something that we want to

[28:31] make sure,

[28:33] maybe we keep having town halls, we keep inviting you to the council chambers.

[28:36] We never want to see this happen again.

[28:38] And so hopefully, the work that we're doing now will help rebuild that trust

[28:42] that was lost. That's very important, but we have to prove it.

[28:45] Building a budget is just the start, but we have to show it in the way that

[28:49] we do our work. We have to show it in the way that we actually spend the money.

[28:53] We have to show it in the way that our financial statements will be audited and

[28:56] prove it to you over time. So don't take us at our word for it.

[29:00] Take us at how our results actually come in.

[29:02] I think that's the most important part. Lots of people can get up there and talk.

[29:06] You're measured by what you can do.

[29:07] And hopefully, you'll see that over the next year.

[29:11] Move along. So looking forward, again, we're looking at

[29:15] continuing with discipline, strong leadership, and a commitment to, again, the

[29:18] direction of council. And again, we want a clear financial plan, which we

[29:22] are currently building. I will say this, our work's not done yet.

[29:25] We're getting pretty tired, but realistically, we finished a budget which was

[29:28] incredibly difficult to balance, but we're now working on, again, the

[29:32] long-term financial plan, which includes the policies, includes forecasts, and also

[29:36] includes working with our neighbors and looking at maybe a different way of

[29:40] looking at financial collaboration.

[29:42] So these things all have to be done for this place to actually be successful.

[29:46] I want to just maybe say one thing looking forward.

[29:51] Again, I do a lot of work with municipalities across Canada, and

[29:55] when I first came to Gibbons and heard about what was happening here, I was

[29:59] confused, admittedly, because this isn't a place that

[30:03] should be just surviving. It should be flourishing.

[30:06] You have a location advantage over many.

[30:08] You have a lot of business actually in

[30:12] town. You have just so many

[30:16] attributes that shows, and again, interest in development.

[30:18] There's so many attributes that shows that this town should be one of the towns

[30:21] that's succeeding. It didn't make sense.

[30:23] And so

[30:25] the work we're doing

[30:27] will get you back on track to enjoy that success, and I truly mean that.

[30:30] This town will be one of the towns that flourishes in the long term if you continue

[30:34] on this track. I do believe that. I wouldn't just say

[30:36] it.I have to say, I worked for Strathcona County

[30:40] for, God, maybe 15 years of my 30-year career.

[30:45] So I'm very, very, very versed in basically a specialized

[30:48] municipality. And so when I first saw the situation, of course, I was

[30:52] thinking, "Yeah, dissolve and become a specialized municipality." I no longer

[30:55] believe that any longer with what I've seen because of this council and because of

[30:59] the community and the residents I've seen.

[31:00] I think you deserve to

[31:03] have your own autonomy, and you deserve to flourish, and I believe you will.

[31:06] So I think that this plan will do that.

[31:08] So this budget demonstrated decisive action.

[31:11] And again, we're no longer reacting.

[31:13] We're being proactive in the way that we're approaching things.

[31:15] So we're always looking ahead. So the budget is about balance,

[31:20] but we're looking at actuals on a daily basis to make sure we're anticipating

[31:23] issues, and we're looking at plans to make sure that we're looking not just beyond

[31:27] this year, but beyond the next year, the year, and the year after that.

[31:30] So the plans we're putting together is really in a sense looking at maybe a three

[31:33] to five-year window in terms of getting us on track, where we're managing our debt

[31:38] in a reasonable position. We have money in the bank. We're seeing development.

[31:41] We're seeing this place actually flourish the way it should.

[31:44] Moving forward. Okay. Now here's the one I wanted to put out because there was

[31:48] lots of questions about this. This is probably the thing I've gotten the most

[31:50] questions about over my time here from the budget perspective.

[31:54] What's our debt at?

[31:56] So if we look there,

[31:58] if you look on the very right, you see total debt outstanding.

[32:01] $12.78 million is our total debt outstanding.

[32:05] Our total debt capacity is approximately $14, $15

[32:08] million.

[32:10] 15.5. So we're not at the maximum of our debt capacity.

[32:13] I want to make sure we get rid of that policy. So we're at $12.7 million.

[32:17] I'll say this, as

[32:19] a former financial planner for municipalities, which was half of my

[32:23] career,

[32:25] you should never get to this level of debt.

[32:26] I would say to any municipality, never go beyond 75%

[32:30] maximum of your debt capacity is a good internal policy. Okay?

[32:34] Now, if you're wondering how that works,

[32:37] under the Municipal Government Act, they allow you to go to 1.5 times

[32:41] your municipal revenue. So 15 million is

[32:45] basically, our revenue is about 10, so they allow us to go to 15 million

[32:48] because, again, if they figure out your revenue, what's your ability to pay the

[32:51] debt, that's how they come up with the debt capacity. So we're very high.

[32:56] The alarming part about our debt, though,

[32:59] is the yellow part.

[33:01] The yellow part is basically lines of credit and operating

[33:05] debt that had been taken out to balance those budgets, like I said, that were

[33:08] imbalanced for years, and this is very what I call bad debt.

[33:12] I teach classes on this subject all the time, and I tell all of my students,

[33:16] never take out operating debt. An operating line of credit to cover off shortfalls,

[33:20] small towns have to do that occasionally, but it's replenished in the same year.

[33:23] But to do this is,

[33:25] I've never seen it before, to be quite frank.

[33:26] So that debt is challenging. So that's something we got to take care of.

[33:31] The debt in the purple part, again, we had a sewer upgrade, good

[33:35] debt. That's not bad. We have the Meadows project, 39,

[33:39] $1.3 million.

[33:42] Normally okay, and I'll explain that in a few moments.

[33:44] Okay? I'll explain it in a moment. 132, motor upgrade.

[33:48] Yeah, those things happen. Motors blow. We have to take care of things.

[33:51] 4.5 acre development, 3.2. This one's rough. Okay?

[33:55] That one's a rough one. And then facilities and the fire truck. Okay?

[33:59] So two things. The two key ones there that cause us issues

[34:03] is the Meadows project and the 4.5 acre

[34:06] development because basically $5 million was put out for development,

[34:11] and without cash flow coming in to cover it, that's the kind of thing that sinks

[34:14] some municipalities, and that's what happened to us.

[34:16] We put out $5 million without an assured cash flow

[34:20] coming in to cover off the payments and make sure that we get that money back

[34:23] because we didn't have a proper local improvement by-law, and we

[34:27] didn't have proper development agreements in place.

[34:31] We're working on those right now, and we have assuredness that we will be able to

[34:35] recover this money, and that's why I put recoverable under there.

[34:37] So this has been a lot of work.

[34:40] We're not quite there yet.

[34:42] And again, transparently, we'll be the first ones that come to you that says that

[34:45] this may not work if it doesn't. But this is basically that money that we said

[34:48] would come in, but we put to reserve if it doesn't.

[34:50] That's where the money comes in. We're actually working to get this money back.

[34:54] I have some assuredness that we will, at $1.3 million with the Meadows,

[34:58] we might see that as early as this year.

[35:00] And we now have an agreement in place with the 4.5 acre development.

[35:04] We have basically an agreement in place that we might see $400,000 a

[35:08] year for the next 15 years to cover off that debt.

[35:12] So we're getting it back. And so that was lost before we started, but it does look

[35:15] like we'll be able to recover it now. But stay tuned.

[35:18] I got to get back to you on that one because we still have a lot of work to do, or

[35:21] the people that follow us will have a lot of work to do on that one. So moving on.

[35:25] Underneath, what you'll see there

[35:28] is the payments. People have asked me about this. We are paying the debt off.

[35:32] So this is in the budget right now. We are paying on the operating side

[35:35] $500,000 a year. So by the end

[35:39] of after three years, we are paying down 2 million of that

[35:42] 5.8. And capital, we're paying off, again,

[35:46] $274,000 in payments in '26, and then 126 every year

[35:50] after. Now, that's $2.6 million in debt repayment.

[35:55] That said, if we recover those funds,

[35:59] we'll likely put that towards debt repayment as well.

[36:02] So we're saying this is kind of the minimum amount we're going to pay off.

[36:05] So we are paying things off. We're actually going to be aggressive in our debt

[36:09] payments

[36:10] if we receive the money from those developments, which we're really aggressively

[36:13] pursuing right now. So again, a good, strong debt management plan.

[36:16] I'll say this, after about three to four years,

[36:19] we will be within what would be considered a best practice debt limit, and you'll

[36:23] be fine. So we have a plan, and we do believe it'll work out. Okay?

[36:27] So that's our debt situation. Moving on.

[36:31] I'm just going to leave you with this one before we ask some questions, we get into

[36:34] services. So this is something, again, as a bit of

[36:38] a

[36:39] person who often people call me

[36:43] basically the budget, I don't knowI love

[36:46] municipal government. And so this is a slide I created many years ago when I was

[36:50] presenting budgets, and this slide is used all across Alberta now

[36:54] by people taking my classes. But essentially, an average property

[36:57] in Gibbons of $396,000 is equivalent to about

[37:01] $279 a month in terms of your taxes.

[37:05] The 8.2% tax on increase is equal to about $283 a year or

[37:09] $24 a month over and above. So if I look at

[37:13] that total of $279 a month, what do I get?

[37:16] Each and every day

[37:18] I get snow removal,

[37:20] playgrounds. When I go to sleep at night, I'm being kept safe by our fire

[37:24] department. I wake up in the morning, I walk on a sidewalk that's been maintained

[37:28] by our public works department. I drive on a road that we've actually filled the

[37:32] potholes on. My kids go into the hockey rink.

[37:35] I was a hockey dad. I loved chasing my kid all around Alberta.

[37:39] So I love that part and doing those things. We make a lot of memories.

[37:42] There's a lot that you get for that $279 a month.

[37:45] And I often sit there across the kitchen table with

[37:49] my son as he's texting me, even though he shouldn't be because I'm right across

[37:52] from him. We pay more for this a month, our phones, than we do

[37:56] for all the things that we get for our property taxes in a month.

[37:59] And I know we think of a tax

[38:02] as something that we get nothing for, but we get a lot.

[38:05] And again, I hope that you would agree with that. And we get a lot in Gibbons.

[38:08] Gibbons is a special place. So I really believe in the taxes that we pay for,

[38:12] and I think comparatively,

[38:14] we get a lot

[38:16] of bang for our buck. So that said, okay, next one.

[38:21] That's just our balanced budget. If everybody wants to go through the details and

[38:24] ask me any questions, you certainly can.

[38:26] We will be posting this presentation online, so you'll all have it.

[38:30] And then next slide.

[38:32] So that's it for the budget. I've got service level changes, but I want to stop

[38:35] here because, again, we want to hear from you and we want to hear from council.

[38:37] So I'm going to open up the floor to questions.

[38:45] Wait, could you go back to the principal payment screen

[38:49] and tell us which of those have deferred interest payments

[38:53] or if there's any possible no interest payments?

[38:58] Sorry, can you say that again real quick for me?

[39:03] Can you go back to the budget slide and tell us where it says principal

[39:07] payments, are any of those interest

[39:10] deferred or no interest? And if not, what is

[39:14] the interest rates?

[39:16] All these are

[39:18] just straight principal repayments.

[39:19] I don't have anything built in the forecast as of yet for the interest-only

[39:23] portions. The principal, I don't have a breakout right now for

[39:27] anything regarding that principal section, so I can't break any of those

[39:31] sections out, but all these are just straight. This is principal repayments.

[39:35] There's no interest on any of these payments in this

[39:39] table. The interest is separate of these amounts.

[39:42] So these numbers are straight principal payments

[39:47] in the table.

[39:47] There's something

[39:48] Pardon?

[39:50] There's something

[39:52] No, we pay interest still on all of them. Yeah. We just haven't detailed anything.

[39:56] We're talking about the principal in this one here-

[39:58] Okay

[39:58] ... specifically.

[40:01] Go ahead.

[40:03] I don't think it's working. Call it on here.

[40:05] So was there any deferred interest?

[40:08] I remember hearing talk of that before.

[40:11] No. No deferred interest. We have deferred principal on all the

[40:15] blue ACFA loans. It should be LTLA now.

[40:18] But all of those loans, we did a deferred principal

[40:22] portion that was repaid. So the principal gets reintroduced

[40:26] starting in 2029 for that one.

[40:28] Okay. Thank you.

[40:31] Yeah.

[40:32] Okay.

[40:34] My name is Daniel Ferrer. A lot of you people that were here know that

[40:38] back in 2023, I ran for council, and I figure

[40:42] that I'm not going to recriminate or put blame

[40:45] on anybody, past councils and that.

[40:48] I guess the saying goes, it is what it is.

[40:50] My concern

[40:52] is that I bought my house in November of 2004.

[40:57] So that would be 22 years this November.

[41:00] And since that time,

[41:03] I have seen nothing but an increase

[41:07] in our tax base. Everything that we get from

[41:10] this town has so far been an

[41:14] increase. The cost of garbage pickup, which we have to

[41:18] roll over from GFL or whoever, has increased.

[41:22] Water increased. Everything is increasing except for one

[41:26] thing that I've noticed, service.

[41:29] So my main concern is it's going to cost me

[41:32] approximately $6,500 this year in

[41:36] taxes just for the municipal tax coming from the

[41:39] town.

[41:41] Okay?

[41:43] On top of everything else, I know that the town does

[41:46] not have any control over what

[41:50] the province deems as the equitable value in your home,

[41:55] the tax base. But what my concern is, and my

[41:58] question for everybody here is, I'm hearing layoffs,

[42:03] I'm hearing reductions, I'm hearing everything else,

[42:07] but I live in a cul-de-sac, and when I see in the

[42:11] wintertime that there is a buildup in

[42:15] the gutters on the sidewalk to the street on 40th

[42:18] Avenue,

[42:20] that is a one and a half feet tall,

[42:23] and when they come in to plow, they refuse to knock that down.

[42:28] I am 77 years old,

[42:32] and I wound up with a sprained bad wrist

[42:35] starting because in order to not be

[42:39] charged again by the courts and

[42:43] everything when somebody walks past my house

[42:46] on the sidewalkAnd they slip and fall

[42:50] because the sidewalks are not perfectly level.

[42:53] We get pooling of water. That's one issue.

[42:56] Right now, we get kids out playing with these little step-on

[43:00] scooter things.

[43:02] I don't see any clearing of the streets

[43:07] going on in Gibbons. Maybe there is, but I don't see it.

[43:10] So all I can see is, coming from here, what kind of a

[43:14] guarantee are you, Mr. Miller, and you folks up there, going to

[43:18] give us

[43:20] that the services you're talking about are going to wind up

[43:24] null, zero?

[43:27] Because right now, we're so close to it, it isn't funny. Thank you.

[43:32] Thank you. I'm

[43:34] trying to look for Mr. Miller. My name is Mr. Duhamel, by the way.

[43:38] No problem at all, sir.

[43:40] I actually appreciate your question, and it's one that I've heard many

[43:44] times, and I understand. I'm a taxpayer too.

[43:48] The one thing I can assure you is that every municipality across Alberta has

[43:52] probably got the same type of tax increases we've had.

[43:55] As I mentioned before, the one thing that kills municipalities is inflation.

[43:59] Fuel costs us more, labor costs us more, contract services cost us more.

[44:03] So as I said earlier in the presentation, we have no choice but to pass those costs

[44:07] through to our taxpayers. If we don't,

[44:10] with normalized tax increases, what happens is you eventually hit what we

[44:14] call our service wall, and we either have to decrease services or we have to do

[44:18] what this place did and take out operating loans to cover off our services.

[44:21] So

[44:22] we go through a process, which is a very transparent process with councils, and

[44:26] again, they're your representatives, and they put the heat on us, this

[44:29] administration, with tax increases, and we try to do our best

[44:33] to pass on what we consider reasonable. I understand, though.

[44:36] But the fact of municipal government is that they're always going to be increasing

[44:39] because we're always faced with cost increases.

[44:41] I'm not arguing about tax increases.

[44:42] Yeah.

[44:44] I'm willing to pay my share.

[44:46] I know.

[44:46] I'm arguing about the lack of service.

[44:47] Okay.

[44:47] For the taxes we're paying.

[44:48] So from that perspective, I will say,

[44:51] I'm not necessarily in disagreement.

[44:54] We had one thing, I will, just to maybe give us a bit of a break, probably one of

[44:58] the most difficult snow clearing years on record.

[45:02] It seems every time I get one of these jobs, it's like the worst snow year that

[45:04] happens. I think it's because snow follows me around. We had a difficult year.

[45:08] But could we have done better? Yes. Yep. I will say that. We could do better.

[45:12] And one of the things that we've talked about as a team is performance management,

[45:16] performance appraisals, better training.

[45:18] We have

[45:20] a great public works team that we are now training three people on the grader,

[45:24] driving around in our yard right now, because we only had one person who knew how

[45:26] to drive the grader last year. We now have three people that are in training, and

[45:30] we have a company that came in on contract services that's agreed to train our

[45:34] staff on the graders. We're trying to get better.

[45:36] So I don't disagree. We're working at it, and we are

[45:40] committed to getting better as a team.

[45:42] But again, I think we have the right people here.

[45:44] Our staff are very committed,

[45:46] and they're willing to be trained.

[45:47] They've said it to me themselves, "We just never had anybody really push us

[45:50] before." So they're trying. So we'll

[45:54] do our best. Come to see me next year or call me next year and let me know

[45:58] if things improve, because we're sure going to try, sir, I promise you that. Okay?

[46:01] Thank you.

[46:02] Hi, my name is Dennis Mitchell. I've been a resident of Gibbons since

[46:06] 1980.

[46:08] I have a couple questions. First off, which area is The Meadows?

[46:13] Just off Lynden.

[46:15] Oh, you guys go.

[46:16] It's just off Lynden Drive.

[46:18] Just off Lynden Drive.

[46:19] Yep.

[46:19] Okay. What's that new area called that Landrex is trying to

[46:23] develop?

[46:25] Riverside.

[46:26] Riverside.

[46:26] That's Riverside?

[46:28] Riverview. Yeah.

[46:28] Riverview.

[46:30] Riverview. We got two Riverview area plans from what I heard

[46:34] from the last-

[46:34] Yeah, there's two ASPs.

[46:36] Yeah.

[46:36] Right.

[46:37] Two possibilities.

[46:38] Yeah.

[46:38] Okay? One of them says we're going to have 57 homes

[46:42] in that area, under one plan.

[46:45] Yep.

[46:45] The next area says we're going to have 337

[46:49] separate residences in that area.

[46:51] That's the other one.

[46:51] Now, just a second here. You got 337

[46:55] separate residents going into that area.

[46:58] You got one road coming in, one road going out.

[47:01] 51st Street is a freeway. The road coming in and out of that area is going to be

[47:05] another freeway. Why don't we join them at the end?

[47:09] Landrex is going to put that area and build it. Okay?

[47:13] They're going to put an emergency exit for emergency use

[47:17] only if there is a problem, if there is an emergency.

[47:21] You ever try and get 337 separate

[47:25] families out of one road,

[47:28] driving any type of vehicle that can possibly exist?

[47:32] Jasper burned. Fort McMurray burned.

[47:35] They're going to evacuate Whitecourt.

[47:37] If Landrex doesn't put a level crossing, a

[47:41] legal level crossing that can go in and out of both ends of

[47:45] that thing, we're going to end up with problems because we got dirt bikes going

[47:49] through there and all kinds of public utility, and through

[47:52] that area.

[47:54] I drove a 40-foot vehicle for 40 years.

[47:57] You try and maneuver that in there, get a fire truck in there when

[48:01] everybody's trying to get out. Good luck trying.

[48:05] Realistically speaking, it doesn't work, and if

[48:09] we're going to let them go ahead and do that, then we need our heads

[48:13] examined.

[48:14] As far as your training goes, for three years, I argued

[48:18] with Eric Lowe that water goes downhill.

[48:22] Okay? And that comes from a little incident that happened in my back

[48:26] alley. Where on 51st Street, there is

[48:30] only two catch basins, both on the 51st Street

[48:34] section. There is no catch basins going all the way down to

[48:38] 44th and around Poplar Drive. Just the two.

[48:42] And Eric had the grader going down, and the back

[48:46] alley was graded like a country road.

[48:49] Well, if you lived on the west side of the back alley, you got a

[48:53] lakeThey cut down my next-door neighbor's

[48:57] part

[48:58] behind his driveway, seven inches.

[49:02] They ran into some concrete behind my yard and bent

[49:06] my fence, and I made a special deal with Eric and the town

[49:09] council that I wouldn't ask them to replace my fence and

[49:13] straighten it all out if they would grade the alley properly.

[49:17] Now you want me to wait another year, so it's going to be four years?

[49:21] All you got to do is to blade that way, and the water is going downhill.

[49:26] Okay.

[49:28] Council, do you want to answer these questions?

[49:29] I do have some answers, but I'll let council speak, and then I'll jump in.

[49:33] I think there's a little bit of confusion with regard to the Landrex development.

[49:37] Excuse me. I can't hear you.

[49:40] Speak louder. Can't hear very

[49:44] well.

[49:45] Good?

[49:46] That's better.

[49:48] Okay. The first mic wasn't on, so I apologize, sir.

[49:51] I think there's a little bit of confusion, because I shared it with you,

[49:55] with regard to the Landrex development.

[49:57] The first one that was approved, and Tim, you might be able to

[50:01] remind me of the year it was approved, 2012,

[50:05] '17-ish.

[50:05] Something. Yeah, it was something. It's a little while.

[50:07] A while ago, was the property that was over

[50:10] 300-plus units. The development that they

[50:14] gave the open house to on, I've lost track of time,

[50:18] Tuesday,

[50:20] is 57 units. So it's

[50:24] a significant reduction. So just wanted to be clear with

[50:27] regard to that.

[50:30] So it's not the 300 individual homes that

[50:33] are now going into that area. There's absolutely sure, possibly

[50:38] some additional concerns, but I just wanted to qualify as far as that

[50:41] is concerned.

[50:42] Oh, okay.

[50:43] I also wanted to amplify something that the

[50:46] administration team has very much taken on.

[50:51] There were some challenges,

[50:53] agreed, within public works, and the training

[50:57] portion was what was definitely lacking.

[51:00] And sir, you're absolutely correct. Water does run downhill.

[51:04] Yeah.

[51:05] So

[51:06] I do truly, within my heart, believe that

[51:10] we need to give them time to take the individuals who are

[51:14] working there, who are remaining working there, who are all very, very

[51:18] strong, and let them have the opportunity to have their training and development

[51:22] moving forward. So I completely understand.

[51:26] It looks like it's probably going to be another year, but hopefully

[51:30] with resolution for you.

[51:31] Okay. I have no problem with that at all. We're getting training.

[51:35] The last thing I understand about the Landrex, and this came

[51:38] from the mouth of a previous councilor, that when Landrex was

[51:42] proposing that area, there was going to be an animal rescue

[51:46] place put in there.

[51:49] They were going to put that in as a donation.

[51:52] There was going to be a rehab center for

[51:56] disabled veterans. And the third thing was going to

[52:00] be what I believe was referred to as a Boys

[52:04] & Girls Club down in that area. We have

[52:08] the area here for that. Now, if it's a Boys & Girls

[52:11] Club, is it not, I understood it to be from the previous

[52:15] councilor, it was going to be a rehab center for

[52:19] indigenous and troubled youth. We have a center for

[52:23] that or in that area in Bon Accord,

[52:27] just south in Bon Accord.

[52:31] And if we're going to put that, and we've cut down on policing budget,

[52:36] now who's going to protect us?

[52:39] I don't want to have to sit out in my backyard with a shotgun to make sure that

[52:43] nobody's stealing anything out of my yard because some of

[52:47] the troubled youth are helping themselves to things.

[52:51] If we're going to have a center for indigenous and troubled youth or any

[52:55] kind of troubled youth, put it over in Morinville, where

[52:59] they're close to the RCMP, because we've budgeted to cut down

[53:03] on patrol services. We can't take care of it.

[53:10] Excuse me.

[53:12] What I can say about the Landrex deal and what might be going over

[53:16] in the donation lands they're giving, they talked about.

[53:21] What they had indicated,

[53:23] that was just suggestions at this point.

[53:25] There was nothing in black and white that says it will be an animal shelter,

[53:29] or it will be a rehab center. Those are just suggestions of what might

[53:33] go in there. And we still have to approve it.

[53:37] Okay.

[53:37] So it's not in black and white to exactly-

[53:40] Well-

[53:40] ... what's going in there.

[53:41] Okay.

[53:42] And just for a point of clarification, it's only the

[53:46] budget or the bylaw that has been

[53:49] reduced. RCMP, that has

[53:53] not changed the level of RCMP coverage we have here.

[53:57] Okay. Thank you very much. Yes.

[54:00] I'd like to speak,

[54:02] give you a bit of an answer there, too.

[54:03] Regarding your concerns with what may or may not be going in there,

[54:09] we don't

[54:10] necessarily agree with what's been

[54:13] proposed. So we are going to work hard to make sure

[54:18] if this goes through, that everything is done correctly,

[54:23] and we hear your voices with what you guys do want and what you don't

[54:27] want. So I just wanted to let you know that, yeah, we don't share

[54:31] that vision necessarily, and we want to hear from you

[54:34] to have a control and have a say with what does and what doesn't go in there, for

[54:38] sure.

[54:38] No, I thought some of these things need to be brought up now because-

[54:41] Yeah

[54:41] ... from what I got was spoken to me in all truth and

[54:45] honesty.

[54:46] Yep.

[54:46] So I think everybody else should know that that was possibly one of the

[54:50] proposals, and if you fall asleep and

[54:55] let

[54:56] The council be led down which other path is

[54:59] done, or they've been taken, or they've been

[55:03] coerced into taking,

[55:05] then

[55:07] we become victims of our own undoing.

[55:10] Yeah.

[55:12] I think all development was so strong.

[55:14] Last meeting we had, there was no future development going on, so why

[55:18] are

[55:19] we even talking about a-

[55:19] We can talk-

[55:20] Yeah,

[55:21] why we're there and everything else.

[55:22] That's not-

[55:23] We said no future development that cost this town any money.

[55:27] So any development going forward, 100% ironclad is in

[55:31] development agreements. We don't put out a dime. That's what we said.

[55:35] Yeah.

[55:36] Then we might get-

[55:37] Any development that happens in the future in this town

[55:41] is not going to be left out-

[55:42] Sir, if you don't mind, sir, I think if you could get in line, that'd be great.

[55:46] Thank you.

[55:47] I'm in line. Thank you.

[55:48] Thank you very much.

[55:50] Sorry.

[55:51] Sorry. Go ahead.

[55:51] I just wanted to add that-

[55:52] Just before you leave.

[55:53] Oh.

[55:54] Thanks.

[55:55] With regard to the secondary access,

[55:59] we're all very big on that, and it's very important not just in that area but also

[56:02] in the south end of town. One of the biggest obstacles we have with a

[56:06] secondary access that's a full-time access is getting permission from

[56:10] CN Rail since it is crossing their rail line.

[56:14] So are we trying right now to get it?

[56:16] Yes.

[56:19] Good. Let's not try and get it after we get the community in. We're trying.

[56:23] This council's pretty diligent-

[56:24] Lessons were learned

[56:24] ... about good development.

[56:26] The one thing I would like to say, maybe this will help everybody a bit, is,

[56:30] again, I've been doing this for a long time.

[56:31] If I had a dollar for every fancy drawing I saw from a developer that said they're

[56:35] going to build us a new spray park or a fancy dog park or

[56:39] a nature center or whatever it might be, I'd be very rich.

[56:41] The reality of development is that they actually, under development agreements,

[56:45] have to give approximately 10% of the land to what's called municipal

[56:49] reserve. Basically, a playground or a park or whatever.

[56:52] They're obligated. So they're not doing us any favors, guys.

[56:55] So if you think, again, it's a typical thing that developers do. It's okay.

[56:59] We'll probably get a park with some trees and everything else, so lower the

[57:02] expectations. But we're going to protect ourselves.

[57:04] It's just the normal things that we see in development.

[57:08] We're going to do things right, but the reality is I wouldn't depend on all those

[57:11] things, and nor, it's just part of the development business.

[57:15] But we're going to protect ourselves in terms of basically making sure that

[57:18] development is done at no cost to this town, and they'll give us the

[57:22] municipal reserve that we are owed from a park space perspective, and that's the

[57:25] key thing.

[57:27] Go ahead.

[57:28] Great. I've got a question regarding the

[57:31] 8.2%. Is it being added to what we paid

[57:35] last year for taxes, or added to the

[57:39] much larger assessment that we received this spring?

[57:43] If I may, I'll speak to this. Assessment increases

[57:47] don't necessarily make your taxes go up.

[57:49] So say, for example, if we charge a million dollars for taxes and

[57:53] everybody's assessments goes up, we actually reduce the mill rate so that we only

[57:56] charge for a million dollars. What matters about assessments and why they

[58:00] fluctuate is

[58:02] assessments are used to compare you to the average in town.

[58:05] So if your assessment, you build a new garage or finish your basement and yours

[58:08] went up, you'll pay more taxes compared to your neighbors.

[58:10] But assessment fluctuations don't actually increase your taxes.

[58:13] Okay.

[58:13] Now-

[58:14] That's what I wanted clear.

[58:15] Yeah. So, and the greatest example I have is I bought my first house.

[58:18] I can still remember hyperventilating in 1998.

[58:21] It cost me $160,000. I look back now and go, "Wow, was ever lucky."

[58:25] But literally within four years, the house doubled in price.

[58:28] They didn't double my taxes. The taxes basically were

[58:32] massaged basically with the mill rate to make sure that we didn't pay double taxes.

[58:36] So that's how it works. Assessments fluctuate, but it's about comparing you to your

[58:39] neighbors. That's all it does.

[58:40] Okay. No, that's fair.

[58:41] Okay.

[58:42] And the 3% extra on utilities,

[58:46] is that added just to the utilities, or is it added

[58:50] also to that extra $25 that was thrown in last year

[58:54] that was supposed to go to reserves and never did?

[58:59] The 3% is added on top, and we do have a plan to replenish

[59:03] and make up for the $25 charge, which was meant for a capital

[59:07] project. Now, we couldn't fix everything in a day.

[59:10] We do have a plan in the long term to fix the tax rates,

[59:14] and we're committed to that in our long-term plan.

[59:17] But I'll be frank, we needed to put some in utilities because we need to replenish

[59:20] the reserves and start taking care of that.

[59:22] But we're going to try to massage the rates down and increase the taxes where they

[59:26] should be. It's a bit complicated, but so it is over and above, but we're going to

[59:29] fix that situation as well.

[59:30] Okay. And I'll get my last point in, and then I'll let somebody

[59:34] else have a turn. I've only lived out here for two years.

[59:38] So I did not bring in the previous council.

[59:43] I just kind of

[59:45] got them.

[59:49] I only have a single income in my home because there's just me, because the cats

[59:52] and dogs, they don't earn anything.

[59:56] It's a challenge to have this extra 8% and then 7% and

[1:00:00] 7%. I don't get a raise like that every year.

[1:00:04] So it means while I'm also dealing with inflation,

[1:00:09] my budget personally is getting considerably

[1:00:13] tighter.

[1:00:15] So

[1:00:17] it's not something I think you can fix, but it's just

[1:00:20] something that you should be aware of.

[1:00:24] That's all I've got.

[1:00:25] It's a very fair statement. Thank you.

[1:00:28] Okay. First of all, I apologize. I showed up 10 minutes late.

[1:00:32] My neighbor texted me, said there's a meeting.

[1:00:35] So all I can ask is moving forward, we're going to have town hall

[1:00:39] meetings. Let's have something in the mailbox.

[1:00:42] Look at the empty chairs. This place should be full.

[1:00:47] Fair enough.

[1:00:49] It's a minor fix, but let's have better acknowledgement

[1:00:53] for the people information.

[1:00:55] Secondly, I showed up a little late, butIf I'm not mistaken, our

[1:00:59] taxes are going up 8.2% this year?

[1:01:03] That's right.

[1:01:03] Okay. 8.2 next year?

[1:01:06] We're projecting 7% next year.

[1:01:08] 7% and 7% and 7%.

[1:01:10] And 7% and 7%. We're trying to keep it even. Yep.

[1:01:12] Plus three for utilities and everything else.

[1:01:14] Pardon me?

[1:01:15] Okay. My question with the development, last meeting

[1:01:19] we had, it was mentioned that there was no-

[1:01:21] Put a pause off

[1:01:21] ... future development

[1:01:23] moving forward, but I guess previous council approved something over

[1:01:27] along the

[1:01:28] whatever. That's still going forward. Is that correct?

[1:01:33] I'm sorry. I-

[1:01:33] With landmarks

[1:01:33] ... was just talking.

[1:01:34] Landmarks,

[1:01:36] Landrix is still moving forward with their development?

[1:01:39] Yes.

[1:01:39] Okay.

[1:01:40] So there's a piece of land,

[1:01:42] called Riverside-

[1:01:43] Okay

[1:01:43] ... that Landrix is planning on now.

[1:01:45] They're the ones who are in charge of The Meadows, and they're

[1:01:49] also the area south of A&W and

[1:01:53] the Tim Horton's. They didn't develop that, but south of that is about

[1:01:57] 55 acres that is tied to that local improvement that we're going to enforce a

[1:02:01] local improvement bylaw on to recoup our money.

[1:02:04] So we're going to try to get them to develop that, but if they don't, we're still

[1:02:07] getting our money back.

[1:02:07] So just so I understand, if we have development in residential, that

[1:02:11] increases taxes, then it helps the town out by having more residents, correct?

[1:02:15] More than that, actually.

[1:02:17] Understood. Okay.

[1:02:17] Yep.

[1:02:19] When the council...

[1:02:21] We voted for you. When you have a meeting that's that important

[1:02:25] on having a

[1:02:27] welfare place for horses or animals in an indigenous area,

[1:02:31] we all need to be part of that conversation.

[1:02:35] Now, whether it's done in a gymnasium like this, because going through this, what

[1:02:38] we went through, I've been in this town for over 20 years.

[1:02:42] My wife grew up in this town, 56 years.

[1:02:45] Going through this can never happen again,

[1:02:49] so we need to be understood, full disclosure, everybody understands

[1:02:52] everything. But a lot of people don't understand everything. They don't see it.

[1:02:56] So we need to have a better, again, information going out to the people to

[1:03:00] have better conversations. That's one of the things I have.

[1:03:05] Well, another couple things or one more.

[1:03:08] Sorry, I'm just taking the notes and I'm writing them down on my phone.

[1:03:11] It's the way I do it, technology.

[1:03:18] Service cuts. Again, I was 10 minutes late.

[1:03:21] So service cuts.

[1:03:22] Mm-hmm.

[1:03:22] Now, I can understand people's issues with the street cleaning, but I

[1:03:26] also seen the poor b*****s sitting there with the bobcat

[1:03:30] shoveling gravel. Is our equipment that we have right now

[1:03:34] fixed? Is the repairs needed, is that all part of your plan to make sure that

[1:03:38] every piece of equipment we have is good to go?

[1:03:42] So we are depending on our public works team to let us know what

[1:03:47] capital needs to be fixed. As far as I've heard, our capital's in pretty good

[1:03:50] shape. One thing I wanted to mention to the gentleman about the alleys, just today,

[1:03:54] we were looking at the possibility of a new piece of equipment that helps grade the

[1:03:58] back alleys in a better way, because doing it with a grader doesn't work very well.

[1:04:01] So we are looking at our equipment as part of our service level increases,

[1:04:05] but we're also having to do that, and we need to be careful this year because we

[1:04:08] need to prove that we can put money in the bank.

[1:04:10] And then we're going to start looking at long-term capital replacement, but this

[1:04:12] year, we don't want to take the risk.

[1:04:15] Okay.

[1:04:16] Yep.

[1:04:16] So

[1:04:18] just so I understand, again, sorry, there's going to be a vote coming

[1:04:22] up on path A or path B.

[1:04:25] Yep.

[1:04:25] Your path that we're paying you for and everything else and the councilors are

[1:04:28] hoping for and the town's hoping for to stay a town-

[1:04:31] Yep

[1:04:31] ... with path A.

[1:04:32] Right.

[1:04:33] Is there going to be a conversation at that time?

[1:04:36] Because a lot of people don't really understand what's going on.

[1:04:39] They're not here. They don't get the information. They don't have Facebook.

[1:04:42] Is there going to be a moment where, Mayor, yourself, and the councilors can sit

[1:04:46] here and tell everybody,

[1:04:49] "Plan A, pros and cons. Plan B, pros and

[1:04:52] cons," before we have the vote, just so everybody's up and up and understands

[1:04:56] exactly what's at stake?

[1:04:59] Yeah.

[1:05:00] I fully don't know.

[1:05:01] Yeah. That's absolutely correct, and it's not us that's putting it on.

[1:05:05] It's the government's putting it on, and they'll notify

[1:05:08] every single homeowner

[1:05:11] here in town, taxpayer in town, when that date'll be.

[1:05:14] Okay.

[1:05:14] And then they'll

[1:05:17] present both options and what it will look like if we stay a town and

[1:05:21] what it might look like if we become Sturgeon County.

[1:05:23] And that's going to happen end of May, first part of June.

[1:05:27] And then at the end of June, once the people have been informed what it might look

[1:05:31] like, end of June, June 24th and 25th, is when the vote

[1:05:34] takes place.

[1:05:35] Okay. When he comes here and has that conversation, it's probably a good

[1:05:39] idea for the seven of you up there to have another meeting just

[1:05:43] before the vote just to explain very clearly, with

[1:05:46] accuracy-

[1:05:47] Can-

[1:05:47] ... on exactly what path.

[1:05:49] Can I ask basic- I'm hearing the sound isn't working by many people are

[1:05:53] saying they're not hearing things. So I'm not sure.

[1:05:55] I find you need to talk right into the mic, so maybe that's the issue.

[1:05:58] But are-

[1:05:58] Sorry. I hear myself quite loudly, but-

[1:06:00] Yeah.

[1:06:01] So-

[1:06:01] No, I hear you really well, but some people are saying they can't hear anything, so

[1:06:04] I'm not sure if it's- There's lots of empty seats at the front.

[1:06:06] Perhaps maybe they could move up, because I think the people in the front are doing

[1:06:09] okay hearing you. Well, they're the...

[1:06:11] We have a group that-

[1:06:11] All I'm getting at, the bottom line is for this, is I expect

[1:06:15] the seven of you to make it very clear to everybody

[1:06:19] exactly what path is this and what path is that without the Alberta

[1:06:23] government involvement.

[1:06:25] Yep.

[1:06:25] Just so we have a clear understanding before we vote.

[1:06:28] I agree with you that,

[1:06:31] yeah, we should make it clear what this path is, what that path is,

[1:06:34] because there's been a lot of misinformation that's been stated.

[1:06:39] We're all accessible through email.

[1:06:42] The majority of us have Facebook. Our cell phone numbers are on our business

[1:06:46] cards. Please feel free to reach out if there's something you don't understand, and

[1:06:49] we will do our best to help explain it.

[1:06:51] But it is noted what you're saying about more advertisement.

[1:06:54] The only thing is cost.

[1:06:57] So I don't know. Maybe I'll print it at home and shove it in everybody's mailboxes.

[1:07:00] Thank you.

[1:07:03] I

[1:07:07] appreciate your questions and your comments, everything you said.

[1:07:10] I agree with everything.

[1:07:12] And one thing to understand too is that we are

[1:07:16] residents as well.

[1:07:18] For me, I know I want to understand what I'm voting for,

[1:07:22] what I'm deciding, what direction.

[1:07:24] There's

[1:07:26] pride and then there's foolish pride.

[1:07:28] If option B was

[1:07:32] far greater, far more affordable,

[1:07:36] far more shiny than option A, then

[1:07:39] that would be the route, right?

[1:07:43] I'm not going to try to hold on to my position as

[1:07:46] councilor or try to hold on to our title as a

[1:07:49] town if it means paying loads of extra money

[1:07:53] and losing services and all that kind of stuff.

[1:07:56] I don't want to do that. So definitely, we want the information as well.

[1:08:01] And then as far as

[1:08:04] reaching out and everything like that, I want to have conversations with people

[1:08:07] like yourself. I want to have conversations about the

[1:08:11] development. I want to hear from everybody.

[1:08:14] I want to hear everybody's voice.

[1:08:17] So when I'm speaking with Tim, when we're sitting in meetings, when we're

[1:08:21] deciding on what direction to go, I know full well what the people want.

[1:08:25] I know what you want. I know what everybody wants.

[1:08:27] I know what I want. I know where I stand.

[1:08:30] And I need the confidence from all of you

[1:08:35] so I can stand there and I can make my decisions, and I can

[1:08:39] feel confident that I'm representing you properly.

[1:08:42] So even before we're done tonight, if you want, you can come up here.

[1:08:45] I'll take your number. I'll give you my number, and then we can kind of

[1:08:49] stay in touch because that's something I'd like to do, is to be in

[1:08:53] touch with people like yourself.

[1:09:01] Go ahead,

[1:09:03] Bill.

[1:09:03] I think we should quit crying and give these people a chance to

[1:09:07] get a hold of this stuff and get it sorted out.

[1:09:10] It isn't going to happen overnight, but we got a whole bunch of new people that

[1:09:14] want to do it right and give them a chance.

[1:09:19] It isn't easy. Just like the guy who shovels snow,

[1:09:23] I got 10 years on you, and I do it too.

[1:09:26] But I do it because I like it.

[1:09:29] I'm a fool.

[1:09:32] But I

[1:09:35] always got told the Lord helps him who helps himself,

[1:09:39] so I do a lot for myself.

[1:09:42] And I clean sidewalks and stuff for people that

[1:09:46] can't do it

[1:09:47] and look down the road and see physically fit people.

[1:09:51] We have a snow removal bylaw

[1:09:54] for sidewalks,

[1:09:56] and it's one of the most ill,

[1:09:59] most ignored bylaw on the whole damn book,

[1:10:04] when you look out the window.

[1:10:06] So everybody complains,

[1:10:09] but sometimes those people got to stop complaining and start

[1:10:14] leading the bandwagon.

[1:10:23] Appreciate it, Bill.

[1:10:23] Thank you, sir. We appreciate it.

[1:10:26] Thank you, former mayor.

[1:10:31] Tim, could you just pull up that one slide that indicated the

[1:10:34] 4.5 acre

[1:10:37] reimbursement tally?

[1:10:42] Yeah, you kind of glossed over it, and I just wanted

[1:10:46] to ask,

[1:10:47] what is the

[1:10:49] negotiation tactics or what is the win-win

[1:10:53] situation? Because you're negotiating with Landrix to try to pay back

[1:10:57] some of that money, I'm assuming.

[1:10:59] Yeah. I guess

[1:11:03] it's not a negotiation.

[1:11:05] We have a letter on file that says they agreed to a local improvement

[1:11:09] methodology, which means that we need to create a local improvement bylaw that's

[1:11:12] enforceable, and then we need to tax it.

[1:11:15] And so it's pretty simple, basically.

[1:11:17] But the problematic issue is that the way it was done before was done wrong.

[1:11:22] So the local improvement bylaw was done with the wrong land parcels.

[1:11:25] The

[1:11:26] local improvement bylaw was flawed in its terminology and the way it was worded.

[1:11:30] So we're creating a bylaw which enforces that land to be basically paid

[1:11:34] back over the 30 years as agreed by letter that we have on file.

[1:11:38] So it's not necessarily a negotiation more than an enforcement of the deal that

[1:11:42] they agreed to.

[1:11:43] Oh, perfect. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't one of those win-win

[1:11:46] situations where we had to give up a pile of items to get this.

[1:11:50] Well, we already spent the pile of money.

[1:11:52] Well, yeah.

[1:11:53] So-

[1:11:53] It's great to actually get that money back.

[1:11:56] Yeah. One of the things maybe that would help is

[1:11:59] the nature of development cost and charges

[1:12:03] is that municipalities will put the

[1:12:05] infrastructure in the ground because they want to receive taxation dollars

[1:12:10] from the development because that helps our financial sustainability.

[1:12:12] So they'll front the cost of the capital, which is pretty typical.

[1:12:16] But the agreements are normally is that it's attached to what's called a

[1:12:20] local improvement bylaw or a offsite levy bylaw.

[1:12:24] And once those bylaws are in place, then you can enforce basically development

[1:12:28] charges around the development, and that's enforceable and then they have to pay

[1:12:31] us. That wasn't done. So the money went in the ground without the

[1:12:34] proper work being done, and I've done those things before, and so that's

[1:12:38] what we're working on. Takes some time, but I can say this with assuredness, we do

[1:12:42] have opinions on file that says that this will be enforceable, and we will

[1:12:46] recoup that money.

[1:12:47] Perfect. Yeah. That's great news.

[1:12:50] I just wanted to make sure we were going to get some money-

[1:12:52] We will

[1:12:52] ... to help the town.

[1:12:53] Yeah.

[1:12:54] Kind of next question.

[1:12:56] Yeah.

[1:12:57] Now, with regards to the 54 lots or the 300 plus lots,

[1:13:02] what actual say do we have in that? Just because all the

[1:13:06] land actually was purchased by Landrix.

[1:13:08] So I know they have to go through the-...

[1:13:10] protocols of development-

[1:13:11] Yeah

[1:13:11] ... permits and stuff like that. Do we have any

[1:13:15] say? And will it be

[1:13:18] just a council and administration

[1:13:22] procedure-

[1:13:23] Yeah

[1:13:23] ... or will this be open to the public so that we have some sort of say?

[1:13:26] There's definitely, and again, council may want to speak to this, but there's

[1:13:29] definitely a process that we can go through

[1:13:32] to request and negotiate for developments to be done in a certain way.

[1:13:36] And again, through land use planning and bylaws and our municipal development plan,

[1:13:40] we can enforce things to an extent.

[1:13:43] But I'll say this just for everybody's awareness,

[1:13:45] and I think it's one of the things that would make our country special and quite

[1:13:49] frankly, the way that we work, is that we can't control what people do on their

[1:13:52] land to an extent. So,

[1:13:56] they are the landowners. We can negotiate under our land use bylaw and our

[1:13:59] municipal development plan, what types of densities and things like that go on

[1:14:02] there, but they have some control.

[1:14:05] And the one problematic issue that occurs is that I can say, because I've seen

[1:14:09] it, when developers take a town or a municipality to court,

[1:14:14] usually the courts will side on the side of the developers when they really push

[1:14:17] what they want on their lands. That said, it's still open to negotiation, and

[1:14:21] I'll say this. This council advocated very hard in the last meeting that we had

[1:14:25] with Landrex, and Landrex seems to be open to those kinds of discussions right now.

[1:14:28] So, we're doing our best. That's the key thing.

[1:14:32] The one thing I'll say just for awareness around the riverside development is that

[1:14:35] we have very old infrastructure that was put in the ground many years ago, which is

[1:14:39] water and sewer infrastructure that falls under the new offsite levy bylaw that

[1:14:43] we'll be putting together. That means $2 million of non-debt money that's

[1:14:48] on there could possibly come into the town.

[1:14:50] So, that's a very big opportunity for us.

[1:14:55] I know that there's always going to be controversy around development.

[1:14:57] That's always normal. I've seen it many years.

[1:15:00] The Bremner development, for example, in Strathcona County was 10 years of

[1:15:03] discussion at the council level before they approved it.

[1:15:06] So, there's a long way to go here and a long runway, and this council is advocating

[1:15:10] very hard for the right things to be put in that development.

[1:15:12] That's the best we can do.

[1:15:14] Perfect. Now, any-

[1:15:15] I just, can I give-

[1:15:16] ... future development. Oh, go ahead.

[1:15:18] Can I just, one thing.

[1:15:20] There was an open house on Tuesday for anyone in the community who

[1:15:24] wanted to speak against, better,

[1:15:29] for or against that development or raise any

[1:15:32] concerns. I'm not going to lie, I was

[1:15:36] surprised that there were only three voices that raised

[1:15:39] concerns with regard to that development.

[1:15:42] As Tim indicated,

[1:15:46] there are two landowners for that parcel of property,

[1:15:50] and it's difficult for us to say

[1:15:54] no to a development.

[1:15:57] One, it's financially beneficial for the

[1:16:01] town, but there's not a person that's sitting up here

[1:16:05] that wouldn't have absolutely listened to every voice that came to that

[1:16:09] meeting and the concerns that they raised.

[1:16:12] The unfortunate part is there weren't a lot of voices raised.

[1:16:16] The concerns with regard to access are all of our

[1:16:20] concerns, because that's a safety issue.

[1:16:23] But I'm not going to lie, I was surprised that there weren't more

[1:16:26] people vocal

[1:16:29] with regard to the development. But there was an

[1:16:31] opportunity.

[1:16:33] But I fully agree with you, and both myself and Anita

[1:16:37] attended that, and she was one of the voices speaking

[1:16:41] to those issues. It was the same type of event that happened

[1:16:45] back in 2009-ish, roughly, when Landrex tried

[1:16:48] to develop across the street from us,

[1:16:51] and they wanted to have zero lot line houses with garages backing out onto the main

[1:16:55] 51st Street that would have then shut down all traffic flow if there was one

[1:16:59] accident.

[1:17:00] So, there wasn't a lot of people that came to that event.

[1:17:03] I'm glad to see there's more people here at this event.

[1:17:06] We need everyone in town to come and express their opinions, because

[1:17:10] development doesn't happen if people express their

[1:17:13] opinions and they're not in favor.

[1:17:16] The people still, sort of in this country, still

[1:17:20] have the power.

[1:17:22] Sure.

[1:17:23] I agree with you 100%. People need to speak up.

[1:17:25] Curtis Toll, longtime resident.

[1:17:33] Hello.

[1:17:34] I'm John McBain, a pretty new resident, less than two years here, and

[1:17:38] I've really enjoyed living in Gibbons.

[1:17:39] I think it's a great town or possibly a great hamlet, but I'll still

[1:17:43] be living here no matter what it turns out to be.

[1:17:46] What I'm a little concerned about is

[1:17:50] the word transparency. It's a very popular word,

[1:17:54] but it's a lot harder to implement than it is to talk about.

[1:17:58] I was glad to hear there's some plan to

[1:18:01] improve transparency going forward, so there's more involvement with town

[1:18:06] residents with what's going on with the town itself.

[1:18:10] But I'm wondering about the details, because, for example, a very small thing,

[1:18:14] even watching the slides, I found that it was very hard for me to read

[1:18:18] some of the slides, because there's a lot on one

[1:18:22] slide.

[1:18:25] And again, in terms of communication, some of the slides were very general, some

[1:18:29] were spot on, talking about the different cash flows-

[1:18:31] No surprise

[1:18:32] ... operating versus capital versus

[1:18:35] the third cash flow.

[1:18:38] But a slide like the one up there, it's a lot of numbers.

[1:18:41] It doesn't have too much explanatory detail.

[1:18:45] I'm wondering what the plans are to provide transparency both

[1:18:48] between now and June so that we are very well-informed when we make

[1:18:52] our vote, and also in the future, because that was talked about, but

[1:18:56] I don't know if you've been able to focus on how to

[1:19:00] implement that.

[1:19:03] By the way, I have to compliment the present town council on transparency

[1:19:07] compared to previous ones. From everything I hear, you're doing a much better job,

[1:19:10] so thank you.

[1:19:15] Thank you.

[1:19:17] We have increased our transparency.

[1:19:20] We speak out about what we can. We're all available on social

[1:19:23] media. The town halls, I was part of the

[1:19:27] previous

[1:19:28] petition to get a town hall.

[1:19:31] We're offering them up just because we're not perfect, we're not there yet, but

[1:19:34] it's only six months in and we're fighting, and we want to hear from you.

[1:19:38] We keep encouraging people, email us, call us.

[1:19:41] We want to hear your voices. That's why we're here.

[1:19:44] Thank you.

[1:19:48] So I got a question. I

[1:19:50] look at your budget and you say you have $300,000 of savings in

[1:19:54] contracted services and professional fees, yet your budget shows that

[1:19:58] you're actually spending $295,000 more.

[1:20:02] Yeah. So what happened there is we saved money in $300,000 from

[1:20:06] year to year in current contracts.

[1:20:08] We moved what was in the salary expenses previously.

[1:20:12] So what was in the CAO salary, and the CFO salary, and the

[1:20:15] assistant CAO salary, we moved down that to contracts for one year because we're

[1:20:19] there. So it wasn't an increase, it was a reallocation from salaries to contracts

[1:20:24] to compensate for us, but we're gone at the end of the year.

[1:20:26] They were always contracted.

[1:20:27] No, there was in the salaries area.

[1:20:32] Ryan?

[1:20:35] So they're contracted services.

[1:20:37] Yeah. No. So within the budget, they were listed in the salary

[1:20:41] section-

[1:20:41] They were

[1:20:42] ... but I reclassed it into an actual contracted service account,

[1:20:46] so it shows properly.

[1:20:47] So they were contracted-

[1:20:47] So then you don't actually have 1.2 million-

[1:20:49] They were contracted

[1:20:49] ... in employment savings. You've only actually got

[1:20:53] 900,000 in employment savings.

[1:20:56] I can't-

[1:20:56] Which number are you off?

[1:20:58] I can't hear you.

[1:20:58] That's not correct.

[1:21:01] So we calculated the salaries based on the 14 people that we

[1:21:06] reduced, was equivalent to $1.2 million exactly.

[1:21:10] We then moved 300, about,

[1:21:14] around on the list of contracted salaries that were contracts but were under

[1:21:18] the salaries incorrectly. We moved those down to contract services because we're

[1:21:21] contracted staff right now. Once we leave, if council so chooses to hire

[1:21:25] those as permanent salary positions, then it would be moved back.

[1:21:28] But it'd be incorrect to put them in the budget as salary positions because we're

[1:21:32] not staff.

[1:21:33] So if you say you're leaving at the end of the year, why is it in the three-year

[1:21:36] outlook?

[1:21:37] Pardon me?

[1:21:38] If you say you're leaving at the end of the year, why is your contracted services

[1:21:41] in the three-year outlook?

[1:21:43] That's, again-

[1:21:44] And increasing

[1:21:45] ... we are leaving, I can guarantee you that.

[1:21:47] So it's going to be-

[1:21:48] I hope so.

[1:21:49] Okay. Thank you.

[1:21:50] Yeah.

[1:21:55] Again, crickets.

[1:21:57] It's-

[1:21:58] I can't hear him. The echo is so loud

[1:22:00] ... it's up to council to speak to that, and they're not, so

[1:22:04] that's fine.

[1:22:05] I can't understand.

[1:22:06] He said he's glad-

[1:22:06] Is that better?

[1:22:10] No, it's worse.

[1:22:11] That's worse?

[1:22:12] There. Whatever you were just doing.

[1:22:14] Could you just maybe repeat what you said to council, please?

[1:22:18] So the budget shows contracted services increasing from roughly 824,000

[1:22:22] to about 1.19 million. At the same time, programs supporting youth and

[1:22:25] vulnerable residents-

[1:22:26] I don't know why you-

[1:22:26] ... as well as essential public services were reduced or eliminated.

[1:22:30] Which specific contracted services account for that 295,000 increase,

[1:22:34] and why were those prioritized over community supports?

[1:22:39] Maybe slow down just a little bit and then repeat that, because it sounds like one

[1:22:42] word.

[1:22:44] I've already asked it twice.

[1:22:45] Pardon me?

[1:22:46] I've already asked it twice, and I've asked the council-

[1:22:48] Okay. I

[1:22:49] can't-

[1:22:50] They can ask me that. He doesn't need to.

[1:22:53] And I've repeated it.

[1:22:54] We're trying to help, sir. So if you could-

[1:22:56] Sorry. Can you just say it slower?

[1:23:01] The published budget shows contracted-

[1:23:04] No, we're not-

[1:23:04] ... services increasing from roughly-

[1:23:06] Excuse me, sir

[1:23:07] ... 824,000.

[1:23:08] Sit down. If you can't behave and you can't have proper decorum and etiquette,

[1:23:12] you're going to be asked to sit down or leave. Okay?

[1:23:14] I have proper etiquette, sir.

[1:23:15] You don't need to be-

[1:23:16] The way you're behaving is not proper.

[1:23:18] Pardon me?

[1:23:19] The way you're behaving is not appropriate.

[1:23:23] Really?

[1:23:23] Nor is it wanted in here.

[1:23:24] Really?

[1:23:25] Thank you.

[1:23:27] I believe you invited me here. You told me to come here.

[1:23:30] Yes, but we want people to just be normal. Nice guy.

[1:23:33] Would you like Carol Barac's etiquette?

[1:23:37] No.

[1:23:37] We

[1:23:38] do want to hear you.

[1:23:40] Stop yelling in his ear.

[1:23:40] It's just we can't. So-

[1:23:42] What the heck?

[1:23:42] ... we want to hear what you have to say.

[1:23:45] So if you could calmly say it again but a little bit slower so that we're not

[1:23:48] getting the echo, I would appreciate it.

[1:23:52] Is that better?

[1:23:54] I think-

[1:23:54] Let's see here

[1:23:55] ... you just have a very loud voice.

[1:23:56] Try taking the mic-

[1:23:56] I have a deep voice, yeah.

[1:23:57] Try the microphone a little bit further from-

[1:23:59] That's what I'm trying to do.

[1:24:00] Yeah.

[1:24:00] At one time you guys said I was too far, now you're saying I'm too close, so.

[1:24:03] Just you have a loud voice-

[1:24:04] Is this good?

[1:24:05] ... and it just really echoes.

[1:24:06] Is that good there?

[1:24:07] Yeah.

[1:24:07] I can hear that.

[1:24:08] Okay.

[1:24:10] So

[1:24:12] basically,

[1:24:13] we got 824,000 turning into 1.19 million

[1:24:17] for contracted services. At the same time, programs supporting youth,

[1:24:21] vulnerable residents, as well as essential public services such as a bylaw officer,

[1:24:25] which I believe is a contracted services, is being reduced or

[1:24:28] eliminated. What specific contracted services account for that

[1:24:32] 295,000 increase, and why were those prioritized over community

[1:24:36] supports?

[1:24:37] I'll explain it very clearly. So-

[1:24:40] I've asked for the mayor to explain or council.

[1:24:42] Pardon me?

[1:24:43] I've asked for mayor or the council to explain it.

[1:24:45] Oh, okay. Go ahead. They can explain it, but from a... Okay, go ahead.

[1:24:52] There was a change

[1:24:55] from wages that were moved down into,

[1:25:00] as

[1:25:01] the interim CAO has already indicated, has

[1:25:05] moved from wages to contract services because they are not an

[1:25:08] employee, they are a contractor. When that

[1:25:12] contract ceases, we will then reallocate back to

[1:25:16] wagesThat's the reason for the increase

[1:25:20] in contract services. It had absolutely nothing to do with the reduction

[1:25:24] of service to the community. It was a change from wages to

[1:25:27] contract services. Initially, you also made an indication that the

[1:25:31] previous administration were all

[1:25:34] contractors. That is an incorrect statement.

[1:25:37] There was one contractor, and that was financial services.

[1:25:41] The others were salaried employees.

[1:25:44] So

[1:25:46] if you want to be aggressive with us, I really honestly suggest

[1:25:49] you be aggressive

[1:25:51] with correct facts.

[1:25:55] I suggest you be aggressive with correct facts as well.

[1:25:57] Our last permanent CAO was a contractor.

[1:26:01] No, he wasn't.

[1:26:01] He was a contract employee.

[1:26:03] But it was-

[1:26:05] I FOIP'd his contract. He was a contract employee, which is different than a

[1:26:08] contractor. That means that we paid

[1:26:11] for the employee

[1:26:16] deductions. We paid those. He didn't have his own WCB

[1:26:19] contributions. He didn't have the things that would be

[1:26:23] required of a contractor versus a contract employee.

[1:26:26] So there is a difference. Thank you.

[1:26:28] A contract employee or a contractor is all liable for that themselves.

[1:26:34] I think-

[1:26:34] Yes, they are.

[1:26:35] I think the key thing, though, your question is, where were they were in the

[1:26:38] budget? So whether it was a contracted employee or not, it was in the salaries

[1:26:42] section. And one thing I want to make clear,

[1:26:45] Farrell's contract was $240,000 a year, salaries and

[1:26:49] benefits. Monique was $170,000, salaries and

[1:26:53] benefits, and then plus more.

[1:26:55] The assistant CAO was 150,000. Those three contracts were

[1:26:59] combined, put into contracted services, and we're not taking one dime more

[1:27:03] than what they were paid. And that's been a policy that's been around here for a

[1:27:06] long time. That I'm making

[1:27:09] 500,000, I wish. We're being paid no more than what they were.

[1:27:12] That was a deal I made with this council, and that's a reasonable deal for the work

[1:27:15] that we've been doing. So we're being paid no more than your former staff were.

[1:27:19] Right.

[1:27:19] And it's been reallocated from the staffing section down to the contracted

[1:27:23] services. So there's been a reallocation of approximately $500,000

[1:27:27] for the former staff that were paid here under the contracts.

[1:27:30] If I may intervene.

[1:27:32] The other thing is that you're thinking it's just one person or two

[1:27:36] people. It's not. We're getting a whole team.

[1:27:38] The situation we are in currently,

[1:27:43] I believe, to quote Mr. Miller, "What hasn't been seen since the Great Depression."

[1:27:48] We needed somebody with the expertise and the skill set, and that's going to

[1:27:52] cost more. But we are getting a whole team. We're getting IT.

[1:27:55] There's so much value. Plus, we're all a new council,

[1:27:59] and it does benefit you that we are doing extra training

[1:28:02] online. We're getting strategic planning.

[1:28:05] We're getting so much more than what you think we're getting.

[1:28:08] And like they said, it's a movement in the budget in categorization.

[1:28:14] Like I say, we can agree to disagree, but even at 500,000, I believe

[1:28:18] if we add up what your two companies are taking, it's about

[1:28:21] 660,000 in a year.

[1:28:25] So it's-

[1:28:26] So it's about 160,000 additionally.

[1:28:28] Again, it is for three positions

[1:28:32] at the going rate, actually less than what we charge other clients for

[1:28:36] the same work. But it's actually at the going rate for CAO, a CFO, and an

[1:28:40] assistant CAO. But you're also getting, on top of that, a summer student, my

[1:28:44] IT resources. I have three CPAs, not one, three that are

[1:28:48] supporting the town,

[1:28:50] and plus our strategic planning and everything else.

[1:28:53] And so you're getting actually six.

[1:28:54] At times, you've had support with six or seven people.

[1:28:57] You've got a summer student working full time for the town right now at no extra

[1:29:01] cost.

[1:29:03] Yeah. That's fine. But how long is it going to continue?

[1:29:07] Because I think we can all agree that a town of this size can't

[1:29:11] even-

[1:29:11] When we leave here-

[1:29:12] Even Farrell's salary was too high for a town of this size.

[1:29:15] I think what's very important to understand-

[1:29:17] I've said publicly that-

[1:29:19] The thing-

[1:29:19] ... your nature and your organization's nature is needed in a short-term

[1:29:23] basis, as long as it stays that.

[1:29:25] Yeah.

[1:29:25] But it's also been said online that there's no intent for you guys to leave.

[1:29:28] Now you're saying that there is within a year-

[1:29:30] No, there is-

[1:29:30] ... which I can respect a lot more.

[1:29:32] There's always been,

[1:29:34] unfortunately, the intent for the Bloom team to leave because you are

[1:29:38] absolutely correct. We can't afford them.

[1:29:41] Yeah.

[1:29:42] They've been an absolutely amazing resource for us.

[1:29:45] Very, very quickly assessed a terrible situation and actually moved

[1:29:49] through it.

[1:29:50] So,

[1:29:53] this is an interim solution for us, and this council

[1:29:57] is very, very confident and very, very pleased with

[1:30:01] the work that the Bloom team has done.

[1:30:04] Sorry, my apologies. We will continue to have them as long as they'll have

[1:30:07] us. But they've indicated to us

[1:30:11] that there is an end time for them.

[1:30:15] Yeah, and that's respectful. At the end of the day, what they've done is good.

[1:30:18] 95% of their budget is commendable.

[1:30:21] It's what's needed in this town to drop the fees and everything else.

[1:30:24] I've stated that publicly. It's not all bad, but this

[1:30:28] town cannot afford to be paying administration

[1:30:31] 600,000-plus a year.

[1:30:33] We also agree with you.

[1:30:34] Just wait, I'm not done.

[1:30:34] Do you have a second question? Do you have another question?

[1:30:36] I don't interrupt you.

[1:30:38] Please don't interrupt me.

[1:30:38] Do you have another question?

[1:30:40] Pardon?

[1:30:40] Do you have another question?

[1:30:41] Yeah, I got about 30 of them here.

[1:30:43] We'll be here for a while.

[1:30:48] Pardon?

[1:30:49] Did you want a pen?

[1:30:52] Yeah.

[1:30:54] You going to stop a tax-paying resident's right to speak politely?

[1:30:58] You're not being polite.

[1:31:00] You've already threatened me once. I have not been rude.

[1:31:03] I have not sworn at you. I have not done anything.

[1:31:06] Sit down.

[1:31:06] So we have citizens who are leaving because they don't want to listen to you

[1:31:09] anymore.

[1:31:10] That's great. I'm a citizen as well.

[1:31:12] Okay. We're going to give you an opportunity to ask one more question, then

[1:31:16] the-

[1:31:16] Nope, I'll be asking all my questions before I sit down.

[1:31:19] You'll give other people a chance to speak as well, sir?

[1:31:21] If you noticed, sir, I did. I politely waited for everybody

[1:31:25] elseAnd he can speak once I'm done.

[1:31:28] If you can't speak without yelling, then don't speak, sir.

[1:31:31] Really?

[1:31:31] Hold on. Let's just-

[1:31:33] You're the only one yelling here.

[1:31:34] It-

[1:31:34] No, he's got another microphone.

[1:31:36] Okay

[1:31:36] Go ahead. You deserve to be heard. Go ahead, finish your questions, and

[1:31:40] we can move on. I have to say, this is awesome.

[1:31:44] Go ahead.

[1:31:47] Just if you can finish your questions, we'd appreciate it.

[1:31:49] I'll even skip some that you've somewhat already answered.

[1:31:54] We could sit

[1:31:57] down.

[1:32:04] So basically, are you guys confirming that the interim CAO and corporate

[1:32:08] services director were sole source?

[1:32:12] Yes. Sure they were.

[1:32:13] As they normally are.

[1:32:14] What's your justification for that?

[1:32:16] What was the exact question?

[1:32:19] Sole source versus justification.

[1:32:20] They're not typically sole source.

[1:32:22] There's typically a public advertisement.

[1:32:24] Nope.

[1:32:25] According to the New West Trade Partnership, it's required to be publicly

[1:32:28] advertised if there's an intention to pay out more than $75,000 to one

[1:32:32] entity in one year.

[1:32:34] Well, I agree with you. If you look at our procurement bylaw, that isn't up to

[1:32:38] par, and I agree with you on that. That's not what is required in our

[1:32:42] procurement bylaw.

[1:32:43] Just because your procurement bylaw lacks what's required at the provincial level

[1:32:47] doesn't mean that it's an excuse not to do it.

[1:32:50] For sure. And I will tell you that we've been in six months, just six months,

[1:32:54] and we walked into a storm. So was that the least of our concerns when we

[1:32:58] had help at the ready that had a plan and was ready to hit ground and go

[1:33:02] running and has proven himself with his team? Yes.

[1:33:06] So will we take that one on the shoulder? Sure.

[1:33:09] I think we can all agree that at the end of the day, you're not supposed to

[1:33:13] be sole sourcing contracts. One of our big issues in this

[1:33:17] town is from these little back-end deals.

[1:33:24] It's funny you guys aren't concerned, but the municipal affairs, the local

[1:33:28] minister, local MLA are very concerned about this relationship.

[1:33:33] They should be, because they knew all along.

[1:33:36] They knew all along?

[1:33:37] Yes, they did. I can confirm it. I have emails.

[1:33:39] I was speaking to them continuously, as other councilors

[1:33:42] were, as a former councilor was.

[1:33:45] Yes, they should be concerned. Do we have a working relationship with them?

[1:33:49] Yes. But they were all aware from the jump.

[1:33:52] And as a citizen, I was continuously writing letters as well as

[1:33:55] being

[1:33:58] really into the legislative compliance review.

[1:34:02] I was sending them information at least three times a week, if not speaking to them

[1:34:06] as much.

[1:34:08] Yeah, and I believe you did that compliance review wrong as well.

[1:34:11] That's why it was rejected.

[1:34:14] Okay, one more,

[1:34:15] and then we'll move on to the next person.

[1:34:16] It's not one more.

[1:34:17] Yes. Thank you, sir.

[1:34:18] No. It's an open town hall. You did not put a limit on the questions.

[1:34:21] Sir-

[1:34:22] We can publicly ask questions.

[1:34:24] Sir, if you would ask your one last question, then go behind the person that's

[1:34:27] patiently been waiting behind you, and then you can ask more questions after that.

[1:34:31] You know what? I'll see you guys all in court.

[1:34:35] I'll file tomorrow.

[1:34:40] Okay.

[1:34:40] One more.

[1:34:40] No.

[1:34:40] Okay, thank you.

[1:34:41] Wow.

[1:34:43] Oh, you're getting filed.

[1:34:43] Well, that's too bad. I brought my lawyer with me.

[1:34:45] Okay. Go ahead.

[1:34:47] Hi, my name is Kim. I'm a fairly new resident.

[1:34:50] Just moved here in November.

[1:34:52] Welcome.

[1:34:53] Just wanted to ask three very quick questions.

[1:34:56] First being, when we go to vote for whether we go with plan A or plan

[1:35:00] B, is there a certain percentage of residents?

[1:35:04] So if we have 3,500 residents, is there a certain number of residents that have to

[1:35:07] participate in that vote for it to go either way?

[1:35:11] Or how does that work?

[1:35:12] I believe from what I understand, it's 51% of the votes tallied.

[1:35:16] Okay. So if only 10 people vote-

[1:35:19] That is correct, yes

[1:35:19] ... six people have to vote.

[1:35:21] Absolutely.

[1:35:21] Well, that would be sad.

[1:35:22] Second thing, just to follow up on the other gentleman from over there,

[1:35:27] that said that we just need some way to

[1:35:32] get it out that there are these meetings. I'm OCD. I saw it on Facebook.

[1:35:35] I immediately put it in my calendar.

[1:35:37] But then tonight I'm sitting there going, "Okay, I haven't seen anything else

[1:35:40] posted on Facebook to remind us that it's tonight.

[1:35:42] Is it really tonight?" So then I Googled on the town website and sure enough, it

[1:35:46] said it was here. But like he said, if you don't have Facebook or you don't,

[1:35:49] whatever, I don't know, and I know everything costs money, but there needs to be

[1:35:53] some way to get it so that everybody knows that they should come.

[1:35:57] You're not going to ever have 100% because some people are oblivious to what

[1:36:01] goes on around them. Some people really don't care.

[1:36:03] They know what's happening, but who cares? Anyways, just my two cents.

[1:36:07] And third thing, when do the tax bills come out in this?

[1:36:10] June 1.

[1:36:12] June 1st they go to the mail?

[1:36:14] Yeah.

[1:36:14] Okay. Very good. Thank you very much.

[1:36:16] Yeah, in regards to the advertisement,

[1:36:19] sorry, Charlotte, that I think since the utility bills are

[1:36:23] already going out, to put something like this added into the utility bill

[1:36:26] would be beneficial.

[1:36:28] Oh, so it'll probably come with the June utility bill then?

[1:36:30] Yeah.

[1:36:31] Okay.

[1:36:32] Yeah.

[1:36:32] And it's due by the end of June?

[1:36:33] And as far as the viability information session, the

[1:36:37] government will be contacting just like they did the last time.

[1:36:39] Yeah, we all got a letter in the mail.

[1:36:41] Yeah.

[1:36:41] So that's going to happen that way as well.

[1:36:42] Okay, perfect. Thank you.

[1:36:44] Just to follow up, I agree with what you're saying.

[1:36:47] I guess it was also on our electronic sign, on our electronic

[1:36:50] billboard.

[1:36:51] Oh, okay. The only thing I must drive by every time it says, "If you want your

[1:36:54] bill."

[1:36:56] Yeah. But yes-

[1:36:57] That's all it ever says to me

[1:36:58] ... duly noted, we will do our best to put it out there.

[1:37:01] I know many of us have our own councilor Facebook pages.

[1:37:04] We put it out on there, and there are a couple of residents that are amazing at

[1:37:08] putting things out on Facebook.

[1:37:10] Yeah.

[1:37:10] But we will do better. Thank you for your input.

[1:37:11] No, that's good. And that big board would be good, but it obviously needs to be a

[1:37:14] longer blip because- ... I don't roll through the stop, I

[1:37:17] promise.

[1:37:23] Check. Check.

[1:37:25] How is the mic?

[1:37:28] Can you hear me, council?

[1:37:29] Maybe

[1:37:30] just-No, it's

[1:37:34] just maybe right into the mic.

[1:37:36] Yeah, just-

[1:37:36] Yeah, just right in... There you go.

[1:37:40] Yeah. There you go.

[1:37:42] Okay. Test, test.

[1:37:44] Good.

[1:37:44] Okay. Good evening, council, administration, and

[1:37:48] residents.

[1:37:50] My name is Dan Burrin. I'm with

[1:37:51] municipalmedia.ca. In

[1:37:54] 2013, I was elected to the Thorhild

[1:37:58] County counselor,

[1:38:00] or to the council. That's where I met Counselor Harris

[1:38:04] at orientation in Morinville.

[1:38:09] I went through absolute hell in Thorhild County.

[1:38:16] What

[1:38:18] I'd first like to encourage the community is

[1:38:21] seek the peace as much as you can.

[1:38:27] My community was turned inside out by municipal affairs, and

[1:38:31] I see their tactics here.

[1:38:33] I was doing some consulting in Chestermere.

[1:38:38] That community got absolutely destroyed.

[1:38:41] I was there consulting for a short period.

[1:38:45] I was ledge services manager for a short period of time as well.

[1:38:51] I had one file of

[1:38:53] $400,000 that

[1:38:58] their sever--

[1:38:59] I'm just giving you this as an example to see what's happening across the

[1:39:03] province. So

[1:39:05] their severance was capped at

[1:39:08] 75,000.

[1:39:11] There was 600,000 dispensed, 200 for one

[1:39:15] staff member, 400 for another.

[1:39:19] Municipal Affairs knows about it, the RCMP.

[1:39:22] That was one of the files I was looking dearly to work on, but

[1:39:26] unfortunately,

[1:39:28] things didn't work out there for me.

[1:39:31] That council ran on the basis of

[1:39:34] transparency.

[1:39:37] They got outright attacked by Municipal Affairs.

[1:39:41] So when I was on council,

[1:39:43] we were on council for four months,

[1:39:47] and Municipal Affairs, the briefing notes to the minister,

[1:39:51] stated that they had phone calls.

[1:39:56] That's what they had was phone calls, and they instigated an

[1:39:59] inspection, which was illegal and unlawful, and Municipal

[1:40:03] Affairs has been doing these illegally for at least

[1:40:07] 30 years now,

[1:40:09] probably prior to right around 1994, when

[1:40:12] there was a major MGA

[1:40:15] review.

[1:40:16] So

[1:40:18] what

[1:40:20] is so concerning,

[1:40:23] it shocked me. Yesterday I saw that Mr.

[1:40:26] Johnsroot is no longer the official administrator,

[1:40:31] and Desiree Corey was just appointed.

[1:40:34] Well,

[1:40:35] I believe if you look on my website, municipalmedia.ca,

[1:40:41] you will find a preliminary review

[1:40:44] and preliminary review debunking information.

[1:40:47] Well, Desiree was part

[1:40:51] of that with a fellow by the name of Travis Nosco.

[1:40:54] You'll see their

[1:40:57] names on the report. Well, that report and the minister briefing

[1:41:01] notes was not authorized by legislation

[1:41:05] and-

[1:41:06] Sir, may I ask, do you have a question, sir?

[1:41:08] So what I'm doing is just sharing with you that

[1:41:13] that was all false information.

[1:41:16] Municipal Affairs is just, from what I just saw

[1:41:20] yesterday posted on social media, the ministerial

[1:41:23] order, and that's got to be the same person that's been

[1:41:27] appointed as an official administrator that published false

[1:41:31] information about Thorhild County.

[1:41:34] And that preliminary review is illegal.

[1:41:38] It's not authorized. It says right in the briefing notes that it's

[1:41:42] not authorized in legislation. And what they told us,

[1:41:46] it's voluntary.

[1:41:48] So they outright lied to us,

[1:41:51] had us go through this process,

[1:41:56] and

[1:41:57] then they used that to

[1:42:00] information in an inspection. Well, an inspection is

[1:42:04] never to look into conduct. A public inquiry is.

[1:42:07] So I'm not trying to bombard you folks.

[1:42:10] I was trying to condense it. But what's

[1:42:13] happening here

[1:42:15] is you councilors have to make some serious noise,

[1:42:19] and what I would do is demand

[1:42:23] a municipal inspection,

[1:42:26] and you can develop terms of reference.

[1:42:29] I'm willing to come out and do a town hall and step

[1:42:34] you folks, the administration, and the community

[1:42:38] through the process. I know it very well.

[1:42:42] I

[1:42:44] had a laugh the other day. Some councilors-

[1:42:46] Sir, we're going to have to ask you to ask a question.

[1:42:48] There's people waiting, so-

[1:42:49] So what I would like to do,

[1:42:52] what I'd like to do is come out,

[1:42:55] share my situation, encourage you guys to all go on my website.

[1:42:59] And as a municipal entity,

[1:43:03] the way you people act,

[1:43:05] you can act,

[1:43:07] try and get the facts, because that's what an inspection or inquiry is about.

[1:43:11] It's not a punitive process. And you can stop this corruption that's

[1:43:15] moving from community to community.

[1:43:17] If I may. We've asked for a viability review.

[1:43:20] We've been through a compliance review.

[1:43:22] I think we're going through a process, and quite frankly, there's always going to

[1:43:25] be challenges between the province municipalities.

[1:43:27] But right now,

[1:43:29] we have a relationship with them, and I think right now

[1:43:32] there's some concerns, but overall, I think the

[1:43:36] relationship's good. And so if there's anything else, or-

[1:43:38] Well, see-

[1:43:40] There's somebody waiting to ask a question.

[1:43:41] Sure. And in closingAn inspection and inquiry, the

[1:43:45] evidence is documented by oath or affirmation.

[1:43:50] Sir-

[1:43:50] And that's where you would have-

[1:43:51] Sir, I totally respect your voice,

[1:43:56] but at this point in time, I think it's a little bit off topic and offside,

[1:44:00] and we do have a resident just behind you.

[1:44:03] So I would ask you to leave the podium and let the

[1:44:06] resident ask his question specifically to this open house, which is

[1:44:10] on the topic is the budget and the viability

[1:44:14] review and the town as itself. So I

[1:44:18] truly, I respect your voice, but let's move on to our

[1:44:22] citizens.

[1:44:23] So, well, thank you for your time, and I encourage-

[1:44:27] I would just like to say, if you wouldn't mind emailing us,

[1:44:31] if you wanted to email us the information,

[1:44:35] that would be helpful, and we could have dialogue that way.

[1:44:39] Yeah, I could email it. I'd like interaction from

[1:44:43] council, admin, or the community.

[1:44:45] I was going to ask for your contact info if I could.

[1:44:49] Sure.

[1:44:49] If I could come down there.

[1:44:51] Sure. I'll give that to you. And, my goal wasn't to be

[1:44:55] contentious or anything, but I just-

[1:44:57] No

[1:44:57] ... wanted to give you all, council, administration, and the

[1:45:01] community, some words of encouragement.

[1:45:02] We're just worried about the people behind you waiting-

[1:45:04] Yep

[1:45:04] ... to ask you a question, sir. So thank you.

[1:45:05] Thank you very much.

[1:45:08] No

[1:45:09] problem.

[1:45:14] It seems our town has gotten ourselves in a little bit of a mess.

[1:45:19] We voted

[1:45:20] for a new council. They've been doing a wonderful job, working hard.

[1:45:25] They hired people to help us get out of our mess.

[1:45:27] They've been working hard,

[1:45:29] but there's that cloud

[1:45:32] that hangs over our head that's not going to go away.

[1:45:37] And

[1:45:38] beginning of June,

[1:45:40] we're going to have to make a decision, plan A or plan B.

[1:45:45] We haven't heard from plan B. Obviously,

[1:45:49] you're plan A.

[1:45:52] So we haven't heard from plan B, so we're just waiting and waiting.

[1:45:54] I wonder what's going to happen.

[1:45:56] What are they going to do? What's our options? We'll find out.

[1:46:00] But my question is, that cloud that hangs over our head

[1:46:05] is that total debt

[1:46:08] that was put up upon us from previous council.

[1:46:11] Hmm.

[1:46:13] When

[1:46:14] do you expect that cloud

[1:46:18] to disappear-

[1:46:19] Wow. That's a very good question

[1:46:20] ... and sunny days to start coming?

[1:46:22] And that's one question.

[1:46:24] Yep.

[1:46:25] Now, with the tax, you said 8.2%,

[1:46:29] 7.7 over the next couple of years. We've heard rumors that, oh,

[1:46:33] and we've seen it on the news, Gibsons going to be hit with 30%

[1:46:37] tax increase, 80% tax increase.

[1:46:40] Hmm.

[1:46:41] Can you publicly say that

[1:46:44] no, you're not going to get no 30% increase?

[1:46:46] No, you're not going to get no 80% increase.

[1:46:49] We're going to hang around that seven, eight percent

[1:46:52] increase, which

[1:46:53] we can manage. It's happening everywhere.

[1:46:56] Look at the City of Edmonton. Look at communities throughout Alberta, throughout

[1:47:00] Canada. They're getting hit.

[1:47:01] Yeah.

[1:47:02] So.

[1:47:04] On your first question-

[1:47:05] Yeah

[1:47:05] ...

[1:47:06] as I said, we have a debt plan. We're paying down at minimum

[1:47:10] 2.6, but we have some recovery plans on development charges.

[1:47:13] We're hoping to aggressively get the debt down more.

[1:47:16] I'd say within three to five years, we're hoping to be at what we consider sunny

[1:47:20] days from a debt management perspective, and so in a much better place.

[1:47:23] But it's going to take three to five years to be able to get into a really good

[1:47:26] place. So that's

[1:47:28] part A. Part B, to your question, definitively, we've developed a

[1:47:32] plan 8%, 7.7, and we mean it. But we've had to make some really

[1:47:36] hard decisions to get there. And so that's from my perspective.

[1:47:39] I'd like to council maybe to kind of to give you the

[1:47:42] definitive answer from a budget perspective, yes.

[1:47:44] So council, what are your thoughts?

[1:47:46] So we're looking at five years to be at what on our total debt five years from now?

[1:47:50] Pardon me?

[1:47:50] Besides seeing that 12.7.

[1:47:52] In five years, if everything goes right,

[1:47:57] at the end of five years, where would that 12.7 be?

[1:48:00] What would that figure be?

[1:48:03] So we go down by 500,000 a year on the operating

[1:48:07] lines right now is what I have forecasted in the plan.

[1:48:12] The firetruck loan is done as of

[1:48:16] 2029, if I remember right.

[1:48:19] What's the other one in there?

[1:48:25] Those are the big ones.

[1:48:28] The water meter replacement one is gone this year.

[1:48:31] So we're going to be down by the 2.6 million.

[1:48:34] That's a low number, though. There's another

[1:48:38] principal portion that I can't break out currently in 2029.

[1:48:42] So it's probably closer to, if I had to guess,

[1:48:45] 2.75, 2.8, that we'll be down.

[1:48:48] That would be good.

[1:48:48] So you'll get down to about 10 million after three years, and then after that, it

[1:48:52] just steadily decreases by the same amount.

[1:48:54] So within five years, you're saying three million.

[1:48:58] No, it would probably be closer to 7.5,

[1:49:02] 1.5.

[1:49:06] Yeah, so you'd go down a minimum of

[1:49:09] 1.75 to two million over the two

[1:49:13] years after the three-year period.

[1:49:15] So we're going to continually, steadily decrease it.

[1:49:18] It's probably, again, at a high level, just doing math in my head,

[1:49:22] you're probably looking at about four and a half

[1:49:26] million, I guess I'll say, as a round number after five years.

[1:49:30] So after five years, four and a half million, you're looking at that 12.7.

[1:49:33] Yeah.

[1:49:33] Okay.

[1:49:34] But-

[1:49:35] And then the other question was, can you

[1:49:39] eliminate the...

[1:49:41] What their people were saying, the rumors of 30 to 80%.

[1:49:44] Like I said, eight to seven percent-

[1:49:47] I think-

[1:49:47] ... eight percent, seven percent, we can live with.

[1:49:50] That was the whole point of this evening, sir, was-

[1:49:52] Yeah

[1:49:52] ... honestly... is over the last five months, we've worked very diligently to

[1:49:56] develop a financial plan, which included a lot of hard decisions to get to

[1:50:00] 8%. And we can, again, definitively guarantee that

[1:50:04] 8% is what we're going to charge this year, and seven, seven, but we have to

[1:50:07] right-size our services and staffing to get there.

[1:50:11] But yes, that is right now the plan that we have, and there's no

[1:50:15] surprises behind it. So, that is our financial plan, and

[1:50:20] that's the taxes we'll be seeing over the next three to five years.

[1:50:23] Eight, eight, and sevens.

[1:50:25] So will we see a 30% or 80% increase?

[1:50:28] Nope.

[1:50:29] No?

[1:50:29] Nope. That's the work that we did to, again, right-size our services and our

[1:50:33] staffing. So we started at 120, we got it down to 50,

[1:50:37] 60. Then we went to council, asked if they'd be okay with some service-level

[1:50:40] reductions. They said yes. And so then we developed a

[1:50:44] plan around service decrease. For example, the rink will be closed in the

[1:50:47] summertime.

[1:50:49] That's one.

[1:50:50] We're, again, a little bit less, not pothole filling, we're doing that, but less

[1:50:54] line painting, things like that. So another one.

[1:50:57] There's a few others. By-law is going to be cut down a little bit.

[1:51:00] We're going to be more reactive on by-law than proactive for a little while.

[1:51:04] But we're going to be rebuilding those things.

[1:51:05] But on the most part, services aren't going to be any, what I'd call,

[1:51:10] catastrophic changes. But there are changes, for sure.

[1:51:13] Yeah. Just letting you know as I feel as a

[1:51:16] citizen,

[1:51:18] personally for me, I can't speak for everybody else, but eight, seven, and

[1:51:22] seven, in that ballpark,

[1:51:24] I'm comfortable with.

[1:51:26] Maintain the course you're going, we'll be fine.

[1:51:30] But like I said, we need that information going in there that,

[1:51:34] all of a sudden, okay, we've got you guys. You're good.

[1:51:36] Three years come down, the eight's gone, the seven's gone, the seven's gone.

[1:51:39] All of a sudden, oh, s**t.

[1:51:42] Sorry, guys.

[1:51:43] Things didn't go quite well. You're getting hit with 30%.

[1:51:46] Yeah.

[1:51:47] You're going, "What the hell do we do now?"

[1:51:48] That's a super fair question. One of the things that we did, I

[1:51:52] mentioned in the discussion is what we

[1:51:55] call conservative budgeting in our world.

[1:51:58] Which means that the revenue we put in, we know we're going to get, and the

[1:52:02] expenses that we put in, we know we can control. So that is our budget.

[1:52:06] And so we have a very strong, controllable budget, unlike what you had before,

[1:52:10] which was dependent on revenues that may come in and may not.

[1:52:13] And that was the problem, is that the revenues didn't come in, but it was overly

[1:52:16] expensive. We're not doing that anymore. So we've fixed all that.

[1:52:19] And so we are 100% confident with good management.

[1:52:23] We will hit that 8% for sure.

[1:52:25] Okay.

[1:52:25] And council, again, council questions, comments?

[1:52:29] I'm from here. I've been here all my life.

[1:52:31] My wife will make me move if that were to happen.

[1:52:35] So that's

[1:52:37] under my watch, and I don't think so.

[1:52:40] Thanks, Martin.

[1:52:41] I just want to reiterate,

[1:52:43] if we thought that we had to tax our residents to a point that they couldn't afford

[1:52:47] to live here,

[1:52:49] we wouldn't be doing it. We'd just hand in the keys and walk

[1:52:53] away. We fought really hard for this.

[1:52:55] We had to make some tough decisions about what to cut, how much to cut, where to

[1:52:59] cut. And with guidance from Bloom and their team, we've

[1:53:03] done so to a point that we feel that it hasn't impacted residents.

[1:53:07] But of course, we still have to. The other point I wanted to make is Sturgeon

[1:53:10] County has stated that we would pay our debt.

[1:53:12] So even if we dissolve, we're going to pay this one way or another.

[1:53:16] They have also stated, it was stated to me personally, that we will not get a

[1:53:20] seat on council. They will divide us into two wards,

[1:53:24] and they'll take us on. So we wouldn't have an actual

[1:53:28] resident on council.

[1:53:30] Therefore,

[1:53:32] we wouldn't necessarily get a say.

[1:53:34] Okay, just one quick statement and I'll

[1:53:37] sit down.

[1:53:38] Mm-hmm.

[1:53:38] On transparency,

[1:53:40] when you're going to inform the public of what's happening-

[1:53:42] Mm

[1:53:45] ... tell it to them all. Tell it all.

[1:53:49] Example, the grass clippings. Everybody was going, "What?

[1:53:53] Huh? Who?"

[1:53:55] And then

[1:53:56] what's your options?

[1:53:58] We were told it's closed, but we weren't told these are your options that it's

[1:54:01] closed.

[1:54:03] Yeah, it was a decision you had to make. Save money, great, thanks.

[1:54:07] You saved us money. But give us the options.

[1:54:09] And when somebody asks a question on social media, because that's where we

[1:54:13] get our communication at going on,

[1:54:16] be kind enough to respond.

[1:54:18] Because I've asked questions, no response,

[1:54:22] nothing. People was asking questions, no response. We don't know.

[1:54:26] We work

[1:54:27] 6:00 in the morning to 6:00 at night. We can't pick up the phone and call the town.

[1:54:31] Otherwise, that town's phone's going to be ringing and ringing and ringing and

[1:54:34] ringing, answering the same question all the time by 60 different residents.

[1:54:39] So,

[1:54:41] thanks for your time and the great work you've been doing, and thanks for everybody

[1:54:45] for letting me speak.

[1:54:46] Thank you.

[1:54:46] Thanks, Martin.

[1:54:47] Thank you.

[1:54:48] I

[1:54:49] want to say just one thing.

[1:54:52] I'm not going to lie, when we talked about

[1:54:56] viability,

[1:54:57] and when

[1:55:00] we talked about Val, you're having a real hard time with that coffee mug tonight.

[1:55:06] When we first got in and we really truly

[1:55:09] began to realize the dire strait that

[1:55:13] the town was in,

[1:55:16] I was the first person to say,

[1:55:21] "Hamlet looks really good." Hamlet looks good from a

[1:55:24] perspective of I'll pay lower taxes.

[1:55:29] Kids are all grown. It's my husband and I.

[1:55:33] What services are we using? Okay.

[1:55:37] Fast-forward to six months

[1:55:40] and the fact, and I

[1:55:44] saw

[1:55:46] 1.5, not 2.1. I saw 1.5

[1:55:50] imbalance in the last budget

[1:55:52] in the fact that the land that's next to my house, they were budgeting as

[1:55:56] revenue the sale of that land, which still hasn't sold,

[1:55:59] thankfully. The-So, I really

[1:56:03] didn't think that

[1:56:05] balancing a budget inside of the first six months was going to

[1:56:09] even be remotely possible. I absolutely didn't think that we

[1:56:13] would be able to pay down some debt inside of a year.

[1:56:17] And I now believe that that's all possible.

[1:56:21] I do also believe that in time, and perhaps with partnering

[1:56:25] through the industrial heartland,

[1:56:28] revenue sharing,

[1:56:30] partnering, collaboration, whatever we want to call it, I

[1:56:33] not only think that becoming a hamlet is a bad idea,

[1:56:38] I think staying a town is a brilliant idea.

[1:56:42] From a financial perspective, from an accounting perspective, I believe in the

[1:56:46] budget that they've put forth. It makes sense.

[1:56:49] And I do believe that we can remain viable and that we can

[1:56:53] remain a community

[1:56:56] amongst ourselves. So that's just my statement.

[1:57:03] Once again, Curtis Toll, long time resident of Gibbons.

[1:57:08] Just wanted to stay on topic, so Councilor Morrison

[1:57:12] reminds me that it has to be a budget-related question.

[1:57:16] Just want to see,

[1:57:17] after the departure of our consulting team that has come in and

[1:57:22] saved the town,

[1:57:24] just want to know, who are we replacing that role with?

[1:57:26] Is there another CAO, or is it the administrator

[1:57:30] that everyone can see and meet on the YouTube of

[1:57:34] council meeting at nine o'clock last Tuesday night?

[1:57:40] What

[1:57:41] we can tell you is

[1:57:43] when the Bloom team has come to an end, believe it or not, the previous

[1:57:47] council hired them to hire a new CAO.

[1:57:49] So,

[1:57:51] that would be their gift to us going out to ensure that we get a very good

[1:57:55] person to fill that role as a CAO. So that's the

[1:57:59] plan going forward.

[1:58:01] And is it only just the CAO wage or

[1:58:05] will we have another assistant CAO, an administrator, and

[1:58:09] financial one as well?

[1:58:10] We'll need a...

[1:58:13] Go ahead.

[1:58:14] A town this size, we never should have had an assistant CAO.

[1:58:18] No, we won't have one.

[1:58:23] We do need

[1:58:26] financial support, obviously.

[1:58:28] And I have to tell you, there's actually a lot of nuances to

[1:58:33] municipal finance that are a little bit odd.

[1:58:36] The fact that y'all love it is beyond my comprehension.

[1:58:42] So there's still a finance team that has to be there, an element.

[1:58:45] Whether that's on-site, whether that's

[1:58:48] contracted, we don't know yet. But one of the things,

[1:58:52] as Charlotte just mentioned, sorry, Councilor St.

[1:58:55] Germain mentioned,

[1:58:57] is that the previous council actually brought

[1:59:01] the Bloom team in to

[1:59:03] hire a CAO as a headhunter.

[1:59:08] And we thank them for that, thank them for the introduction.

[1:59:12] But also, to address some of the

[1:59:16] concerns with regard to

[1:59:19] we didn't put it out for tender, that contract and that time.

[1:59:23] They were thoroughly vetted and investigated by just about, if not

[1:59:27] all persons on this table. And so

[1:59:31] much so that we contacted some of their clients to actually

[1:59:35] get a little bit of insight and recommendation as well.

[1:59:38] So they didn't come in blind and without knowledge.

[1:59:42] But moving forward, we will have a CAO.

[1:59:44] We absolutely will not have an assistant CAO.

[1:59:48] We were overstaffed in this town by about 30%, and that's been

[1:59:52] right-sized.

[1:59:54] And now with regards to financial support,

[1:59:58] because we won't have the dial-a-friend contract,

[2:00:02] what financial officer or

[2:00:05] subcontract will be put into place, and is that reflective in

[2:00:08] this budget?

[2:00:13] I think what's really key and important is what we did when we took

[2:00:17] on the contract, we actually took the exact salaries that you paid your

[2:00:20] director of finance, corporate services, your CAO, and your

[2:00:24] assistant CAO, and we used that for our contract cost.

[2:00:27] So you have ample funds to pay for a CAO, a

[2:00:31] director of finance, and no longer an assistant CAO, but you are going to need

[2:00:35] something, what we would probably call a director of operations, which would help

[2:00:38] with the leadership, and basically the training.

[2:00:41] And so you have ample funds to move that money from contract services

[2:00:44] back over to salaries, and that's what we planned for, to make sure that you had

[2:00:48] enough money to hire people. I can assure you this, though.

[2:00:51] It's a fallacy. A good CAO is going to cost exactly what I

[2:00:55] cost right now.

[2:00:56] Yeah.

[2:00:57] A good finance officer, it's going to cost maybe a little bit less, right?

[2:01:00] We were about to lower ours because there was some heavy lifting, and the director

[2:01:03] of operations, about the same. There's not going to be a big savings.

[2:01:05] So that's wrong. We're charging basically the going rate for those

[2:01:09] positions right now. And so it's reasonable, but you're covered

[2:01:13] because you'll be able to move the money that's being used for us up and we are...

[2:01:16] Again, I've told this council many times, we are countywide.

[2:01:20] We're in about five or six municipalities doing this exact same thing in other

[2:01:24] places with other individuals. We're not a permanent

[2:01:28] solution, right? But we're very committed to this council and this community.

[2:01:31] We loved working with you guys, and I promised them we wouldn't leave until things

[2:01:34] were fixed. And we're sticking to that promise.

[2:01:37] And with good recommendations for replacement.

[2:01:40] Yeah.

[2:01:40] Yeah. And we'll help. We will help find very good replacements.

[2:01:44] It's important. Getting a good CAO is going to be critical to the success of

[2:01:47] this municipality. And so we want to make sure we help do that.

[2:01:51] We do hiring for CAOs, have been doing it for some time.

[2:01:54] And I can say this, the ones that we've hired

[2:01:57] have lasted the test of time. At Redwater, Bon Accord.

[2:02:00] There's been many municipalities that we've supported the hiring of those CAOs, and

[2:02:04] we'll continue that with this council.

[2:02:07] Yeah, I just want to make sure-

[2:02:07] We're doing that at no extra charge too, by the way.

[2:02:09] We're not charging for a recruitment cost or strategic planning cost or anything

[2:02:13] like that.

[2:02:14] Perfect, thanks.

[2:02:15] Okay.

[2:02:15] I just wanted to make sure there was no gap in services.

[2:02:18] Yeah.

[2:02:18] You guys, Tail Light Warranty, you're gone, and we still don't have a

[2:02:22] CAO in place-

[2:02:23] No

[2:02:23] ... or financial officer and stuff.

[2:02:25] We've promised to see it through.

[2:02:28] Perfect.

[2:02:28] But we also recognize that there needs to be a permanent solution at some point,

[2:02:32] and we're going to work through that.

[2:02:34] Now again, I think after the viability vote's done, that will be a key

[2:02:38] consideration, and then we'll reassess right after that's

[2:02:42] done, and then we'll get back to the public.

[2:02:44] Perfect.

[2:02:45] Okay.

[2:02:45] And I kind of want to just throw it out as a challenge to everyone that's here.

[2:02:49] You want to be the CAO, let me guess.

[2:02:51] No.

[2:02:53] No, I just want to make sure next time all these seats are

[2:02:56] filled. So maybe a challenge to everyone here, including council,

[2:03:01] is you can't show up unless you bring one neighbor.

[2:03:04] You know what's interesting? I just wanted to speak to that.

[2:03:08] We've done this three times. Every time we've had an absolutely packed house.

[2:03:13] But this time we chose to live stream, and I told council there's always a risk if

[2:03:16] you live stream, people don't show up because they're watching at home.

[2:03:19] The other-

[2:03:19] So that's part of it.

[2:03:20] The other thing is there was the Given School open house.

[2:03:23] There was something going on with soccer.

[2:03:25] Yeah.

[2:03:25] It was a jam-packed day for many residents.

[2:03:29] The first meeting we had, we had a

[2:03:32] moderator. He kept things rolling. Didn't let you ramble.

[2:03:37] Yeah.

[2:03:37] Tim, you're great. You're trying to ramble a little.

[2:03:41] Thank you.

[2:03:42] And we got some-

[2:03:42] Thank you. Ramble on. That's like Led Zeppelin. Ramble on. Good.

[2:03:45] If we put a limit on the amount of questions that the person can have-

[2:03:48] Sure

[2:03:48] ... they can then go to the back of the line and ask again, if you're not turning

[2:03:51] down any questions. But I have one statement-

[2:03:54] Okay, sir, do you have a question? Let's move it on.

[2:03:56] Okay.

[2:03:57] Come on, let's go. Hurry up. Question.

[2:03:59] Okay, I have to state how long I've lived here. 640 days at Oak.

[2:04:05] I live close to Memorial Park. The kids

[2:04:09] love that place. All I hear is laughter and

[2:04:13] just great noise of kids.

[2:04:15] Is there in the budget to put cameras up to find any

[2:04:19] vandalism? I understand it was vandalized and they didn't know who did

[2:04:22] it. Is it anywhere that somebody can

[2:04:27] capture it on a video if somebody else vandalizes again?

[2:04:31] Because I want that thing to stay open. Let the kids have it involved.

[2:04:35] This is not a new issue. This is not something that just happened.

[2:04:38] Oh.

[2:04:38] There's nothing that has occurred, right? You're talking preventative?

[2:04:41] Yeah, but it's vandalized

[2:04:43] last, what, September, October?

[2:04:45] Okay. Thank you.

[2:04:46] And it's open now, and it's packed with kids.

[2:04:49] And you hear nothing but good noise out of it.

[2:04:50] You never get a scream by a little girl, maybe.

[2:04:54] But I'd like to see video,

[2:04:58] so that the kids know that if they're going to vandalize, they're going to be on

[2:05:01] video.

[2:05:02] So,

[2:05:04] doing a good job, Council.

[2:05:07] Thank you, Marty.

[2:05:08] Thank you.

[2:05:09] Go Broncos.

[2:05:10] Yep. So I don't see any more questions coming forward.

[2:05:14] Oh.

[2:05:18] Are you here to drop your resume off for the CAO job again? No, I'm just kidding.

[2:05:21] Oh, here we go. One more.

[2:05:24] Go ahead.

[2:05:27] Well, we had comments.

[2:05:29] Yeah, I'm short. Vertically challenged.

[2:05:36] We had a meeting on Tuesday night.

[2:05:39] It was 6:00. A lot of people are working and trying to

[2:05:43] get to a town

[2:05:45] meeting at 6:00, when you're getting off at 5:00 or something like that.

[2:05:49] Makes it extremely difficult. Also, when we're

[2:05:53] talking in the council,

[2:05:55] the councilors get a question, and we get a reply from

[2:05:59] somebody over the side. Could be the recording

[2:06:02] secretary, who judges whether you need motions, everything like

[2:06:06] that. Half the time, we can't hear the reply from the, say,

[2:06:11] in your case, Tim, your assistant who's giving some

[2:06:16] data and everything like that.

[2:06:17] Yeah.

[2:06:17] So the volume could be better controlled there.

[2:06:20] Okay, thank you. We do agree. We have some technology issues in council

[2:06:24] chambers, and we're going to keep working on it. So thank you.

[2:06:28] Thanks a lot.

[2:06:29] You're welcome.

[2:06:37] There's going to be payment.

[2:06:40] Thank you. I appreciate it.

[2:06:42] You're welcome. Okay, so we're doing this

[2:06:47] 8.2% increase or whatever kind of thing.

[2:06:49] So it's 4% on tax increase, 3% on reserves?

[2:06:54] 5.2% is for our base budget-

[2:06:56] 5.2%

[2:06:56] ... and 3% is to support replenishment of reserves.

[2:06:59] So when we're doing this type of increase, is that seven and

[2:07:03] three, or is that four and three, or is it just a-

[2:07:07] No, we're looking at

[2:07:09] seven. That's 8.2.

[2:07:11] Yeah.

[2:07:11] And we're looking at, our forecast right now is seven, which will probably be about

[2:07:14] four and three.

[2:07:15] Okay.

[2:07:15] Yeah.

[2:07:16] So it's four and three. So-

[2:07:16] Four and three.

[2:07:17] Okay.

[2:07:17] We're projecting something for the base, and then 3% probably for replenishment of

[2:07:21] reserves. Yes.

[2:07:22] So when that 3% is going into the reserve

[2:07:25] fundings in the event of a catastrophic failure, does that

[2:07:29] come out of that reserve funding then?

[2:07:31] Yeah. No, so what we're going to do is we're going to create a reserve policy that

[2:07:35] will speak to fleet and a number of things that would help support.

[2:07:38] Again, so a typical reserve policy will say, "We're going to be replacing our

[2:07:42] fleet, our roads," whatever it might be.

[2:07:44] So we're going to develop some of that and put the money into the right

[2:07:46] compartments. And I don't know if council wants to speak to that, but it's

[2:07:50] basically for planning for replacement of our assets and

[2:07:54] for if something happens like a disaster. So everything.

[2:07:57] Let's say a water main break or something like that-

[2:07:59] Yeah

[2:07:59] ... that would come out of that reserve funding then?

[2:08:00] We would hope so. But it's going to take a while for us to get to that point.

[2:08:04] So then what happens when that payment comes due in three years

[2:08:08] because you're consolidating debentures?

[2:08:11] Is there a payment coming up in three years where you've got a big payment again?

[2:08:19] Correct. So 2029, the first portion of the principal payment comes on,

[2:08:23] but the reserve transfers that we'll have built into the three-year

[2:08:27] plan, I actually built them with the idea of not

[2:08:30] having to increase for the full principal coming online.

[2:08:34] So it would just offset a difference in what we would normally transfer

[2:08:38] over to reserve, with the intent to be that it would not impact taxation.

[2:08:42] We wouldn't

[2:08:43] have a 15% jump in that year. That's why we wanted to try

[2:08:47] and smooth it. That's why the number seven was in there.

[2:08:50] Originally, I tried to build it around the 5 to 5.5% for

[2:08:54] the three-year increases. But to get there so that we didn't have a big

[2:08:57] jump in 2030, I had to do a bit

[2:09:01] higher than the plan was. So that's where we ended up at 7%.

[2:09:04] That's provided that reserve funding is still there.

[2:09:09] Correct?

[2:09:10] Sorry?

[2:09:10] That's provided that reserve funding is still there to make that, or no?

[2:09:14] No. So all the reserve funding that we're putting away and the money that we're

[2:09:18] putting into the admin reserve, and that's just where it's been labeled to.

[2:09:21] I don't have a reserve name built out for it, but the money that goes

[2:09:25] into that reserve, that increases year over year, that money just

[2:09:29] goes into the bank. It goes into the reserve.

[2:09:31] So then in 2030, when we have a 300,000, 330,000, if I

[2:09:35] remember the number right, debenture principal payment that comes online,

[2:09:40] instead of putting money into the reserve at that point, it's just going to

[2:09:44] fund that debenture come then. So we won't be putting as much money away at that

[2:09:48] point in time, but I won't have to increase taxes by

[2:09:51] 15% in that year to offset it.

[2:09:53] Okay.

[2:09:56] I don't know if I was the only one here that didn't get it, but I

[2:10:00] thought we were getting 11%

[2:10:02] increase, not-

[2:10:08] Yay.

[2:10:08] Well, it's 8.2% on taxes, and then the utility rates are going up

[2:10:12] 3%. But thank you. We're here to make you happy, so

[2:10:16] fantastic.

[2:10:19] So I don't see any additional questions.

[2:10:21] For anybody, anything else that anybody would like to bring up or have any

[2:10:24] questions about?

[2:10:26] Can I just thank you guys for putting the meetings

[2:10:29] online? If I have one, I really appreciate that.

[2:10:33] You're welcome.

[2:10:34] Thank you.

[2:10:35] Thanks. Fantastic. Sir?

[2:10:36] Just very quickly.

[2:10:38] We talked about the viability review

[2:10:42] coming up, the questionnaire, the statements going out.

[2:10:47] The thing is,

[2:10:48] I have a personal commitment that's going to require me to be

[2:10:52] in eastern Canada, where we're originally from.

[2:10:56] Is there going to be a plan maybe for an absentee vote?

[2:11:02] Yes, that is correct.

[2:11:04] Sorry. Yeah, go ahead.

[2:11:05] Yes, that is correct. You'll have an opportunity for an absentee vote. Yes.

[2:11:09] Super. That's great, guys. We'll work it out in the next couple of weeks, but

[2:11:13] we're planning on leaving. Granddaughter's the

[2:11:17] highest in New Brunswick for scholastic standings in 9, 10, 11,

[2:11:21] and 12, 98.9%, and she's been

[2:11:25] accepted at Dalhousie University in veterinary-

[2:11:27] Fantastic

[2:11:27] ... and we're very proud of that, and we will

[2:11:31] be heading back and won't be back until

[2:11:35] mid-July or so, but I really appreciate that.

[2:11:38] Thanks, gentlemen and ladies.

[2:11:40] There's a mail-in vote. So from what I understand-

[2:11:44] Yes, that's correct

[2:11:45] ... there's a mail-in vote for you.

[2:11:47] Super great. Yeah, thank you.

[2:11:50] Okay, nothing else. Council, I would just like maybe do a

[2:11:54] discussion of council. Well,

[2:11:57] Mr. Thorpe, welcome to the podium.

[2:12:00] Gary.

[2:12:03] It's like the slow walk of

[2:12:05] shame.

[2:12:05] It's just old age.

[2:12:08] Honorable Mayor, Council, and esteemed

[2:12:12] administration,

[2:12:14] can you tell me

[2:12:16] how much I would be paying in taxes if we didn't have

[2:12:19] this debt over our heads?

[2:12:25] Well, I'll say to a lot of math in our head tonight.

[2:12:29] Somebody?

[2:12:31] Well,

[2:12:32] the one thing that will help is most municipalities have

[2:12:36] debt. I would say this, we're probably about 50% more than we should have, to be

[2:12:40] quite frank. Believe it or not, it's crazy.

[2:12:44] Yeah.

[2:12:44] But if we didn't have basically all the payments and everything else, we'd be

[2:12:48] looking at maybe a reduction of maybe 5, 10% tops.

[2:12:53] If it helps,

[2:12:55] Redwater, who's not in our position,

[2:12:58] their tax increase is a little bit higher than our

[2:13:02] 8.2%.

[2:13:03] Oh.

[2:13:03] And they're not in the position we're in, to give you an example.

[2:13:08] So it's really difficult to put a value on it to

[2:13:11] estimate,

[2:13:13] to say it could have been 5.5% or

[2:13:16] 4%, but just the communities close by to us

[2:13:20] are equal to or more than what we're currently going up.

[2:13:24] Well, I'm just trying to figure out,

[2:13:28] we keep wanting to manage the debt instead of pay it

[2:13:32] down. I don't understand that concept.

[2:13:35] That's the same concept as the last administration.

[2:13:40] What was that point?

[2:13:42] We are paying the debt down.

[2:13:45] We are paying the debt down.

[2:13:45] We're paying the debt down. We're paying it down considerably.

[2:13:47] Slowly.

[2:13:48] No, considerably so. So we've got $2.6 million

[2:13:52] right now in the budget to pay down.

[2:13:54] The two things that said recoverable, we have plans to try and recover that money,

[2:13:58] will likely go 100% to debt.

[2:14:00] So you're looking at 3.2, 1.3, plus

[2:14:04] 2.6. The 3.2 is over 30 years or

[2:14:08] 15

[2:14:09] years, I think. So we're looking, and we're looking at other opportunities

[2:14:13] to generate additional opportunity for debt recovery.

[2:14:16] So we're doing our best to get it down as fast as we can

[2:14:20] You also said that you borrowed,

[2:14:25] or at least

[2:14:27] tried not to borrow, $2.5 million a couple of

[2:14:31] meetings ago

[2:14:33] in replace of your reserves.

[2:14:36] We're not borrowing any additional money.

[2:14:39] So you just said something about borrowing? We're not borrowing any money.

[2:14:42] In order for this council and administration to

[2:14:46] operate,

[2:14:48] you went to the province and got a loan for

[2:14:51] 2.5 million.

[2:14:52] The previous administration.

[2:14:54] We actually didn't.

[2:14:57] Yeah.

[2:14:59] They gave us permission.

[2:15:01] Oh, right.

[2:15:01] They gave us permission to increase our debt limit, but we did

[2:15:05] not increase our debt limit. At the same time, they gave us a

[2:15:09] grant for $500,000. Utilizing the

[2:15:12] grant, we were able to bridge

[2:15:15] a bit of a runway to cash manage

[2:15:19] our responsibilities. At no point in time, the

[2:15:23] 2.5 mil... Was it 2.5? I don't feel like that number is right,

[2:15:26] but close enough for government work.

[2:15:28] That they gave us an increase to our debt limit of 2.5

[2:15:32] million to try to help us along, but we never took out

[2:15:36] that debt.

[2:15:38] Okay.

[2:15:38] We were actually able to, with cost cuts, as

[2:15:42] well as the $500,000 grant,

[2:15:45] and the ability to use our, I will

[2:15:48] massacre the acronym, L blah, blah, blah,

[2:15:52] FF

[2:15:54] ASFF

[2:15:54] ... which is normally a

[2:15:56] capital grant.

[2:15:58] They allowed us to use it for operations.

[2:16:01] So we didn't have to go and take that additional 2.5

[2:16:05] million. But I also think where you were going with that was,

[2:16:10] we no longer have an ability. We also went out

[2:16:14] looking to see if we could borrow, and we couldn't, because

[2:16:18] we're too high risk.

[2:16:20] Okay. Thank you.

[2:16:21] Is that fair?

[2:16:24] Uh.

[2:16:28] So in this situation, just to add to that is, debt management

[2:16:32] in our perspective at this point means how fast can we pay it off?

[2:16:36] How do we get rid of it? What do we want to get rid of first?

[2:16:38] So

[2:16:39] everything that we've booked in the budget for reserve transfer, for operating

[2:16:43] reserve transfer, that can all turn into debt payment.

[2:16:46] That can all go straight against debt realistically.

[2:16:49] It's just a matter of making that decision when the time comes, when we see what

[2:16:52] the actual surplus looks like. So there's options on the table for where that's

[2:16:56] going to happen. The big targets, the big things we want to get rid of, are

[2:17:00] the lines in yellow. That's operating debt, which is bad, bad news.

[2:17:04] We don't want any of that on there. So that's our first priority is to get rid

[2:17:08] of that, and then when it comes to loans to local authorities, so everything in the

[2:17:11] blue, I can't pay that off early. We don't have that option

[2:17:15] without some pretty severe penalties from the loans to local authorities group.

[2:17:19] So that one has to flow at its normal rate.

[2:17:22] But the other ones, our focus is 100% on the yellow stuff.

[2:17:26] The yellow is what we absolutely need to get rid of first.

[2:17:29] So debt management in our heads and in our minds at this point is

[2:17:33] get rid of as much as we can, as fast as we can, when it comes down to it.

[2:17:39] Thank you.

[2:17:40] Hi. I've lived in this town for 45 years now, and

[2:17:44] every year we've had some kind of a fitness class or recreation program

[2:17:48] that citizens can participate in.

[2:17:52] Is that totally off the table? Because I don't see anything

[2:17:56] that's available in the spring session, so I'm wondering if there's going to

[2:18:00] be anything in the fall or if now we're not having anything at all.

[2:18:03] We have a yoga room upstairs that we went, had yoga classes

[2:18:07] in for I don't know how many years, and now it sits empty.

[2:18:10] So

[2:18:11] is there going to be any kind of recreation fitness programs

[2:18:15] running in town?

[2:18:19] Okay. You want me to answer?

[2:18:21] Sure.

[2:18:23] We have cut down programs significantly.

[2:18:26] But what we've done is we've cut down programs, but left money in the

[2:18:30] budget for basically what we call priority programs, and we're

[2:18:34] depending on council. For example, just recently I was told, "If you get rid of

[2:18:37] Lemonade Day, I'm going to

[2:18:39] twist your arm off," so I've heard that. And then, what's the other one?

[2:18:42] Pioneer Days, I think's another one. So there are things we're going to try and do.

[2:18:45] So if we get demand from the public, say these are things that we really want,

[2:18:49] we're going to try and deliver programs that matter to people.

[2:18:51] We're also though having to stop doing things that maybe don't

[2:18:55] serve the general public overall. So, hard decisions.

[2:18:58] So I can't guarantee they'll be doing it.

[2:19:00] Yoga program, I didn't see it in the budget.

[2:19:02] I think there's things we cut back, and that might be one of them, but not sure.

[2:19:06] But if there's a strong enough demand, we're going to try and do as much as we can.

[2:19:10] Okay. Well, when you sign up, everybody pays a fee to

[2:19:14] participate in class. Does that not help pay for some of it?

[2:19:18] Pardon me?

[2:19:19] When you sign up to take the class, you pay a fee.

[2:19:22] Does that not help to pay for some of it?

[2:19:24] One of the things about recreation programs, I can guarantee the fees never cover

[2:19:27] the cost. Again, those things are almost always subsidized.

[2:19:31] If we can find somebody who's willing to deliver a program and it can be

[2:19:34] cost recovery, then we'd be more than open to having those programs

[2:19:39] delivered in our facility. That's not a problem at all, but we have to find

[2:19:43] instructors that would be willing to do that.

[2:19:45] Usually, the towns usually subsidize them.

[2:19:48] Okay.

[2:19:50] Cool.

[2:19:51] I use the fitness center. I enjoy having the

[2:19:55] fitness programs and whatnot, so I feel you there.

[2:19:58] So please,

[2:20:00] if you want to reach out to me or the rest of the council or something with

[2:20:04] your thoughts and what you'd like, because I would definitely like

[2:20:07] to see something like that continue or something like

[2:20:11] that happen.

[2:20:12] Yeah, because that's all part of living in a small town.

[2:20:15] You can go take the class in your town.

[2:20:17] Yeah, of course.

[2:20:17] You don't have to leave town to go to take it.

[2:20:20] Yeah.

[2:20:20] And it's sad now that there's no classes available to anybody.

[2:20:23] Absolutely. Yeah. So please reach out to myself

[2:20:27] or everyone here,

[2:20:29] and I would like to see what we can do about that, absolutely.

[2:20:33] I think it's very important. So I appreciate that you came up with that here.

[2:20:36] So thank you.

[2:20:37] All right. Thank you.

[2:20:39] It is a valid concern that you brought up, but I think it would be important for us

[2:20:42] to put out a survey and see what residents want.

[2:20:46] And maybe we just put out a survey and see what the majority wants, and

[2:20:50] we can't please everybody, but we can try and do our best to make sure your voices

[2:20:53] are heard on what programming people want.

[2:20:58] Just want to add also that one of the things we're looking at doing, and we had

[2:21:01] brought it up is,

[2:21:04] and it was just brought up recently, is as far as what

[2:21:09] has been cut or what's not, it would be nice if we did a chart

[2:21:12] for the residents, including ourselves, because we're residents, is

[2:21:16] if any cuts that have been done from public works, have a

[2:21:20] list of what's been removed. Anything from everything, if we can have an

[2:21:24] itemized list of what would be, or what's gone or what's

[2:21:27] eliminated or what's cut back, I think that would clear up a lot of confusion for

[2:21:31] everyone, and I do believe that that's something that we could work towards as

[2:21:35] well.

[2:21:39] And if it comes down to it, we'll have yoga with

[2:21:43] Councillor Burak.

[2:21:49] I'd pay not to see that, but anyway.

[2:21:54] Okay. I see nobody else at the podium. Going once, going twice.

[2:21:59] Any other questions? Okay. You're funny.

[2:22:02] So what I'd like now just to finish things off is basically each councilor to give

[2:22:06] you their thoughts and maybe overall their thoughts on the situation from a

[2:22:10] budget perspective and viability perspective, and then we'll end this evening.

[2:22:13] So thank you. Go ahead, Council.

[2:22:20] Yeah, I guess I'll start.

[2:22:22] Yeah. Go ahead.

[2:22:23] First of all, thanks everyone for coming.

[2:22:25] At the end of the day, you look back to where the town

[2:22:29] was six months ago to where it is now.

[2:22:33] I think it's remarkable the distance that we've traveled in such a

[2:22:37] short amount of time.

[2:22:41] Personally, deep down, I think that this town will survive. It'll thrive.

[2:22:45] As Tim says, this town should flourish.

[2:22:48] There may have been some mistakes made along the way, and when we're here to

[2:22:51] correct it. We want to

[2:22:53] guide everyone through here, and we want you guys to communicate with us

[2:22:57] as much as possible so that we can then speak up on your

[2:23:01] behalf and speak up for the best interests of the town.

[2:23:04] The Bloom team has done a fantastic job in their budget.

[2:23:09] This town will survive. It will thrive.

[2:23:11] I think we're well on our way to...

[2:23:15] Well, we're going to be in the papers, we're going to be in books, there's going to

[2:23:18] be articles written on us, but I think for all the good reasons.

[2:23:21] I think for all the right reasons, at the end of the day, we have to stay the

[2:23:24] course. We've made some tough decisions, and I think that this budget is showing

[2:23:27] that we can do it. And just all I ask is for people

[2:23:31] to bear with us and let us continue, and we will do

[2:23:35] what's right by the community.

[2:23:40] I echo everything that Councillor Burak says.

[2:23:45] And being from this town,

[2:23:47] being here all my life,

[2:23:49] that's why I'm here. That's why I decided to run.

[2:23:52] I care about this town. I care about all of you.

[2:23:54] I care about all the residents. And I fully believe, yeah, that this

[2:23:58] town should be thriving. There's no reason it can't

[2:24:01] thrive. This has been a difficult journey so far, a lot

[2:24:05] more than I think any of us expected

[2:24:09] or anticipated.

[2:24:11] It's been a lot of work, a lot of evenings, some weekends, a lot of

[2:24:15] emails, a lot of everything. But in my mind,

[2:24:20] as difficult as it has gotten at sometimes, it's

[2:24:23] worth it,

[2:24:25] because we care so much, and that's the only reason we're

[2:24:29] up here doing this. It's not for

[2:24:33] notoriety. It's not for the pay, believe me.

[2:24:37] It's none of that stuff. It's

[2:24:39] because we care about this town,

[2:24:42] and we're trying to do everything right.

[2:24:44] And I always believe the answer is in the room,

[2:24:49] so that involves all of you guys. It's not just the seven

[2:24:53] us up here. It's not just us and Tim and Ryan.

[2:24:57] It's all of you as well. So we want to hear from you.

[2:25:01] We want to speak with you. We want to know your thoughts and feelings, and we want

[2:25:05] to make this thing go, and for that, it's going to take all of us.

[2:25:13] I'll keep mine short.

[2:25:16] First I'd like to thank everybody for coming.

[2:25:20] First and foremost, I would like to apologize to everybody here,

[2:25:24] including those that are watching the live stream, my fellow councilors,

[2:25:28] and to Tim and Ryan for my very unprofessional outburst earlier.

[2:25:31] I do apologize.

[2:25:38] As for tonight, this is some pretty good information.

[2:25:41] Hopefully, we were able to answer most of the questions.

[2:25:44] It's not an easy road, but it's starting to look a little better

[2:25:48] than it was six months ago.

[2:25:55] Yeah, much the same as the rest of the guys. Thank you for coming.

[2:25:59] It was an important night. We got a couple important dates

[2:26:03] coming up as well,

[2:26:05] with the viability review.

[2:26:08] Our budget, lots of work went into our budget to get it balanced.

[2:26:12] I think Ashley had mentioned earlier that we never thought

[2:26:16] our first year out we'd be able to balance the budget considering the

[2:26:19] condition the town was left to us in.

[2:26:23] Lots of hard work and managed to do it with

[2:26:26] a tax increase, yes. Minimal from what was

[2:26:30] initially thought out of the chute.

[2:26:32] And hopefully going forward, the town can continue to

[2:26:36] move in that direction in a good way

[2:26:42] Thank you everybody for coming, for your valuable

[2:26:46] input. We do appreciate that. I will say ditto for

[2:26:50] what's been said, so I won't repeat that.

[2:26:52] But I think always on my mind is the communication

[2:26:56] aspect. You're always going to hear it.

[2:26:58] If you have some ideas, please let us know.

[2:27:01] We're all accessible through phone, through

[2:27:04] email.

[2:27:06] The town has a newsletter. Unfortunately, we don't have a town paper,

[2:27:10] and so we don't have access to a newspaper for any kind of town

[2:27:14] council reporting or what's happening.

[2:27:17] The town has the newsletter, but I think we have so many different

[2:27:21] fragmented

[2:27:22] pieces of communication, not everybody accesses them.

[2:27:25] And so then somebody uses one, doesn't use the other.

[2:27:28] But if you have some thoughts on that, let us know.

[2:27:31] So thanks again for

[2:27:32] coming.

[2:27:39] I think the last thing I want to say

[2:27:43] and to leave you with is,

[2:27:46] if you want, we can be viable. So when you go

[2:27:50] to that viability vote,

[2:27:52] we can be viable. We can stay an autonomous community, a

[2:27:55] municipality,

[2:27:57] a strong community that we are, and we will get

[2:28:01] us there financially. You do have to bear with us,

[2:28:05] but it's there. I do truly believe it's

[2:28:08] there. And a couple of the things we didn't talk about tonight, but they

[2:28:12] have been open within council meetings, particularly in the last, is

[2:28:16] starting to really look at collaboration with the industrial heartland and

[2:28:21] moving towards what gaining from a revenue perspective, what

[2:28:25] really should be ours.

[2:28:27] So we can be viable. We just need your help.

[2:28:32] I want to thank you all for coming.

[2:28:36] You want to? And thank you.

[2:28:39] Thank you all for coming, and I also believe that we can be viable.

[2:28:43] We can be the masters of our own destiny.

[2:28:45] We will not be beholden to another municipality.

[2:28:49] We can decide for ourselves, and we can do this if that's what everyone chooses.

[2:28:53] But regardless of what you choose, get out and vote.

[2:28:57] Good job.

[2:29:04] Okay.

[2:29:05] Thanks everybody for coming, and look forward to seeing you again, probably

[2:29:09] during the viability vote discussions. Bye for now.

[2:29:14] Oh.

[2:29:15] Okay. Thanks guys.

Gibbons Budget 2026 Town Hall

Transcript