Brooks, Bassano, others discuss possibility of establishing one regional governing body
By Jeremy Appel on January 22, 2019.
jappel@medicinehatnews.com @MHNJeremyAppel The County of Newell, City of Brooks, Town of Bassano and other nearby municipalities are looking at the prospect of establishing a single regional government, as opposed to the patchwork of municipal governments in the area. County of Newell Reeve Molly Douglass says this initiative would reduce administrative costs for participating municipalities, including smaller ones, such as Tilley, Duchess, Rainier and Rosemary. “There’s five separate municipal governments at the present time,” explained Douglass. “What we’re looking at is taking those five governments that have 32 councillors total for a population of less than 25,000 people and building a new system with one municipal council.” Douglass said the major benefit of a regional council would be its efficiency. “There would be fewer meetings, because you would be talking about the whole region every time your council met, and the current system has many committees with representatives from all those different municipalities who have to meet,” she said. There are already regional bodies for various services that could serve as a model for a regional council — seniors’ housing, as well as waste, recycling and water management. “There’s many regional things we’re spending money on that could all be under the one council if we all came together,” said Douglass. Administration would also save money by employing fewer people, although the reeve says the layoffs would have to be gradual to give workers time to find new employment. “That whole process would take some time, because we’re talking about people’s jobs and livelihood,” she said. “Eventually I think the savings would be quite significant.” Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita says in addition to finding efficiencies, regionalization could serve to “keep taxation levels competitive” and ensure the sustainability of each community. “We just think that going forward that’s going to be something that’s necessary for us to be competitive, and be a place that can continue to have great services and reasonable rates of taxation going forward,” said Morishita. He said having a single regional government will also make it easier to assess the cost effectiveness of services and reduce redundancies. “We have five communities that have to do the same corporate work, but with the size of us collectively we think that there’s some duplications and cost savings that could be established over time,” Morishita said. There is no certainty regarding regionalization at this point, said Bassano Mayor Ron Wickson. “As an organization, each of us is looking at this and trying to unravel what (are) the good parts for us and what are the concerns for our communities,” he said. Municipal workers who lose jobs as a result of the municipalities’ merging would receive severance packages, Wickson added. The participating municipalities will be holding open houses in February and March to gauge public support for the initiative. 19
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