A lot to be proud of in Whitecourt

 

by Susan Hofforth

 

For a town with a lot going on, things work pretty well in Whitecourt. There might be a lot of challenges coming up, as there always is, but Councillor Paul Chauvet believes that Whitecourt and Woodlands County will always manage because of the planning, co-operation and teamwork that keeps the town going. “That’s a big deal,” he said. “A lot of communities don’t have that, and so, even with their larger tax base, they don’t all have the things we have in Whitecourt.”

 

One of the things that shows how well this town works on co-operation is that Whitecourt doesn’t just appoint one councillor to do the job of deputy mayor, it appoints all of them. Not all at once, of course, but each of the councillors contributes a period of their time as councillor to representing the Mayor, for two to four months, when it fits their schedule. Right now, from February to about April, it’s Chauvet’s turn to represent Whitecourt on behalf of the mayor. The reason for this, he says, is to help free up some of her time so that she can be in more than one place at once, but more than that, it helps to build the spirit of co-operation on the part of the council and fosters teamwork instead of rivalry.

 

“The biggest challenge for all of us on council is managing time, and there is a lot of demands on the mayor’s time, especially,” Chauvet said. “We try to help each other out, and if one of us can’t be at a meeting or an opening, then someone else will go.”

 

Chauvet has lived in Whitecourt since 1998, and he is proud of the town. “For a town our size, to have the amenities that we have, that is something to be proud of. We are a great team.”  He credits the excellent relationship that Whitecourt has with Woodlands County. “This relationship is unheard-of in other municipalities, and that’s another reason why this community is doing so well. We share resources, we support each other, and that means we can both have what we need, like state of the art fire equipment, that gets used where it’s needed after we buy it. It doesn’t sit in storage to be pulled out occasionally.”

 

Another reason is the planning. “Our 20-Year Plan that is a living, breathing document, and it keeps us on track and focused.

 

“I don’t want to be the municipality that brags of a 0% tax increase, and then suddenly realizes that oops, we forgot about this, or we didn’t plan for that, so no, there will be a 22% tax increase, sorry,” he said.  “Instead, in Whitecourt, we have a 20-year plan with other 160-line items on it. These are the things that we will likely need money for over the next twenty years.”

 

Most grants that we will apply for are matching dollars. So, if we don’t put enough money aside, we can only get from the grant what we put in. It’s because of our planning that we have what we have. So, our twenty-year plan has been a sound financial practice that has been a game changer for our community. It’s because of that we get so much bang for our buck.

 

There are a few challenges coming up, he said. A big one is the Caribou Range Plan, and he urges everyone to speak out to help the government understand what the impact will be. “How do they think a town with a population of 10,000 can lose 1,200 jobs to this legislation?” he asked. “They didn’t do an impact study?”

 

There are always challenges, but Chauvet believes in Whitecourt and believes that the planning and co-operation that has brought the community this far will be able to take us even farther.