Woodlands County looking to negotiate a fair deal for all residents

Woodlands County and the Town of Whitecourt have been dealing with a falling out since last fall, and the town recently upped the ante by passing a motion to end the Water and Wastewater Agreement with the County. Effectively, that means if a deal isn’t reached within two years, county residents who utilize town water will be cut off.

In an interview on Friday, August 30, County Councillors John Burrows and Dale Kluin both stated that they want to get back to the table and find a solution. “I remember Mayor Chichak and then County Mayor Jim Rennie going to conferences to do presentations on how municipalities should work together and show off exactly what we had done and now here we are fighting over agreements,” said Councillor Kluin who was on council when the agreements were signed.

“When we did these agreements, everybody was happy. The only thing that’s happened in the last two or three years is that the economy has gone in the tank and our county is suffering because we have an industry that is not paying taxes.” He said when the county initially approached the town about the agreements, they only wanted to look at the revenue sharing. “They took it as: we wanted to look at everything. Now we have to look at everything even though all we wanted to do was look at one part of it.”

Councillor Kluin said the agreements were a good deal at the time but that times change, and so do finances. “If they think that us paying that extra 10 per cent is going to make or break them, it’s not going to happen.” He was referring to the 10.4 per cent of linear taxes that the town receives annually from the county which began when they signed the Water/Wastewater Agreement. The agreement allowed the county to access town water and advertise itself as full-serve to potential industry.

With the county’s financial woes, they wanted to renegotiate the terms of the agreement, but both sides are stuck. “I’m hopeful that we can get back to the table because that’s what people want and expect of their elected officials,” said Councillor Burrows. He also said he wants to stop communicating through letters. He said that being in person and having the ability to have dialogue and clarify things is much better. “We have this letter-writing campaign back and forth, nobody is picking up the phone, there are personalities involved here, and the people who are paying the price are the residents.”

One of the comments has been that the county taxes are not high enough to cover shortfalls. Both councillors said that even if they increased the taxes substantially, it wouldn’t help. “In a municipality like ours, 90 per cent of our taxes come from industry so it doesn’t matter what we do with our residential. We could double it, and it still wouldn’t make a difference,” said Councillor Kluin.

Councillor Burrows said part of the problem is that the agreements take a lot from the administrative side with the number of man-hours needed to dissect them. “Part of the cost-sharing agreement, as an example, is that we are responsible for a certain percentage of the operating costs for the Millar Centre. They send us a bill, and it’s very thick. We need to go through that line by line and sometimes there are things in there that shouldn’t be or things that should be in there but aren’t. So, we go back and forth. That’s an incredible waste of time.” He said he would like to see a fixed cost for things so that both sides can properly budget.

Councillor Burrows compared the current state of agreements to the game Jenga saying that by pulling on the wrong thing the entire tower falls. “That’s a bad way to have agreements in place for municipalities. We need to have these agreements cleaned up. If you look at them, there is handwriting crossing some stuff out. In my opinion, they are not written well.” He also doesn’t agree with the two-year cancellation clause that both councils had decided upon. “You can’t do that with an essential service. It doesn’t make sense to me as to why either side would have signed a two-year cancellation agreement.”

One thing that has bothered the county is that the agreements and disagreements have been playing out in the media. “When the negotiations first started, both sides had agreed not to do that. That’s one of the reasons why Woodlands County is behind the eight ball on getting out in front of the media,” said Councillor Burrows. Councillor Kluin said everyone needs to push forward. “We look like a bunch of kids in a sandbox fighting over a toy right now. We’ve got some really intelligent people who are sitting there, both with elected officials and staff, that should be able to figure this out.”

Another topic that has popped up as of late is regionalization which would see the Town of Whitecourt and the County of Woodlands become one. “For those of us who are living 60 to 80 miles from the Town of Whitecourt, we have roads that we see a grader on maybe once every couple of weeks, maybe once a month. With regionalization, based on what’s going on with the Town of Whitecourt right now, my people would have to plow their own roads up here because everything would be going to Whitecourt,” hypothesized Councillor Kluin.

Councillor Burrows agreed and said that regionalization is not a magic bullet. “The two municipalities need to come together and start working with one another at a genuine level. My biggest message is that people need to ratchet down the tension. We need to park all the hurt feelings and emotions.” The county has also had several high-ranking administrative positions filled, emptied, refilled and emptied again over the last year which has made things more difficult.

It is evident in speaking with both councils that each side sees the benefit of working together to create fair agreements and that both sides want to work together. They need to find a way. “We came up with these agreements in the best interests of both sets of ratepayers and both municipalities, and we worked well together. Let’s forget what’s happened in the last little while, and let’s show that we can get together and get this done before the end of the year because no-one is going to win if we let this drag out,” said Councillor Kluin.

Though the Water/Wastewater Agreement is set to end in two years, the Cost-Sharing Agreement is set to end December 31, 2019, and it is the most pressing matter. The county has been trying to meet with the town through the summer. In a phone interview on August 31, County Mayor Ron Govenlock said they cannot wait until the last minute to come up with a plan. “We are now down to four months to get this resolved, and we can’t wait four months. We must have a plan in place for county residents in the Whitecourt area for fire services.” He added that the county wants to work with the town. “We see the value of working together, but if they’re going to treat us like we’ve seen in the past, then it’s going to create a need to get more independent.” Mayor Govenlock said the county would consider having its own water treatment facility if the town doesn’t recognize the need to rebalance the equation. “I don’t want to go there but all options are on the table. We are not going to let the Town of Whitecourt control Woodland’s destiny.” Residents are encouraged to attend both county and town council meetings to voice their concerns.