When I think of New Year’s Day I think of possibilities, of a clean slate and new beginnings. For our community, this January 1st brought with it the new city status, a very monumental event and one that hasn’t happened for any other community like ours. We keep saying that Chestermere is unique and this is a great example of how; we are the only community in the province that has moved from a summer village to a city. We’d like to celebrate with you at Winterfest on January 24th with some cake and fireworks on the Lake. More details can be found on our website www.chestermere.ca/winterfest. I think it’s going to take me a while to get used to saying the “City of Chestermere” but I’m very excited about the possibilities and opportunities it brings for us as a community.
Sometimes when we’re working on projects day to day we forget all the things that have already been done, in the rush to accomplish what’s ahead of us. In 2014 we had many great projects completed, many that moved ahead to be finished in the next year or two and some unpleasant surprises. I’d like to give you a breakdown so you know what we’ve been working on here at the municipal offices.
Recreation:
The Bike Park opened in 2014 with all phases fully used by a wide range of age groups
in our community. It’s beautiful and there isn’t another one like it anywhere in Western Canada! For that we have to thank the Province, the Rotary Club, the Lion’s Club, the Knights of Columbus, the Chestermere/Langdon Oilmen’s Club, Melcor Developments, the CCRRB, the RCMP Foundation, YELL and the Bike Park Committee and of course, you, for funds that made this possible. Every single volunteer who took the time to contribute to this project has our appreciation for helping to create this fantastic amenity that we will enjoy for many, many years.
The Master Recreation Plan was completed in 2014 to guide us in addressing the recreational needs of our community now and in the future. There are only so many dollars available from us as taxpayers and from grants through the Province but we have so many groups who want to provide top notch programs to our community. Tough decisions have to be made and this Master Plan helps us to keep focused on the best use of those dollars. Our next step is a Feasibility Study which is essentially a business case for the new Sports and Leisure Centre. This will lay out costs, potential partnerships and a concept plan and is expected to be completed in the summer of 2015. User groups and individuals who have put forward their name to participate will be contacted for input.
Anniversary Park was completed in 2014 and looks stellar! Many, many hours of planning went into this park by volunteers on the Parks Committee, our staff and consultants. Thanks to Craig Fawcett, Dan Gretner, and Council members Stu Hutchison and Christopher Steeves for spearheading this project. This group, along with input from the public, has designed a new waterfront park that is twice the size of the previous one and unmatched with its features anywhere else in North America. We’ll be having a grand opening celebration in 2015 but hopefully you’ve had the chance to walk through it now that the fencing has been removed. The grass is still new so please stick to the pathways so that when Summer comes our park will still look great.
The Chestermere Regional Community Association (CRCA) Board, Rocky View County and the Town faced governance issues in 2014 in relation to the Chestermere Regional Recreation Centre. In the past, the town has contributed over $2,000,000 to capital improvements (we have never contributed to operational costs) but made the unpleasant discovery in 2014, when trying to work on a solution to these governance issues, that the Town is not viewed as a partner in the Rec. Centre. Because we would see none of that money returned to our taxpayers if the facility was sold, the Town took steps to focus on supporting the programs our community needs. We’ve withdrawn from our capital support agreement with Rocky View until a new agreement can be put in place protecting tax dollars and we will focus on funding the many great programs the Rec. Centre offers so service continues uninterrupted.
The Skateboard Park was established near Rainbow Road in the summer of 2014 and trees were planted in the Autumn to shelter users of the park. The half-pipe feature needed repair and should be back in 2015 for all to enjoy. The park was planned with the option to expand when funding is found.
We updated our pathway systems in 2014 to correct some of the connectivity issues. Since development occurs at different times we occasionally find a path that would just end. Many of those are now complete and additional ones are being worked on in 2015.
Roads:
Rainbow Road (North) and Chestermere Boulevard was finished and is finally operational. The issues with the traffic light’s timing, a result of incorrectly aimed sensors, is now fixed as is the crooked traffic light.
Rainbow Road (South) and the deterioration of the road/bridge was an unpleasant
surprise that occurred much, much faster than we anticipated due to a large volume of traffic. As a result we had to find a cost effective solution to the pot holes in a very short period of time. We have also been searching for grants to address the bridge repairs that need to take place in 2015, in order to lessen the tax burden on our community. We will make sure to update you through our website as we get more details on this.
Marina Drive and Chestermere Boulevard was finished just before Christmas and is now fully operational. We sincerely hope it will benefit not only the businesses in The Station commercial area but residential traffic looking for a quicker trip too.
Planning:
Chestermere approved its first ever Master Area Structure Plan (MASP) for the Waterbridge development that encompasses 2400 acres and is expected to house roughly 40,000 more people in our community over the next 20 to 25 years. Watch for further plans to come forward for different phases of this area in 2015.
Finance:
In 2014 we had two unpleasant surprises from a financial perspective. The first was that a federal grant, the Building Canada Fund, will no longer offered funding for recreational facilities like the one we are planning for our community when we reach a population of approximately 25,000 people. This meant we had to revise our Recreation Master Plan to remove the BCF as a potential contributor and think about how to possibly replace the large source of dollars that it represented. If we find another way we’ll let you know, along with the outcome of the Feasibility Study for this facility.
The other was the cost of FOIP requests and the impact they are having on our legal and administrative budgets. The Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIP) allows anyone access to records held by a public body that pertains to them as an individual, with a few exceptions. While we always work to be transparent and often release information without the formal FOIP process, the Town was served with two on-going requests this past year. These resulted in tens of thousands of dollars being spent in staff time to search for and collect pertinent information, consultants required to process material and meet deadlines set by the Act and tripled our legal costs for required reviews. Taxpayers bear the brunt of the expense to process FOIP applications because the Act does not allow us to fully recover our costs and more requests will require more manpower.
No negative results have come out against the town from these FOIP requests and they are extremely frustrating as we pride ourselves on being open and transparent; sometimes the documentation requested is not even picked up. We have voiced our concerns to the Province and are working on getting the lobby group for municipalities, AUMA, to bring this forward for a solution.
The year of 2014 also included some great surprises. We brought on a new Economic Development officer and when City status was announced he was immediately approached by 5 new companies now considering Chestermere for a home. Whether they will come to fruition with oil prices forecasted to be low in 2015 and speculation about a slower economy, we don’t know. We do know that we’ve been here for over 2 decades and this is the first time they’ve known we were open for business. We expect more will come.
We ended 2014 by presenting the Dave Mikkelsen Award for Youth to a very deserving young lady, Megan Desplanque, who plans to create a Chestermere YouTube channel for youth in our community to access. She’s a very thoughtful person and we expect we’ll be seeing her great success in 2015!
As you can see 2014 was a very productive year for us here in Chestermere and we fully expect that 2015 will be too! I’m changing up the format of Mocha Mondays and will now be pulling together a video and blog bi-monthly (you’ll find details on our website, www.chestermere.ca. Councillors Corner will continue in the Library as regularly scheduled and of course members of Council are available for your questions and concerns. If you have an event that you would like me to attend, along with our CAO and various members of Council, please contact our Legislative Clerk at sgordon@chestermere.ca. I’d love to talk to you in person and am looking forward to spending 2015 as your Mayor.
