Where We’ve Been, How We’re Doing & What’s Ahead

The City of Chestermere has had unprecedented growth that is being noticed across the country. Communities are booming, businesses are moving in and services are improving to ensure that those who live here are getting the best. Those daunting tasks sit mostly on the shoulders of those that lead our community and for our current City Council, they have had their share of work cut out for them.
In the last municipal election in October 2013, some new faces arrived to team up with the veteran council members. Deputy Mayor Christopher Steeves, Councillor Stu Hutchison and Councillor Heather Davies hung onto their seats while Councillor Patrick Watson, Councillor Gail Smith and Councillor Jennifer Massig were the new kids on the block. Mayor Patricia Matthews, who was first elected as a councillor in 2004, won the Mayor seat in 2007 and was then acclaimed in both 2010 and 2013. November 4, 2013 this council held their first council meeting and since then, it would be a huge understatement to say that they have been a bit busy. So, with them now half way thorough their term, it was time for a check in.
On October 6, 2015, I sat down with Mayor Patricia Matthews to discuss all that has been achieved over the last 24 months and what’s to come. Our conversation began by discussing the successes of the past two years.
“We have our recreational successes, we have our road network successes, our business successes and then we have the things that are completely out of those boxes. We finished our bike park in this term and we were really stoked about that as it is one of the best ones in Western Canada. We received a lot of exposure on that and it is highly used. We have some remarkable city staff that hand sculpted things back into place after the flooding in July so it is now back on track. We’ve also got the skateboard park in the right place now where we don’t have kids running across the highway to go back and forth to the commercial area so it is in a safer location and it’s good for the businesses that are over there that might not have had the exposure before. We’ve put the half pipe back up over the last couple of weeks so we’re seeing more and more kids over there and we have plans in the future to put a dog park over there so it’ll make it a more robust park”.
Of course, one of the biggest additions to Chestermere’s recreation amenities was the opening of the beach in Anniversary Park. “This was huge and we were so excited. It holds so many more people than we ever anticipated. It was so much more wildly successful than we ever dreamed would be possible. We’ve shored up the business in this area and Chestermere in general because once people come to the beach, they check out the rest of the city. It’s kept us vibrant, it’s kept us sustainable, kept us on the map and it’s brought an awful lot more visitors than otherwise would not have even considered it. So it has been fantastic and thank you to the Provincial Government for the funding. Thank you Truman for the sponsorship of it and thank you to everyone that came forward and contributed to it so there was no tax impact to residents”.
From a road network perspective, Mayor Matthews says that the biggest accomplishments have been the completion of the intersection at Chestermere Blvd and Marina Drive and also Chestermere Blvd and Rainbow Road. “The Chestermere Blvd and Marina Drive intersection was opened due to the great advocacy from the Chestermere Chamber of Commerce. If you are a business in town and you haven’t thanked the Chamber for that – you should as they were definitely on us a lot to get that one completed and completed quickly before Christmas came. We want to thank Melcor for their contribution in that and to help get it moving. We also got Rainbow Road north open which was huge. We really pushed the Province to make safer highway 791 with that acceleration lane and if you’ve driven from Strathmore west, there’s two places that have acceleration lanes”. The Mayor then paused as the haunting memories of the two young men our community has recently lost came flooding back. “We were very fortunate that we got in on that project when we did. Timing wise, we all wish it would have been put in place a week earlier, but we did what we did. We’ve had some huge losses in the last two years in our community. Any loss of life is a tragedy – when it’s a child, it’s felt a little deeper and we had two of those that deeply affected our community”.
Another unexpected event that recently struck our city was of course the flooding that took place in July. Mayor Matthews reflects saying, “The flood this year has taken a huge amount of resources from our end and we’re still trying to figure out how to get it right. The thing is, is that we trained for this. We have a very robust disaster services group. They train a lot. They meet a lot. But you know, if we think we’re in charge, the universe likes to remind us that we are not. Who could have foreseen this? Nobody. As a community, as a province, as a country, we are never going to be able to craft an event that is going to happen – exactly as it ends up happening. You cannot practice for these types of events. We are looking more right now at the support side of things. How do we continue to provide support to people that are finding the firsts after the flood. First time they go to pull our Christmas decorations. The first time they go to file this year’s school photos with the ones that should have been there from past years, put were lost in the flood. For some people, it’s a huge loss. For others, it’s an unpleasant reminder. We want to make sure that we don’t leave any out of that loop. It’s been a huge learning experience for us and we are still learning and we are still going to try to make sure we take the things as they come up and incorporate them so we are better for next time”.
One of the more controversial events and decisions that this council made, that had everyone talking, was the decision to change Chestermere’s status from town to city. No matter where you were in the fall of 2014, city status was almost the only thing people were talking about. “Obtaining City status was huge! We spent a great deal of time last summer running around and having conversations at bbq’s, door knocking, neighbourhood chats, block parties and discussions every chance we could get to talk about it and really try and get a sense of what people thought and gave them the same education that we had as to why we were thinking of doing this and I think it’s been the best decision we’ve ever made”.
One of the biggest discussion points as to why council felt that Chestermere should take on city status was that we would be more appealing in the business community. Mayor Matthews says that in looking back at the business interest since becoming a city 10 months ago, that is ringing true. “Since becoming a city, we are taken more seriously and we are getting more attention from the Province, which was one of the reasons we wanted to move ahead with becoming a city. Chestermere is a fantastic place to live and we will always have people that want to live here. So now we need to bring some of the bigger businesses here to service those residents”.
A recent land purchase is one of the more recent successes of our city council. Last month it was announced that the city purchased 101 acres at Chestermere’s south border on RR 240. Although there has been no announcement of what businesses are looking to come into that space, Mayor Matthews says that the phones have been ringing with interested parties.
With two years as a council under their belts, an exceptionally busy two years, the remainder of their term shows no slowing down in sight. With the business interests and always increasing residential demands, our council definitely has an equally, if not more so, hectic and exciting time ahead.
When asked how this council is working together, a huge smile came across Mayor Matthews face and a look of great pride. “When you bring new people in, when you’ve had existing people, it’s always a little tense trying to figure out where all the pieces of the puzzle are going to fit. I think the thing I’m most proud about, serving with this council, is that picture is still complete. The picture of who we want to be and what we’re striving to achieve is created through different pieces of that puzzle. We’re all dedicated to the same community. We all have the same passion for the community. We all have different areas that we are passionate in which means we complement each other. For instance, the cenotaph is mostly in place due to Heather and Stu playing a large role in making sure we have a place to remember. We keep in contact with our organizations and not for profits such as the Knights of Columbus and the Lions due to the service of Gail and Patrick. The economic development drive of Chris keeps us always striving for more and looking outside the box and Jennifer’s love for the community keeps us looking at how we interact with the residents and how our messaging is coming across. So when you put all of that together, it creates that complete puzzle”.
“Chestermere is a beautiful place to live and I hear that all the time from people that come to visit us. I know it is. I’m proud it’s mine and I love our community”.