City administration recommended that council rescind the public hearing for the dissolution of 1538971 Alberta Ltd, previously Chestermere Utilities Incorporated (CUI) until a future meeting.
At the March 1 meeting, council brought forward a resolution for a public hearing of the dissolution of the utility company.
At the March 15 Regular Meeting of Council, the City Director of Growth, Development Community Growth and Infrastructure Jeff Gibeau recommended that council rescind the public hearing until a later meeting.
“This was part of the process to dissolve the utility company and roll operations fully into the city,” Gibeau said.
City administration was ready to schedule the public hearing and have been in contact with internal parties. Gibeau believed there was enough time to complete the disclosure documents and present them during the public hearing.
“That assumption was incorrect, the disclosure documents have to be available at the time of the public hearing announcement,” Gibeau said.
The disclosure documents include financials, and currently, the utility is in the middle of its 2021 audit that is expected to be completed by April.
“With that in mind and clarity, I’m recommending that council rescind the resolution and that we schedule a board meeting to accept the financials in a formal capacity,” Gibeau said.
Clarification on the scope of financials that need to be presented in the public hearing span multiple departments.
“I feel we can confidently work together to ensure the information is provided,” Gibeau said.
The date of the public hearing will be confirmed in a future council meeting.
“In my opinion, we don’t really have a choice in rescinding this, because it’s an impossibility. We would be violating the regulations, because there has been no public announcement indicating there’s a meeting,” Councillor Stephen Hanley said.
Going into the public hearing Hanley believes there are outstanding questions for the auditors and is prepared to review previous financial statements.
“Looking at what’s been done in the past, is it consistent, and did it meet the regulations,” Hanley said.
